Friday, March 27, 2009

Yarn organization - a solution!

And... back to the organizational problem. After seeing a pic of Kathi's wool room I realize this yarn-and-textile storage solution will last me about ten minutes, but they will be a very, very tidy ten minutes, and here is how I did it.

First, I found floor space, which was a production in itself.

Then I bought a cabinet from IKEA (and the next day another double-wide one, after I realized how badly I had miscalculated the knitting and sewing gear I have yet to use for something.) I won't link to the exact pages because IKEA has been known to drop products like they were last year's fad, but if you go to the 'Bedroom' section and look up 'wardrobes', you'll probably find something with suitable measurements. I went for ANEBODA, a not-too-tall-for-the-basement easy to assemble cutie with adjustable shelves, and the larger companion piece with a closet rod and one adjustable shelf.

In white, because it looks so orderly.

Then I accessorized with cloth drawers for the narrow wardrobe and a hanging organizer for the wide one - I chose SKUBB, but from 'wardrobes' you can look up whatever currently exists in the category 'clothes and shoes organizers' - plus super cheap cardboard magazine files to store patterns.

Also in white, because I could.














I put all my go-to stuff in the narrow cabinet, and saved the mending and leftover curtain fabric for the big one, mostly because it's a lot easier to pull a SKUBB from a melamine shelf than from another SKUBB. Added bonus: the narrow SKUBBs tuck neatly into the top of the hanging organizer, which buys me a little more space.










I sorted by fiber, separating my feltable wool from the superwash and the variegated from the solids, but I can see sorting by colours, or weights, or sheer volume depending on the way my stash evolves. And if my obsession shifts more to sewing than knitting, I can just swap out the drawers from one cabinet to another. The SKUBB drawers have pull tabs that are easy to slip hanging tags from, for labeling, so that simplifies things too.












I figure as long as I keep knitting almost as fast as I go shopping, I should be able to go a whole year without overflowing. But it would probably be kind not to remind me I said that.

1 comment:

Kathleen Taylor said...

I think I need to get me one of those things.