Tracking Yarn & Projects

One of my favorite things about the knitting site I no longer use was the library and queue. When I bought a pattern, it went into my library but when I ordered yarn for a certain pattern, it went into my queue. When I’d find 10 skeins of a particular yarn, I could go back to my queue, see what I had intended to make with that yarn. Sometimes I wanted to keep the yarn for that particular pattern, but other times, I’d decide to use it for a different pattern. The beauty of keeping up with it is this: Suppose I buy 10 skeins of red worsted weight yarn for a sweater and three or four years from now I am looking for three skeins of red worsted weight yarn to make hats. I find it, can’t remember why I bought it, use three skeins, then later realize I needed all 10 skeins to make a sweater. Chances are, if I order three more skeins of the same yarn, it isn’t going to match so I’ve just messed up a group of 10 skeins. That’s why I like to keep track of it.

I came up with a plan to use a Google spreadsheet.

My plan is this:

• When I buy yarn for a project, I’ll enter the yarn info, and the pattern under the “Yarn for Projects” tab.
• When I buy yarn without a project in mind, usually just a skein or two of fingering weight yarn, I’ll enter that yarn in “Yarn Without Projects”. Any yarn on this list I know I can use for a hat, socks, mitts, etc.
• When I start projects, I’ll enter all the info, including needle size, amount of yarn, size project I’m making and notes under the “Started” tab.
• Once I finish projects, I’ll copy everything from the Started tab, delete it from there and past it into the “Finished” tab.

If I don’t make a note of what pattern I’m buying yarn for, I cannot remember it and then have to spend time trying to figure it all out so keeping all the info here should be helpful.

I’m a list person and I have to have everything that matters written down somewhere. I feel much better knowing I’m keeping this list.