Hey Everyone! Ashley (@benknitter on Instagram) has updated the link to her Spreadsheet Template so that you no longer have to request access! The Google Sheet will open for you as View Only, then you can make your own copy and edit away! Thank you so much Ashley!!! Enjoy! docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AlNVsKpm4FmEkqAg9eTBbGiQdh8YkwF591gpQcYHslQ/edit#gid=712396824

@benknitter

6 ай бұрын

Thank you so much Leslie!! I’m so happy to share this resource with the community, it’s a great alternative to Ravelry and just really helps me keep organized. I hope everyone enjoys it 😊

Don’t stress out with your yarn. You are an artist and your material is yarn. Have fun! Happy knitting 🧶

Leslie please don’t feel bad about spending your hard earned money on having your lovely yarn collection. People spend their money on whatever they choose! Some people spend it on a big fancy car, meals out etc. You choose to collect yarns for your knitting hobby. It’s all horses for courses as they say. Enjoy & thank you for another great informative video. Love from across the pond 😅🇬🇧

You make me want to be organized!

It’s a good thing you’re young! I have a large stash, too, and as a septuagenarian, I’m almost positive that my stash will outlive me. 😟

I'm not mcuh of a spreadsheet person, but I am here for the yarn stash! All those lovely colours, can't wait to see them turned into garments. And if you would consider filming potential future organizations, I'm definitely here for it!

lol I just exported my Ravelry stash. I have 795 skeins in Ravelry stash. 719 skeins remaining after things I’ve used. But I need to go through and double check things were counted including destashed. And I need to add in some preorders that just arrived. I don’t need to buy anything in 2024 😅🤭

Impressed by your spreadsheet. Too much works for me. I changed a small closet in my home office to have yarn cubbies from tubs. It’s so much nicer to be able to see all my yarn now. I stand in that closet and imagine/plan my next projects. I have so much too and I’m determined to use a bunch of old yarn this year. So far I’ve been doing that. 🧶😀

I love this video! I also use Ashley’s spreadsheet to track, but I’ve only been tracking so far the yarn I’ve purchased since I started using it, so I can keep track of what I’m buying and what I plan to use it for. I would really love to take some time and add in all the rest of my stash too. Someday! But I too love having a yarn “inventory” available for whenever I’m in the mood to start a new project. I have a similar cross-stitch, quilting, and bead inventory as well. 😄 It makes us happy and helps us enjoy our hobby and that’s all that matters!

Thank you so much for the mention Leslie! I love the additions you made to your spreadsheet to make it your own!

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

Of course! Thank you for all the hard work you put into the spreadsheet for all of us to use for free! ♥️

You've absolutely inspired me and I spent today creating a full spreadsheet of all my yarns. It's so fun to see them all together and organized!

I’m feeling totally inspired now!! Even though I spent all day looking at a spreadsheet for work I’m gonna go make a yarny one 😊

Loved everything about this!!

Great podcast, Leslie. You are such a wiz at that spreadsheet. You gave me some great ideas but in a much smaller version. Love your content and yarn! It was fun.

Your yarn stash is beautiful! And I love the way you think about it as your personal yarn shop or yarn collection, it makes it so special❤❤ At the moment I'm personally in a place where I only welcome yarn in my life that I've a project in mind for, to knit up soon. But that's just what works for me (at the moment), so if having a wonderful yarn stash makes you happy then it's totally worth it🥰😍

Ok, me and spreadsheets?? Let me just say you are a master! Love your ideas! I’m recording some of my yarny data this year with 📝. You’ve inspired me to eventually record on a spreadsheet. Hopefully 😅

This was so fun! I love data!!

Your stats rock, Lesley. Your yarn philosophy is the same as mine. Skeins are paints. Paints are essential for painting (knitting). Who makes judgemental calls about how many paints we have in our paintbox?

