Got Stash?

My goal this year was to end the year with fewer skeins of yarn in my stash than I started with. That didn’t mean I couldn’t buy new yarn – only that I had to use more than I bought, and I tried to only buy yarn with a specific project in mind for it.

As of today, I’m down 105 skeins from the total on January 1. The total yardage isn’t down quite as dramatically, as I purchased more lightweight yarns which have more yardage per skein. But still, I’m happy about it, and my stash bins are a little lighter. I still have a little bit of yarn that won’t fit in the bins, but I’m getting close. I’ve knit nearly 14 miles of yarn this year. Whew!

But there’s still a lot of yarn to use up. A great stash-busting idea is that if you don’t have the appropriate weight yarn for a project, see if you can substitute multiple strands of a lighter-weight yarn for it. You could be multiple strands of the same yarn, or use totally different yarns for a great effect. The Nanako jacket I just finished was a great example of that.

This morning I got the Chic Knits newsletter, which had a tip on how to use multiple yarns to substitute for a heavier yarn:

• Add the two gauges of Yarn #1 + Yarn #2 together
• Divide that sum by 3 to get the approximate New Gauge

Trying this out with yarn that has a gauge of 4.5 sts per inch, we get: 4.5 + 4.5 = 9 / 3 = 3 sts per inch.

I had also previously collected some general guidelines on substituting multiple strands of yarn:

2 strands fingering = 1 strand sport
3 strands fingering = 1 strand worsted
2 strands sport = 1 strand worsted
2 strands worsted = 1 strand bulky
3 strands worsted = 1 strand super bulky

Go forth and knit!