I hope all are enjoying their long weekends! I spent most of mine working on a revision of my master’s thesis work that we are submitting to a journal (so close to publication). But I also found some time for a different sort of analysis… a serious, in-depth, face-the-music stash analysis. (Gasp! I KNOW.)

Sneaky Fiasco…

Ravelry has a button you can press to export your stash to Excel. It is amazing and wonderful for us data nerdy types. And also horrible, because there is just no escaping cold, hard facts. Those facts are what prompted me to attempt the reorganizing and destash deciding pictured above.

What this table shows is that I currently have over 200 skeins (33 miles!) of yarn in my stash. Those skeins are in various stages of use, which we’ll discuss later. Interestingly, I’ve sold and traded more skeins of yarn than are currently in my stash (223, 34 miles). Even more interestingly, in the past 4 years I’ve knitted up a smaller number of skeins than I currently have in stash (146, 19 miles). While I should probably be ashamed that I have more yarn stashed than I will likely knit in the next few years, I’m still kind of impressed that I’ve knitted my way through 19 miles of yarn… which isn’t even counting WIPs! It’s also kind of amazing that a grand total of 653 skeins of yarn have passed through my life in one way or another. Wow. (Yes, I do identify as a yarnaholic.)

Now I’ve broken it down to show what percentage of the “In Stash” category falls into different states of being. The green wedges show us that a total of 12% of the stash is specifically for non-selfish purposes (gift knitting and designing). The pink/red wedges indicate that over half the stash (57%) is not particularly for anything. Granted, I have solid plans for a vast majority of those skeins, but there are some that are still waiting for me to find the perfect project. What’s kind of amazing is that over a third of my stash (blue wedges, 31%) is in some sort of project-in-progress.  That means 73 skeins and 10 miles of yarn are on their way to becoming a big purple blanket or socks or shawls or mittens or scarves, etc. etc. I haven’t decided yet whether that is hopeful, crazy, or impressive… And none of this involves fiber or handspun yarn (siiiiigh).

Have you taken a good hard look at your stash? No? Good! Feel free to help me re-home some of mine. 🙂