I’m glad your yarn stash brings you joy. Mine does too. Looking at the shelves full of cakes of bright colors and soft squishy fibers makes me so inspired and creative, and the happy gears in my brain start going wild thinking about all the possibilities. I have probably 50+ skeins that I’m ready to de-stash and I think I’ll list it for free on Nextdoor and leave it on my porch… or maybe make one of those little Fiber Libraries kind of like the free book libraries people make and put in their front yards, and continually add to it as I dye up new skeins and test out color combinations and find out I’m not in love with something enough to commit to creating something with it. Oh! I started a knit journal this year thanks to you! I love it! I’ve got some pages to track my gauge swatches (yarn, needle, unblocked and blocked stitch counts, and the stitch type) and I think making a spreadsheet out of it is absolute brilliance for future reference. Thank you for that. I’ll probably make a spreadsheet of my own because there’s a bunch of other things I’d like to track, which leads me to some of my goals as well, and some questions that might be fun to answer if you somehow run out of video ideas and want to do a stash Q&A someday 😂 I’m journaling these so I can be more mindful about my 2024 acquisitions and avoid some disappointments that I ran into in 2022-2023 and somehow didn’t learn from. Questions! 1) What are some of your 2023 acquisitions that you’re dying to find a project for? Is there a type of project you have in mind for these yarns already, or are you saving it for a spontaneous cast-on? What do you love about these yarns? For me, I’m dying to find a good scrappy project that I think would suit my hand dyed yarn from a couple months ago… I’ve been saving it. 2) Did you find new dye studios that you fell in love with in 2023, and if so, what are they and what’s the first yarn you saw from them that made you swoon? For me, most of these I haven’t purchased any of their yarn yet because I’m trying to cut down on my stash a bit first and learn to dye the things I want myself. But I’ve bookmarked several of them so I can send links to husband/parents/grandparents when they ask what to get me for my birthday, Mother’s Day, Christmas, etc. 3) Are there skeins of yarn in any kind of mental or digital wishlist that you haven’t purchased yet, and if so, what are they? For me, lots of Ruby & Roses, Hedgehog Fibers, Hue Loco, Pixie Yarn, and Bad Sheep Yarn. I think I might also have some Leading Men Fiber Arts skeins bookmarked somewhere too. They’re all super bright and colorful! 4) Which skeins of yarn do you think are going to be pulled next for a new cast-on? I just pulled out some Malabrigo Washted to make a Valentine’s Day cowl. Grey for the main color and pink for the contrast. Garter stitch borders, stockinette in the round on size 9 circulars, and 1x1 colorwork rows between 2 rows of the main color so it looks like there’s a bunch of pink hearts all over it. I want to find or dye a similar yarn in white and a rainbow skein so I can make one that reminds me of conversation hearts. This is working up so quickly, I’m not used to it as a fingering weight junkie 😂 5) Are there any trends in the things you’re de-stashing that you’re going to keep in mind for new acquisitions to try and prevent purchasing yarn that you won’t use? For me: no more acrylics, and no more high twist fingering, because I don’t like the texture on them while I knit. Also, more bright and cohesive colors… a lot of what I’m de-stashing is neutrals or variegated yarns with color combinations that I liked in the twisted hank but hated in the swatch because the color balance was way different and the color I loved wasn’t as dominant or complimentary with the other colors in the skein. Also, search Ravelry & IG before purchasing to see if anyone else has already posted a swatch or finished project, because I just got sooooo disappointed by a new acquisition from my Local Yarn Shop, and I’ll probably have to dye it myself to add more speckles of the color I loved, so… don’t walk out of my LYS with yarn I haven’t seen a swatch/project of yet lol. This happens to me way more often than I want to admit. 6) Is there a color/variegation of colors you don’t have that you’re hoping to add to your stash, and if so, what do you have in mind? For me it’s because I have specific projects in mind that I’d like to make in those colors to fill gaps in my wardrobe for what I’m in the mood to wear but don’t have! I want an aqua blue with rainbow speckles for a cowl/hood project to match my hair, and a periwinkle for a knit tee, and hot pink with purples, oranges, yellows, and reds for a shawl, and a neon purple to go with my neon pink in some socks. I’ll probably try dyeing at least one or two of those up later this month, since I just got some bare yarn and a new acid dye to try out. 7) What’s your favorite fiber content to use at the moment? I keep buying some merino/cashmere/silk blends, but I need to find some cotton blends I like since I want to make some tees and tanks to wear in the warmer months.

