Do you have a ‘Precious’ stash? I’m talking about capital ‘P’ precious – that box of yarn, fabric, fibre, or craft supplies that you love so deeply you can’t quite bear to actually use them. You could be working with the most beautiful, sensual, high-pleasure materials that you have carefully squirrelled away. Why aren’t you?
With the world feeling more than a little upside down right now, maybe it’s time to crack out your best vintage and really savour the beautiful things you have at hand. Rummage through your stash of precious yarns, fabric, paper or fibre, and get started making with the special materials you love to bits but are reluctant to use.
Oh, but it’s too ‘Precious’ to actually use
Sometimes I will bring home a yarn, fabric, or fibre that seems too precious – too beautiful or unique to risk damaging, to dare to take it into my hands and transform it. There’s always risk in making – the risk that your skills won’t be up to the material, that you won’t do it justice.
Before I began designing knits professionally, the cost of some supplies made them a luxury for me, and I was nervous about ‘wasting’ or ruining them. Now that I design knits for a living, I literally must cast on for my livelihood. Even so, I still find myself hesitating to use precious items. But to do my work, I need to use all my materials and accept that mistakes are part of the creative process. Skeins may be ‘wasted,’ but the time I spend learning to work with them is never a waste. And whenever I make the leap of confidence and cast on, the joy flows freely!
So what are you waiting for?
I often get stalled by uncertainty, feeling that I’m not quite ‘ready’ enough to dip into my precious stash. But over the years, I’ve found a few tricks that help me cast on or make that first cut.
1. Realize it’s wasted in storage, where it can’t bring you pleasure or improve your life
I like to remind myself of this often, so it feels like I have a responsibility to get my most precious materials out of plastic bags and into daily use.
During my recent wave of comfort knitting, I made a Flax sweater (free pattern!) for my little one, Neve. I combined the leftovers of a handspun yarn with coordinating mill-spun and hand-dyed colours. It was such a joy to work with this precious yarn!
2. Recognize that every project teaches you
I have to remember that I’m actually doing myself a disservice when I avoid working with my precious stash. I tell myself: ‘If you don’t cut into that stack of wool tweeds you’ve been collecting since you moved to Scotland, or if you don’t get started knitting with that sweater’s amount of single-ply Noro yarn that you bought on Vancouver Island back in 2016, you’ll just never learn how best to use those materials.’
I also try to remember that when I make a mess of something on my first try, I am likely to learn a lot and be more prepared for my second, third, and fourth attempts.
3. Remember that the point is pleasure!
The primary purpose of the hobbies I do with my hands is my own pleasure. After all, there are less expensive ways to get things. There are easier ways to give gifts. There are more practical ways to clothe myself and my loved ones. But if you’re like me, making beautiful creations with your own hands is what brings you pleasure – and working with precious materials makes it even better!
~ Emily
March 23, 2021 @ 6:22 pm
We all have that precious stash very good advice I found myself using them over the last year too❤️
March 22, 2021 @ 3:56 pm
Thanks for that lovely pep talk! Paris silk, her comes the scissors. If I wreck it, I guess I’ll have to go back!
March 22, 2021 @ 1:40 pm
While at a fiber festival a couple years ago, my single purchase was a hank of hand spun, hand dyed yarn. Expensive for me. I thought I might find a way to use it all (and I mean ALL) of it in a single project. It went into 3. A color work yoke in a sweater. A color work hat. Then I thought I’d make a second color work hat and realized there was enough for a full hat. All for me, by the way…..
March 22, 2021 @ 1:04 pm
Thanks! It helps to remember that beauty needs to be seen. I’m going to go rummage right now!
January 16, 2021 @ 3:42 pm
Perfect timing for this blog. I am organizing my stash . Your three tips are helpful. I just cast on my on my first pair of rye socks, using stash yarn. Really like the pattern. Thank you for this blog and your patterns.
August 27, 2020 @ 5:27 pm
When I was hired for my first job, teaching at a Sacred Heart school in a wealthy neighborhood east of Seattle, I use to pass a lovely fabric store. That was 1976 and I was not earning much. I knew about Liberty scarves from shopping in Victoria, BC, and had two of them. That shop introduced me to Liberty cotton lawn, and I began collecting quarter-yard pieces. In the 2000s, I finally made my mother a small quilt from Liberty cottons. I made my granddaughter a blouse.
I still buy a quarter-yard piece when I can. A former student brought me back two packs of small pieces on her last trip to London. So. These are all in my stash, waiting for an event to deserve them all.
August 27, 2020 @ 10:53 pm
This is a lovely story! Thanks for sharing, and good luck with your next project!
June 29, 2020 @ 10:07 am
I’ve just begun to knit little baby hats with some washable hand-spun for a friend’s grand baby. I’ll ask them to hand-wash, but who knows once you give it away! The hats are so cute with those pretty colors. I’ve also used my cherished and beautiful yarn in stranded knitting hats for myself. It’s too pretty to sit on a shelf. Your youngsters are the best models, and I appreciate the info in this post.
June 29, 2020 @ 5:31 am
OMG those kilts! Beyond cute. And that houndstooth is screaming to be made into something! But your post has inspired me to use my one mistake purchase of $35 skein and knit it into a shawl. I’ve waited too long.
June 26, 2020 @ 10:58 am
You are so right! I have precious things, or find a project that I love only to find that I have too much yarn in my stash, so can’t use it. Right?
I have made some small inroads during lockdown though!
Clicky Needles
June 26, 2020 @ 8:22 am
Hello,
Through the link Manage Subscriptions I tried to change my old mail-address into the new one, but that was very complicated on WordPress, even had to make my own account there and would be charged !, so I decided to ask you to change it for me.
Thank you! Love your tutorials and am still puzzling which yarn to use for the Love Note Sweater :D
Kind regards, Elsje van de Weg
>
June 29, 2020 @ 12:08 pm
Hi Elsje – I couldn’t find subscriptions under either email address so you can go ahead and sign up with the new one!
June 25, 2020 @ 11:20 am
I have a stash too, trying to figure out what to do with it
June 25, 2020 @ 9:55 am
Great article. I have been building my stash for so long now that pretty much everything in it is beautiful and precious. I got rid of the other stuff ages ago! I started using stuff more after I found a moth had eaten bits of my most precious fibre. It seemed such a waste – an expensive yarn that lived in a box and was then ultimately thrown away. It could have been knit into something beautiful and used or gifted and actually enjoyed. I have never ruined a project so badly that I’ve binned the yarn, but here I was binning yarn that had never been used. Ridiculous.
June 25, 2020 @ 9:47 am
Those kilts! So cute.
June 25, 2020 @ 9:03 am
I read this and kept glancing at my wall of yarn where a few skeins haven’t been touched for fear of messing them up. I’m going to find a project for them. I will! Thanks for the nudge.
June 25, 2020 @ 7:41 am
Thank you for all your posts. This one on using stash is particularly motivating
June 25, 2020 @ 7:40 am
I think it’s easier to knit up something with my precious yarns than it is to cut into special fabric. Usually you can take a knitted object apart and re-use the yarn.
June 25, 2020 @ 5:32 pm
So true! You can always unravel yarn right?
June 25, 2020 @ 6:19 am
Oh my gosh I love Liberty of London fabrics!
I also have precious yarn that I have yet to cast on, if I could knit faster maybe I would use them sooner! I guess I need courage to cast them on!