Are you a needlepoint hoarder?
I confess I was. I thought I was good at controlling my needlepoint habits. Once a year I went through canvases and projects and got rid of ones I didn’t intend to do. I shopped my stash first before buying threads, I reused stretcher bars. I did projects entirely designed to use up stash.
But I was kidding myself. When we got ready to move I got rid of ten or twelve big boxes of stuff. Threads that had been discontinued or that I didn’t like. Canvases I wasn’t going to stitch. Finishing supplies I didn’t need. And lots of assorted needlepoint hoard.
I moved into my new office with a plan to keep my stash under control.
Mostly it works. I still purge a couple times a year, I still shop the stash first and some of my stretcher bars have been used so much they’ve broken.
That feels good. I find that by corralling and controlling my stash I’ve learned many things:
It takes less time to put away a small bag of leftover threads than it does to put away a big one. Before you say “Duh,” follow my problem. When my threads were not close by I avoided putting them away. That meant often I would pull threads that weren’t the best choices from the bag instead of going to the stash to find a better choice. With the small bags put away more often, I actually go to the thread drawers not the put away pile.
Your stash is both bigger and smaller than you think. Yes you save threads. Yes you can often (almost always in my case) stitch a project from stash. There are more colors there than you think. It can take many projects to use up a skein if you are only using a yard at a time. So the stash is bigger than I think it is. But it’s also smaller. You may NOT have enough of that color to do the background. Keep the threads you use often “in stock” in your stash.
Your stash fuels your creativity. Because I stitch from stash, I’ve been able to create some lovely projects and stretched by boundaries. It might be the all-orange background of a Halloween cat. It could be trying color combinations I usually avoid in some twinchies. It could be a stripes project that tested the depth of my stash in neutrals. It could be the owls I’m designing for the Learn-a-Stitch series that use sample canvas. By having an organized stash, I’m free to tryt new things because I can find what I need.
An organized stash is a stress release. When your life sucks, as mine does at the moment, knowing that the means for loveliness is right here and can be found at a moment’s notice gives me comfort. It doesn’t mean that the pile of work will get smaller, that my cars will be repaired, or that the serious injury suffered by a friend (prayers needed there) will go away. But it does mean that in one small corner of my life I have order, sanity, and creativity. For today that means so much.
Looking for the post on creating backgrounds? I’m too overwhelmed at the moment with the other issues and worries, so it’s been postponed until Tuesday.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Prayers will be said for your friend. May tranquility, peace and order return to your life.
Re stash/hoarding: I am guilty. I have, however, done some serious organizing but you pointed out a flaw in how I keep up with it — I put threads I am done with in what I thought was a “little” shopping bag, with the intent of filing them every once in a while, which became months. Now I have too many threads to file/refill and I’m having trouble spending the time to do that, and I realized last night there are threads in the bag I could have used had I filed them earlier. Now I will file them on a rigid schedule, say monthly. Thanks.
Mine ended up being a BIG tote bag stuffed with threads. Now I have a small jute bag and an Atenti caddy (also small). If one gets filled it’s time to put stuff away.
Since I have several locations for threads around the studio, I sort them into piles first, one per bag, then put away each pile. The big problem is that sometimes I forget where threads I don’t use often are located, so they end up going back into the bag.
But it’s progress!
Keep Stitching,
Janet
Organizing stash……is a work in progress. I have tamed the number of bags to a minimum,most of the threads are in stored in various individual boxes. Canvases are the next challenge. I have started to put threads back when I am finished with the project.; they may not get into the exactly right place. But when shopping my stash I can either use the same fiber or put back in its proper place. Now it is organized ….it is easy to shop and I am saving money to buy more stash.