@knitcalifornia

5 ай бұрын

Jordan! Thank you for all these question! I hope to answer them in a future stash Q&A! 🥰

Enjoy you stash and new yarn…. Don’t be stress out

So, if You knit non-stop for six years and didn’t buy any more yarn ,you could just about use it up. Lol I would be interested if you de stash some.

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

😅😅😅 I counted the number of sweater quantities I had earlier this year and was like oh boy, I need to knit like 8 sweaters a month to get thru these in a reasonable time frame 🤣🤣🤣 oh well, it is what it is!

Very interesting video! I'm just starting to track some this year - mostly taking better notes on projects and total skeins used, but we will see where I end up. 😀 I love using Excel for things like this, but don't have the energy at the moment to create the initial data dump. Maybe next year.

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

The initial data dump definitely took a lot of time and energy! I originally did it in those days between Christmas and New Year's in 2022 when I had a couple days of free time!

Very resourceful 😊. I like how you organized your cubbies. In a previous episode, you mentioned you’d like to have more summer-appropriate yarns. Will you need another cubbie unit for that?

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

One of the bottom squares of my cubby is for my summer yarns, but I think I want to move those yarns closer to the top soon so I have more visibility to them!

I really hope my bestie gets into crochet or knitting. I have so much acrylic yarn that I could give her that I have no interest in using anymore, that I think she’d like as someone who doesn’t typically like wool. I keep telling her I’m going to teach her, but she decided to get into cross stitch instead.

335-480 🙌 🤩

This was fun to see your spreadsheet! I have a similar one that I made myself. Just wondering when you finish a project and you have some leftovers, how do you keep track of these (ie partial skeins)? I am having a bit of trouble with how to organise this area of my stash as I knit a lot of socks so I end up with a lot of 20-30g leftovers that is too much to throw away and probably also too much for a magic knot ball, but I still want to keep track of it.

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

At this time, I actually don’t keep track of my partial skeins, but I’m thinking of adding a separate tab in my spreadsheet for minis, scraps, and anything less than 100g

Thank you for sharing. What I don’t understand is how you fit that much yarn in that few shelves. Believe I have less yarn than you but mine takes up so much more room. Any tricks to share? 😂

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

There are more skeins in all my project bags and a couple under the bed bins for skeins I know I won’t get to right away!

hi hi! i love your videos. when you say destash, where do you post? i'd love to take a look and maybe purchas?

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

Sometimes I post them on my Instagram stories!

Hi Leslie - completely off topic, but did you know there is now a Petite Knit pattern for a round neck Cumulus top called “Cumulus Blouse O Neck.” (I just ordered yarn to make it.)

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

Yes, I’ve seen some people make it! It looks really nice!

Am I asking too much if I ask for a tutorial on how you did this as far as getting it to calculate the total yards? I'm the one who lies and says "proficient in excel" on applications 🤣😅.

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

The template already has the formulas included, which is so nice! If you’re creating your own spreadsheet though, you’ll want to multiple the number of skeins by the yardage for one skein, and that will tell you the total number of yards ♥️

Loving your posts/videos! Refocusing/Destashing significantly are goals for this year- but I didn’t catch your strategy- do you post on Ravelry? Or use a different platform?? This could really accelerate my progress??

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

I sometimes post on Instagram Stories

Hey Leslie, great video as always, your calculations are very interesting! I have thoughts/questions on the gifted yarn.. I would love to know, do you (get to) ask for specific colours/yarns? Esp. when it is yarn companies, do you "dare to" make requests? Because I feel that would make more sense, to only get gifted yarn that you WANT to use instead of you feeling obligated to use any yarn you get gifted. What do you think?

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

For gifted yarns, yes I almost always get to request what colors I receive, which is really nice! I also try to think of a project to knit with it right away, but I didn’t do a great job of actually starting those projects this year.

I’m just curious if you keep track of how much you spend on yarn in and get back with destash and net totals? It would be interesting to see, but definitely understand if you’re not comfortable sharing

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

I thought about it at one point, but then decided not to

Link to your destash postings?

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

Sometimes I post them on my Instagram stories

Where do you list your destash yarns? I would love to check them out :)

@knitcalifornia

6 ай бұрын

I sometimes post them on Instagram Stories

@kristinknits

6 ай бұрын

Ok great, thank you!@@knitcalifornia