Thoughts on minimalism
A friend pointed me to the Minimalist Knitter handbook (free download here) by Robyn Devine of the Minimalist Knitter blog. The ideas in the handbook are:
- Knit through the stash until you have 40 skeins or less.
- Don't buy yarn unless you can knit it in 3 months or less.
- Pare down the books and tools collection.
I like these ideas, but I'm starting from a yarn stash that fits into one box, and a fibre stash that fits in an identical box. The exception to the stash box is two sweater's worth of yarn I picked up in the Knitty Couture closing down sale. I have plans for both of these but I know my sweater knitting speed is glacial.
Counting my entire yarn stash, I have 54 different yarns: 9 laceweight, 30 fingering/sock, 6 sport/DK, and 9 worsted. If I counted skeins it would be more, since much of the sock yarn is in two small balls, and I have sweater amounts of worsted. I think this is a reasonable stash amount for me, though I do prune it periodically and get rid of the stuff I no longer see myself using. Handspun yarn is a little different since so much time was put into the making of it. I don't see myself destashing that and I have no guilt in keeping it, unknit. Knitting with my own handspun gives a wonderful "end to end" feel to a project, I knew this object as fluff, then singles, then plied yarn, then as a knitted object.
There are yarns I will get just to try them out, like Wollmeise, Peace Fleece, and Great Northern Yarns 70%/30% mink/cashmere or 100% yak. The experimental skeins often get used quickly. If they don't get used, they'll probably get cleared out of the stash after a couple of semi-annual prunings. Some yarn I attempt to destash, some I give away, the important thing is I get it OUT of my house.
I'm bringing a pile of yarn to knit group on Saturday to destash, hopefully I don't end up taking much back home with me. I'll also be bringing my Square, so I can take credit card payments on my phone if people don't have cash.