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Using up my stash

A simple guide: see everything you own, find a project that fits it, and buy only what you're short of. Three steps, start to finish.

1. See everything you own

Every stash has them: the single skeins. Souvenir yarn from a trip, the leftover third of a sweater's yarn, the impulse buy that never said what it wanted to be.

I keep every yarn I own in a spreadsheet, with its total meters, and My Stash is where that list lives now. Bring the list you already keep, or add yarns one by one, and see it all at once: what you have, how much of it, and what it's worth.

Start your stash

Private: only you see it.

2. Find a project that fits

300 yards or less is where most orphan skeins live: hats, mitts, cowls, shawlettes, a pair of short socks.

Leftovers can carry a whole garment, too: for my Flock Vest by Andrea Mowry, I swapped the pattern's three stripe colors for leftover hot pink and knit the rest in gray Wool of the Andes from my stash.

Read the whole story: Ten Kinds of Projects That Eat Less Than 300 Yards

Have a pattern in mind? The Yarn substitutes tool can search your stash for substitutes for the pattern's yarn.

Find substitute

3. Buy only what you're short of

I always check my stash first, and I only buy when I can't imagine the piece in anything else.

When a pattern needs more than you have, My Stash says how many more to buy. Say a pattern needs 5 skeins of Malabrigo Mechita and you have 3: you're 2 short, and it links straight to the shop.

Watch the dye lots, too. Skeins from different dye lots can come out a shade apart, and plain stockinette shows every bit of it. If you have to mix lots, or you're knitting with hand-dyed yarn, alternate skeins: knit two rows from one skein, then two from the other, so the difference blends in instead of showing up as a stripe or a patch of pooling.

And once in a while, I like to splurge on yarn too. Here are four of the most special yarns from my partner shops:

Shop links may earn me a small commission, at no cost to you.

See all yarns from my partner shops

More for your stash