knit all the yarn I've bought

10 balls of yarn a month is proving a bit much. I have finished all of January’s projects, but I’m a few balls behind on February’s. I’ll drop down to 6 this month and see if I can manage that.

Must Have Cardigan: 4 balls

Joey’s Mohair (Teal): 2 balls

If I can knit that, I’ll have two finished sweaters by the end of March!

Hedda Vest: 5 balls

Must Have Cardigan: 2 balls

Garter Stitch Elephant: 1 ball

Joey’s Mohair (Teal): 2 balls

Rockstar Scarf and Gloves: 4 balls

Velvet Oblivion Eyemasks: 2 balls

Banner Socks and Baby Hat: 2 balls

Serpentine Scarf: 2 balls

And the grand total is: 328 balls or partial balls of yarn!

Sounds like a lot when you put it that way. To knit it all in three years, I’d have to knit 110 balls per year, or about 10 balls per month, or 2.5 balls per week.

It got tricky when I reached the dregs of my stash, all those little half- or quarter-balls with no bands that are too small to make anything from but too big to throw out. I have a bagful of “Remnants not in catalogue”.

So far I’ve catalogued the yarn in my living room and my “vice cabinet” (a glass-fronted bookcase where we store yarn and liquor). The current total is 159 full or partial balls of yarn.

Once I’ve knit all the yarn I own, I get to buy more! And yarn for one of Alice Starmore’s stunning fair isle designs seems like a reward fitting in scope for such a challenge.

The stats are half the fun with this project. I’m going to count all the yarn I own, including partial balls, which will count as one. Then I’ll keep a running tally of how many balls/skeins I still have, and how many I’ve knit since I started keeping track.

I will know I have reached this goal when I do not own any yarn. Seems pretty simple. With the amount of yarn I have, I estimate it will take me 2-3 years to reach this goal.

The rules:

1. No buying yarn (duh). Yarn for gifts can only be purchased if there is absolutely nothing suitable in the stash.

2. Receiving yarn as a gift, swap, or contest prize is to be discouraged, as is taking commissions (knitting yarn other people buy), because then it will take longer to complete the challenge!

3. No selling or giving away stash yarn. (This one’s mostly because I like all the yarn in my stash and I don’t want to part with it. Plus, the challenge is to knit it all, not get rid of it.)

4. Books, patterns, and needles are okay as long as they’re for existing stash. No sense in making myself covetous for yarn I can’t buy.

Since I started knitting in earnest, back in 2002, I’ve been steadily accumulating yarn faster than I can knit it up (a phenomenon known as “stash” or “processing backlog”). Since my yarn purchases get posted against the Clothing line item in our budget, yarn for me means no new pants for my husband!

So rather than going on a yarn diet with the emphasis on deprivation, I’ve decided to turn it into a challenge to see if I can knit every ball I’ve bought before buying another one.