Stashbusting

On Monday I went along to my first ever Stitch and Bitch London meeting. I was partly in my p/hop role as they were holding a yarn swap for MSF but I also went as a knitter and yarn swapper. I've written about the p/hop side of things over on the p/hop blog so I won't repeat myself here.

I did take part in the yarn swap which brings me to stashbusting. One of my favourite interweb knitting friends, mostcurious, spent a lot of last year monitoring her stash, measuring the amount of yarn in vs the amount of yarn out. I kept on meaning to do this but my yarn buying habit went out of control. This year I'm on a self imposed yarn diet. If I need something specific to a project that I don't have in my stash I will buy it however that is all. No more impulse buys (ahem, unless they are in the sale).



So to the maths. I'm not even going to add up all the meterage in my stash as frankly it scares me. What I'm going to do is monitor new yarn in vs yarn out. On Monday I swapped 9 balls of kidsilk haze (in purple, gorgeous stuff but really not my colour) with the PurplePurler (she was very very happy) and also swapped a ball of undyed Bluefaced Leicester sock yarn and a few sachets of Koolaid. I took in 2 balls of DK weight Rowan felted tweed in a light mossy green colour and one ball of light brown merino.

Meters in 470 - Meters out 2214 = Overall change in meterage: -1744m
Weight in 150g - Weight out 325g = Overall change in weight: -175g

Money to p/hop from my transactions (me and the swapees), about £50.

So win, win , win all round.

It's good letting go of yarn. I'm still thinking up potential projects with purple kidsilk haze but I've had over a year to use it and it hasn't happened so I feel good about letting it go to a better home where it will receive more stroking and love.

As for Stitch and Bitch London, I loved it. It's the friendliest knitting group I've ever been to so I think I may become a regular. I met people who I "know" through twitter which was great fun, putting real faces to names and avatars. If you want to learn to knit or just hang out with a fantastic mix of knitters come along. The details are in their newsletter.