Yarn Spreadsheet

I have lived by spreadsheets for years. I love being able to sort things and I guess the spreadsheets give me some amount of control over things, real or perceived – since you all know that the minute I put something down, I lose it or the more I try to remember, the more I forget. I’ve always been this way so it isn’t an age thing. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get worse with age. Maybe it’s an excuse but I feel like there’s so much running through my head at any given time that things just get lost or slip out my ears or something. I don’t know. When I was in college, I’d always try to get a 7:30 a.m. class and it was close to an hour’s drive to school. Every morning, in a rush to get to school, I had to look for my keys. You would have thought that I would have learned by now to put them in the same place. I was talking to mom the other day and she had to go so she could help my dad find his wallet. He loses his wallet, his keys, his phone so, I got it honest.

Through the years of making yarn spreadsheets, I’ve fine tuned the info a bit. In the beginning, I had all the fingering weight yarn together, all the sport weight together, etc. but that was a bit of a problem because when I’d fill a tub of fingering weight but still had space in the sport, DK, worsted and bulky weight tubs, it seemed crazy to get another tub. Then I tried sorting by color. If I needed blue, I could go to the blue tub but, as you imagine, there were multiple blue tubs. Nothing seems to really work best but since I really hope I’m not going to be ordering much more yarn, and since I had to totally re-do the yarn spreadsheets after the move, I’ve added everything I could think of to add.

• Weight – That’s important because if a sweater calls for sport weight, I can make fingering or DK work usually so being able to sort by weight helps. Of course, if a sweater calls for a certain weight, I can pull that up.
• Company – Not all yarn is created equally. I may like one brand better for some projects than others. There may be a particular brand I don’t want to use for a certain project.
• Yarn Name – Not so important for selecting yarn for projects but something I need to know.
• Number of Skeins
• Yards per Skein
• Total Yardage
• Storage Container – I had named my tubs about everything I could think of so the new names will be MO-1, MO-2, etc. That means . . these were all sorted after the move.
• Where’s the Storage Container Located – Say I’m looking for a worsted weight yarn to make a cardigan. I want something that isn’t totally solid but doesn’t have too much variation. I may pull four or five tubs before finding the yarn I want to use so it’s important that I know where I got the tub or bag and put it back where it goes so I can find it next time.

The biggest part of not buying yarn is being able to find what I need. If I want to make that same cardigan, it’s been easier to order yarn than to find what I need.

I’ve also thought about grabbing a tub and using everything out of that tub. Forget searching for the perfect yarn – just make something with whatever I come to first.

Somehow, some way, I need to use what I have here!