



I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it recently, but I’ve just moved house.  There’s nothing like moving everything you own from one house to another that brings you face to face with your Stash.

First, what is Stash?  Is it a verb?  Is it a noun? It’s both!!

I didn’t stash yarn for the longest time.  I was a monogamous project knitter.  I would decide on a project, buy the yarn, knit, finish.  Simple.


Somewhere along the line that changed.  I remember when it happened.  I had a day with nothing to do.

“Let’s go to Great Barrington,” I said to my husband.

“What’s there?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, surprised at how easy it was to suppress the truth.  “I heard there was this yarn store…”  I trailed off.  “And we could have lunch,” I added helpfully.

So we went to Great Barrington, and we had lunch and we strolled through a yarn store.  And there it was.  Turquoise mohair.  ON SALE.

turquoise mohairI had to have it.  Did it matter that I’m allergic to mohair?  That ten minutes of wearing mohair and I want to scratch my skin off?  Nope.  Did I know what I was going to do with it?  Nope.  Did it matter?  Nope.

And suddenly, the stash was born.

The funny thing was that once born, it was ridiculously easy to keep adding to.  I started perusing yarn stores, going to shows, fairs, festivals.  If I liked something I bought it.

Pretty soon it graduated from from a simple plastic bag to a basket.


Then to a bigger basket.


And then it overflowed the basket and turned into a pile.


Then it all got relegated to the basement in plastic totes.


Why do we stash yarn?  I asked some friends.  The best response was that she remembered the dark times, when there was nothing to knit but acrylic, and swore it would never happen again.

Yep, what she said.  That’s my story too, and I’m sticking to it.

See you at the next festival!!

Harriet Levy

4 Responses

  1. Tim D says:

    The “Husband” chimes in;

    Then there is the spinning stash.
    The yarn stash and spinning stash take up approximately 100 cubic ft (compressed) of space. That’s the size of a large closet or a small bedroom.

    It was amazing that we fit that much stash into a 700 square foot townhouse.. and let’s not mention the two fleece that has yet to be processed….

    Oh! Then there is the “fabric” stash and the jewelry making “stash” and the “software” stash and the sewing machine and sewing tools and the knitting stuff and the art supplies “stash”
    and the knitting books…pretty soon we are talking about a small wing of a house.


  2. Aaron says:

    I’ve never been a “monogamous project knitter” but I know all too well the trip one takes on that downward spiral into stashing. Living in a small house requires a lot of creativity when it comes to storage. For the longest time I was able to confine my stash to a small set of plastic storage drawers in a closet. I tried to keep things manageable but I eventually had to admit that I outgrew my storage solution for my stash. I quadrupled my stash storage with two sets of wider, stackable drawers giving me lots of extra room. But that was before Rhinebeck. It’s full now.

    Hope you’re enjoying the new house!

  3. Liz says:

    I saw my favorite scarf of all time on the train leaving NYC. It was a scrap scarf made of multi colors and no set stipe. It was just beautiful. I didn’t knit at the time and always wanted one. I just started knitting and am going to keep all of my extras so that one day I can knit my own favorite scarf! By the looks of things you could knit 1,000 :)

  4. Mary Ann Colopy says:

    I don’t have stash, I have unborn projects. I can tell you the moment and place of each project conception and the hoped for destiny of each skein. My rule is it has to fit in the dresser in the spare room. Luckily it squishes. The bead stash is not so forgiving, sigh.