100 Skeins in 2009

Well, I'm sure you will all be glad to hear that my stashdown efforts will continue into 2009. They kind of have to, since I haven't really made much of a dent in the stash this year. Hey, when you have over 100 miles of yarn in the stash, using up 7.5 miles of it is barely a drop in the bucket!

But, never fear, over at the Ravelry stashdown group, we are making all kinds of plans for using up stash in the new year. And I have managed to sign up for at least 3 of the challenges. The one that has a lot of us excited is the "100 balls of yarn in 2009". We are going to see if we can use up 100 balls/skeins/hanks of yarn in the year. That translates into approximately 2 skeins a week, which somehow seems doable. So I will be keeping track of my progress here on the blog. It will be fun to count something other than yardage next year (although I will probably continue to count yardage, too).

Then there is the "Personal Sweater Club". This idea grew out of the sock yarn clubs that some yarn companies offer online. You get a surprise skein of sock yarn each month, and if you keep up, you knit a pair of socks a month. Well, this year, some members of the stashdown group made up their own sock club. They packaged up 12 skeins of yarn from stash with patterns, and then opened up a new package every month. It made the stash seem more exciting. So, for next year, we are extending that idea to small items and to sweaters. Now, I'm not crazy. I am not going to try to knit 12 sweaters next year. I am going to try for 4 - one for each season. It will be a miracle if I actually complete 1 sweater, but I am going to try. Hopefully, next weekend, I will finalize the 4 patterns and the yarn for each.

And then, yesterday, someone suggested trying for one small item a week, or 52 in the year. At the risk of overextending myself, I went ahead and signed up. I know that I can crochet a hat or a scarf in a week and still have time for larger projects. So those will be my charity items for the year.

And yes, I am going to have to be very organized and disciplined if I am going to have any hope of keeping up with all this!