Stash gym III - Australia's biggest (wool) loser

Once again, the stash has defeated me.

I have been planning to take some photos of my new garments for the past four weeks and put them up on Ravelry. Unfortunately (?), I've now got a backlog of stuff to photograph and I don't know where to start. I could get photos of the poncho, the melange shawl and the shrug, but the shrug is currently on the mannequin and the poncho and shawl are stuffed into the drawer so tightly I can barely get them out (something to do with the drawer being full of other knitted garments...). I could photograph the cardigan, but it's not finished - I am hoping to get some more Ribbon Twist from the US to finish off the trim or (failing that!), I need to scrounge two balls of grey or white Big Wool. I have the fronts of two jumpers, but have not been able to get the wool I need to do the backs and the sleeves (still on order). I have a shrug that is slightly too long and needs to be modified, not sure how. The vest is accessible - I am wearing it at present - but it is a timely reminder that a large woman should not wear garments that draw attention to her chest. It looks like I am trying to smuggle two footballs into the shop... or maybe that should be two footballers...

My solution has been to knit or crochet more garments (singlet top, another LONGER knitted vest, a crochet vest which will probably be another disaster and a jumper for the Significant Other). This won't get the UFOs over the line, but at least it will keep the stash on its steady downward path. The other day (drumroll, please!), I hopped up onto the end of my bed, reached up and touched... THE SHELF!! That's right, I have cleared enough of my stash that the shelf has become visible. Maybe instead of photographing the finished objects, I should take a photo of the shelf!! Finished objects are ten a penny around here at present, but a shrinking stash has rarity value!

Stash-gym - the weigh-in

I figured that a picture is worth 1,000 words...

Before

**This is a representation only. I have a wide angle lens, but it was not quite wide enough to manage The Stash.***

After

Stash-gym!

Most knitters are familiar with the term stash-diet. This is what die-hard knitters do when they can no longer close their cupboard door (or maybe their front door!) because of the size of their stash. Stash-dieters either reduce the amount of wool that they purchase yearly or cold-turkey and refuse to buy any more wool until their stash reaches manageable proportions again.

Last year, I reluctantly joined the ranks of the stash dieters - the stash weighed nearly as much as I did (if not more!) and it was becoming a safety issue - there was a real risk that the floor of my flat would collapse under the weight, killing the elderly lady downstairs and diminishing property values in the block significantly. *This was before I moved into the shop - now the only person at risk from my stash is myself!

If you've read my posts, you'll know that the stash diet was not a success. In fact, while on the stash diet, my stash increased by nearly 10kg!

Luckily over Christmas, I had some time to think about stashes (and weight and health issues generally!), and it occurred to me that I'd never actually dieted in my life. However, one thing I can do quite successfully is exercise. At my best, I was putting in about 15 hours of high impact activity each week and looked pretty darned good. (I couldn't walk properly because my knees were a mess with tendonitis, but that was beside the point. Vanity over ability to walk any day!). And thus the term stash-gym was born.

A stash-gym is very simple. You line up your projects and work out a strategy for knitting or crocheting as many projects in the shortest time possible. The idea is that intensive activity leads to (stash) weight loss. And it works!! Since I started my stash-gym, I have lost 50g of hand-dyed bamboo (now three pretty crocheted chokers), 150g of Big Wool Tuft (two jumper fronts, decorative cuffs and collar for a Big Wool shrug), 40g of leftover Big Wool (shrug) and about 100g of leftover Jo Sharp tweeds and mohairs (now being converted into the Textured Garter Stitch Scarf from Eclectic for my Mother's birthday surprise - she is certainly going to be surprised, she thinks she is getting a book!). I have also shed 10 balls of black Inca (in the process of becoming a vest for my stepmum's sister) and at least 10 balls of Jo Sharp Aran Cotton (now a pretty striped singlet from Knit Issue 2 and a matching striped lacy headscarf from Saturday).

When the vest and scarf leave the building, I have another two Jo Sharp singlet tops and a Rowan Cotton Rope poncho warming up in the foyer, ready to spring into action. Completing those three projects should reduce the stash to a mere 12 garments worth plus miscellaneous leftovers. Plus there is an additional benefit to all this activity - after an intensive knitting session, I can't move my right arm or shoulder properly. This prevents me from using the internet or my credit card to purchase additional stash - a win-win situation!

The stash diet and the stocktake...

Let me start this post by saying that I reckon New Year is over-rated. Gyms and weight loss clinics rub their hands in glee as January approaches, because they know that for the next six to eight weeks, they will be busier than the proverbial one-legged man in a bum-kicking competition. After about eight weeks though, even the most diehard resolution makers have given up. Hopefully by this stage, the gyms and weight loss centres have made enough from the joining fees and the optimists who paid for an annual membership up front to cover their costs until next year!

Let me continue this post by saying there's an element of jealousy here. The chances of me sticking to a New Year's resolution for eight weeks are very slight: on a par with the chance of me being abducted by aliens or maybe even slightly lower. The fabled stash diet, subject of two posts and many heartfelt promises, has yet to manifest.

