In college I used to wear crocheted flowers in my hair. It was my little bit of uniqueness. Flowers also only take a few minutes to bust out if you’ve got a rhythm going. I still have most of the flowers I made and a lot of them still have bobby pins attached, even though I don’t wear them anymore. Now, if I wear them it’s probably because I’m doing some sort of Halloween event and I’m dressed up as a fairy.
At one time, when people used to complement me on the flowers and say how they’d love to have some, I started making them to sell. As a result I ended up with a pretty decent stash of cotton thread. I also started experimenting with different flowers and even made a few leaves. However, despite all things, I only actually ended up selling a few of the flowers.
And like all other things, my mother ended up passing a long of bunch of her own thread since she had stopped crocheting doilies, so she didn’t need the smaller balls that she had left.
She also had a collection of tatting thread, but she never ended up actually doing any tatting. Tatting is also something I haven’t done, but it is on my list of things I liked to learn (along with Tunisian crochet and needle felting). I have some plans to make some crocheted lace bowls with the thread. And hopefully I will start tatting. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the thread I used to make flowers, so it might sit around for a while and be used to embroider any amigurumi I make. But before I really do anything with the thread I’m going to have to invest in a set of steel hooks and a tatting shuttle since I have neither.
I have a lot of yarn, maybe not as much as some people. But for someone who, on average, has only been completing about one project a year, I have way too much. I have already improved on this figure having finished two new projects and completing an old one. I mostly crochet these days, but I’ve also done a few knitting projects in the past. I didn’t actually learn to knit until my 20’s. I had tried as a kid when my mother first taught me how to crochet, but it was beyond my ability. It was probably in large part due to the fact that I have a tendency to knit pretty tightly so it was difficult to squeeze a needle in.
At the beginning of this year I knew that at some point in the coming months I would be moving into a much smaller space. I would no longer have room for what probably accounted for 3 large tubs of yarn. I have since whittled it down to two tubs with a few baskets with projects in them. At the moment I have two projects I’m actively working on and about 3 old projects I need to assess and decide if I want to finish them or do something different with the yarn.
All this yarn is of course still too much. I don’t have room for it. The yarn all hides under my bed which is sitting on risers so that the tubs will actually fit underneath. The yarn is also only one portion of my craft hoard. I have several containers full of beads and beading materials. I have a few boxes of scrapbooking supplies. I have a smaller tub with fabric inside. And I also have a hat box full of crochet and tatting thread (not that I actually know how to tat at this point in time). All of these things are also scattered, unorganized and haven’t been seriously looked at in years. At some point in the future I will share pictures of these after I’ve sorted, organized and gathered all related materials together. But for now I’ve shared a few different angles of my yarn hoard sitting on my extra large chair, which happens to be the first piece of furniture I ever bought for myself.
Packrat Crafter 