Fiber Arts Friday: Organizing the Stash

On my To Do List since before we decided to move our house and farm has been to update and organize my Stash.

I'm generally pretty organized here, but with my Scrappy Palindrome and the recent Frogging of WIPs, I know that everything is not in my Ravelry Inventory nor is it in the proper bins.

I believe that all of my clean fiber has made it's way to this area of my studio since our move, but it's lack of order has been annoying me for a while now.  So I've been thinking a lot about how I'd like to organize this area...

I've noticed that Tapestry Weavers tend to organize by color.  Conversely, Knitwear Designers seem to organize more by weight (gauge).

Either display/organization strategy is nice to look at.  I especially like the gentle gradient of color across a wall of yarn. However, I don't think there's one best way to organize anything, as long as:

1. everything has it's place and
2. you can find what you're looking for when you're looking for it.

So, after contemplating these strategies for some time and then taking advantage of a few hours of alone time, I took the first step... emptying everything out of the bins.

I piled according to fiber content, then within each pile I sorted by color and format.

What I learned from this exercise is that I really don't have a lot of dyed fiber, that my formats are all over the place, and that I have a lot(!) of silk to spin.

So ultimately, I decided to stay organized by Fiber Content.

I don't love having a variety of bins stacked against the wall... but this is now taking up half the floor space.  Each bin is a unique fiber, labeled, see-through, and keeps the fiber free from dust and bugs.  So this is good for now.

Hopefully, I'll be able to find a beautiful armoire for fiber storage in the future.

I have not yet bounced my actual inventory against what I have recorded in Ravelry.  That will have to happen on another day, along with my tool consolidation.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Organizing Thoughts

I have a habit of brain-dumping in my blog drafts.

I have use it as a place to capture thoughts when they are coming fast, since I can type faster than write by hand.

As a result, I had well-over 300 drafts for this blog.... most of which will never be published here.

So I spent a few hours on a recent afternoon to delete, combine, and move drafts to more appropriate locations.

I still have 221 drafts, as of this moment.  So hopefully, I can get thru a bunch more before the number starts creeping up again.

*fingers crossed*

Why Blog?

I've had my blog for nearly 12 years, so far.

I've had periods of active inter-pollination with other blogs, but that isn't happening much these days.

I think contributing factors are that people are spending more time on other social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TicToc.  Also there are a lot more podcasts and vlogs being produced...  but mostly, I think it's because I don't spend as much time commenting on other blogs.  Part of that is due to the tools I'm using to read them, which don't facilitate commenting.

However, I do make it a priority to continue to blog.  Primarily because it's a good way for me to organize my thoughts, track progress on projects, and mark milestones with respect to our farm- and art-related endeavors.

I try to write with readers in mind, because I believe that thinking of others, no matter the circumstance is an important skill to practice.

Things that Work: Outlines

When I was in middle school learning to write the 5 paragraph essay, I remember the teacher talking about outlines and how important they were.

It was something I had a difficult time with.  I hadn't yet figured out how to step back and see the bigger picture or the long game of any particular project.

Later in High School, I took an exploratory/creative writing class that helped a lot.  But writing term papers with a formal outline was still a problem for me in college, until I took a technical writing course and an introduction to computer programming course.  The flow charts in the programming course coupled with the bullet points in the tech writing course opened a big world for me.  Realizing that brief thought statements could communicate and capture ideas was profound.

Subconsciously I started making outlines everywhere.

Not necessarily in the formal format, but very much in the big picture, big points, and supporting points perspective.

I build my Gantt Charts in this fashion, as well as my presentations, charters, contracts, and system requirements/compliance documents.

Now that I'm home, the book, blog, and class ideas are coming fast.  So outlining the ideas and making space for exploration is helping a lot.

Fiber Arts Friday: Organizing my Stash

A few weeks ago I discovered the All Used Up flag on Ravelry.

I doubt it's new, so I'm sure most of you are aware of it, but just in case, it's on the right side just below edit stash details.

I had been wondering why my yarns that had been entirely consumed and showing none left were still listed in the midst of my stash.  So with this new discovery, I cleaned up my Ravelry Stash and felt much better.

While doing that, I had a brilliant idea for a new project but my actual stash wasn't organized well for finding the yarns I wanted.  So I re-organized my actual stash too.  Yes I am an engineer.  I try to fight it, but it's who I am.  I NEED to sort.  ;-)

I was already pretty well organized since most of the yarn was labeled in a bag and then sorted into a bin... alpaca, wool, other and more alpaca.  You can see that some of these bins were stuffed full.

While I think sorting by breed is a fine idea, my project needed yarns of the same weight, regardless of  the breed.  So I pulled all of my yarns out and sorted by gauge....

Side Note:  Hahaha, imagine that!  A project requires yarns of the same weight.  That's probably true for most projects.  Some times I really am brilliant.  ;-)

I then pulled out the yarns that have been allocated for other projects and put them into their own labeled bins.  I'm surprised I hadn't done this before.  I always segregate the yarn required for the projects I'm working on, but I hadn't done it for the projects on my To Do List.  It was amazing how much more clear my brain felt after I did this.

So after I segregated the allocated yarns, I was able to see what was really available for my new idea.

I pulled those out and returned the much smaller piles of yarn to their original bins... alpaca, wool, other.  But now I only have one alpaca bin.  :-)

I found out that most of my early handspun is not listed in my Ravelry Stash nor is my collection of roving.  It will require some dedicated time to photograph and list those yarns, so I guess it's a good thing we're upon a holiday weekend.  ;-)

I'm not certain that I will carry out that brilliant idea, but so far those yarns are still set aside.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!  Please head over to Wisdom Begins in Wonder and give the Fiberistas some comment-luv

Future as Past

I often write about my future as if it is my past.  Is that weird?

I've done it for almost as long as I can remember.

It is a way for me to organize my thoughts, goals and priorities.  It is very much a journaling exercise and therefore private.  Only, it is (almost) never actually in a journal.  I prefer loose-leaf, white paper and a comfortable pen.

One time, I wrote a speech for my college reunion about the businesses I had lead.  It included the achievements I had made and the life I was proud to call mine.  Of course, I was still a college student at the time.

I neglected to put my future-past-tense speech away and left it with my homework.  My room mate found it, read it and was mad at me.

I don't remember why she would have been mad about it, but it was the first time I thought maybe everyone doesn't do this.

Since then I have made a lot of those achievements.  I have not been to a college reunion (or high school for that matter) so I have not actually made the speech.  I don't necessarily want to make the speech.  It was just a tool for me to organize my future self.

Do you have any useful ways to organize your self?  How do you set your priorities and goals?  I'd love to know... whether they're weird or not.