June 26, 2007

Vacuum Sealed For Freshness!!!

There are… *checks Google countdown clock* exactly 51 days until what I’ve labeled as The Big Move.

51 days.

It looks a whole lot closer this side of 60 days, I’ll tell you that much.

Everyone’s favorite question to me lately is “What will you do with all your yarn?”

And they always say “yarn” as if my yarn stash is roughly the size and weight of a bull elephant. I’ll have you know the stash is 5 or 6 pounds less than a bull elephant, thankyouverymuch!

All joking aside, where and how to store my stash has been VERY heavily weighing on my mind lately. Books can be wrapped in plastic and boxed up but yarn… you want to be careful. I wouldn’t want to store some of my stash and come back to Mothville USA.

I was roaming Wal-Mart, picking up a few school essentials (Garbage bin, shower caddy, flipflops, hangers, liquor, etc.) and while checking out the underbed storage I spotted those spiffy vacuum storage bags they always show on the infomercials. Where they pile 7 feet of bedding next to this teeny little bag, then show it flattened and neat and easy to store. It was perfect! I could pour my stash into a few of those bags, toss in a fabric softener sheet to keep it fresh, suck out the air and voila! Compressed yarn storage for the college girl on the go.

I bought the 6 bag variety set. (2 Medium, 2 Large, 1 x-Large & a Travel bag)

I got home and started pulling (pouring) my stash out of where it was stored. The wicker basket, the chest, the countless bags, the boxes under my bed, the space behind the books on the bookshelves, etc. Eventually the phrase “Holy sh*t there’s yarn in HERE too?” became very popular with me.

I put the solid colored wool in the x-large bag. The lace in a medium. Multi-colored wool in a medium. The misc wool/acrylic blends I divided into 2 piles, school and storage. I tried to predict what I’ll want to knit while I’m a school and the colors I usually like to work with.

I realized I was running out of space, so I started chucking yarn into the living room. 10pm and there are suddenly balls of Wool-Ease, Simply Soft and baby weight flying through the air into the other room.

I ran out of bags. Even with them being space compressing. So I ran back to the store and picked up a Jumbo size (you could vacuum seal a person in this thing, no problem. It’s HUGE!) and a 3 pack of the Large. Return home and continue the stash storage saga.

This is where things got, well, scary. I headed out to the garage and pulled my 45 gallon storage tote inside the house.

The one filled with all of my acrylic.

Thank goodness that jumbo sized bag was so big.

So, at the end of all things I started with…
(Ok this is only 2 containers emptied out...)
And ended with…


Being divided by School on your left and storage on your right…

How’s THAT for flashin’ your stash?

8 comments:

Anna-juniorknitwit said...

Wow....that is a stash to be proud of, hun... :)

Hopefully your dorm will have the space for all that, although you seem to have compressed all that yarn quite nicely...

TTYL, hun, and good luck with continuing the dorm preparations.

P.S. As a recent college dormer myself, let me offer this advice...travel as lightly as possible, and get settled as early as possible.

LYL,

Anna :)

Diane said...

Crazy math isn't it? The stash we think we have vs the stash we really have. Great job gathering and taming all that yarn.

Batty said...

You know you have a proper stash when you find yarn you didn't even know you had! Those bags look great, maybe I should invest in a couple.

When I was in college, I did counted cross stitch instead of knitting. Sure, I have a cross stitch stash too, but it's so much more... portable.

It's really important to have a craft, though. It's what will keep you happy and sane once finals start.

Unknown said...

Wow! Well done you on such a large stash :) (and finding such a great solution)

Chris said...

Very clever! Um, I'd need more jumbo bags...

Anonymous said...

Please, please, please don't vacuum-seal a person in the jumbo bag. You got some serious stash girl. I'm very impressed, but really, only 5 lbs shy of a bull elephant? Come on, I know you can do better than this...I'm gonna have to send you some yarn.

Peevish said...

Wow, that's awesome!!

bellamoden said...

That's clever! And nah. You have an efficient stash. An artist needs materials, yes?