Part of the problem involves big plastic storage bins. In 2008, we stored our stock in cardboard boxes. Very economical, but it made it rather tricky to find things in a hurry - particularly when the store room was a mess from the last time we'd tried to find something in a hurry!! Also, the boxes tended to tear after they'd been yanked out of a stack a few times. In December, I decided enough was enough, and I bought some big plastic storage bins from a local discount store.

Armed with the plastic storage bins, we did a stocktake and re-organised the store. The store now looks lovely and our inventory is up to date for the first time since we opened our doors back in August. Where's the problem, you ask? Well, we had a bin left over, so I borrowed it as a temporary stash storage method. After all, by leaving my stash piled up on a shelf, I was risking a valuable asset! I could lose the lot to moths at any time! Although I suspect my stash might have defeated even the most famine-striken of moths, I was not prepared to take the risk, so I appropriated the bin and carted it up to my flat.

By sitting on the filled plastic bin, I managed to close the lid. There were still a couple of bits of stash lying around, but the majority of my valuable asset was safely stowed away. Unfortunately, a full plastic bin looks a lot less scary than shelves crammed with wool, brimming shopping bags and baskets, paper bags hanging from bedroom doors and balanced precariously on top of wardrobes... a plastic bin induces the delusion that the stash is under control. This was dangerous when I'd just received a discount voucher from another LYS in my former home town on the nice side of the Yarra. Add to that, the LYS stocked some yarns that I hadn't been able to obtain from my supplier - ROWAN yarns!! They also had some discontinued Rowan stock. I need say no more. Next weekend when I go to pick up my shopping, I'll stop by the discount store and buy a couple more plastic bins...

'Tis the season for temptation

In my last post a couple of weeks back, I talked about starting a stash diet.

I'm still talking about it.

The problem is, Christmas is a time when people go shopping. Now I don't go shopping that much, but I do go past shops now and then, and unfortunately the current significant other lives in an area with three LYSs (local yarn stores) and... well, I think you've already worked out what the problem is!

You see, as a shop owner, I feel obliged to do the odd mystery shop, just to find out a bit more about what our competitors are stocking and how they are pricing. (I should add here, the purpose of the mystery shop is not to rip them off by selling the same stock cheaper, it is to find out what they're selling so that I can sell something different!). Melbourne LYSs usually employ friendly, knowledgeable staff - and when I'm in there, it's usually quiet, so we talk for about an hour or so about the different yarns. Then I feel guilty - I've taken up an hour of this person's time! I can't leave without buying at least a little something... My best effort at self-restraint so far saw me leaving a shop with a skein of soft brown handspun (luckily it will go perfectly with the Buxton yarn!) worth $40.00.

The stash now includes crochet cotton (sourced from four different outlets in the name of research!), yarn for two more projects, plus the handspun. About the only thing I can say for Stash Diets so far is that the stash's rate of increase has slowed from being exponential to merely being quite fast.

In a fortnight, the Boxing Day sales will start. I have already explained to my beloved that he will come to visit me here right through January - I am not leaving the shop, just in case the bargains on offer include a lovely yarn that would be absolutely perfect for that project I've been planning...

The Stash Diet

Summer is coming, the sun is shining and all the womens' magazines have published their how-to-get-a-perfect-body-in-one-week diets for the 2008/2009 festive season.

Now, I've never actually been on a diet (eating sensibly, yes - restricting myself to carrots and lettuce for weeks on end, no), but this summer, for the first time, the D-word has raised its ugly head.

I've gone on a stash diet.

Yep, a stash diet.

Why? Well, it's all my father's fault. As I may have mentioned, I'm knitting him a jumper (in a really lovely Jo Sharp Aran Tweed, but that's another story). Yesterday, I was knitting away at the front neck and I realised that the ball I was working from was nearly finished. No worries, I thought, there are six more balls in my stash, I will go and grab them now while I'm thinking of it. So I hopped up on a chair and began to search through my stash shelf.

The next day, I got a ladder so that I could reach the back of the stash shelf. That was where I eventually found the six balls of Aran Tweed, concealed behind the skeins of interesting handspun that I've picked up but never decided on a project for, the yarns I picked up in the UK so I'd have something to occupy myself on the flight home, the wool that I bought at the Spotlight sale five years ago and the other wool I bought at Clegs the year before last - not to mention the half-finished shawl in Rowan Big Wool Twist (discontinued yarn - can't get enough to finish the shawl, and can't decide on another project to use it up), the almost finished crochet project (another discontinued Rowan yarn, same story!) and a vest that I made up almost six years ago to use up some yarn that looks like a brick and has all the softness of a slab of concrete.

And it was there, balanced precariously on a ladder with six full bags of wool in each hand, trying to grab the little bag of Aran Tweed, that I realised - I need a stash diet. I need to knit up the Jo Sharp summer tops while I can still remember which pattern goes with which yarn. I need to get stuck into the Shadow Tweed jumper so that it's ready for next autumn, and I need to find someone who can wear pale grey and knit up the pale grey Inca yarn into a garment for them. I need to make a concerted raid on the internet and find patterns for 100g skeins of wool and do something with the interesting handspuns. If I hate it, I'll pull it out and redo it, or give it away. If I love it, great! I'll knit another one... but NOT until I have reduced my stash down to four projects...