Free Yarn Harlot by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee

to have some stuff stored too.
    Perhaps it is that I buy yarn in a way that makes it clear that on some level I must fear that there will be no yarn for sale tomorrow, or that due to an evolutionary glitch attached to global warming, sheep will suddenly stop bearing fleece any minute now and my stash is the only thing that stands between me and the nightmare of knitting nothing but acrylic eyelash yarn for the rest of my life.
    We will likely never know what the exact factors are that change a perfectly normal yarn stash—which can be handled by methods suggested by a thoughtful article in a newsletter—into something that has turned into a lifetime commitment. My stash does not need mere management. It needs to be beaten into submission.
    Those who are competing at the extreme sport level of stash storage in small homes, and have obsessively managed to procure more yarn than could ever be knitted in ten lifetimes, need more help than a well-meaning newsletter can give. Not only do we need excessive amounts of storage space; it must be subtle. Stashing for retirement and beyond means that you may have so much yarn as to cause so-called “normal” people (if that’s what you can call people with no yarn at all) to report you to mental health authorities.
    Attempts should be made to keep extreme stashing discreet. After many years of cohabitating, my darling is still not sure exactly how much yarn I have. He knows it’s a lot, but through innovative and daring yarn storage strategies, I’ve managed to keep the exact quantity secret. It’s not as hard as it sounds, since I don’t think that he really wants to know.
    In my home I have an established yarn zone. This is where I pretend to keep my yarn. I do keep some yarn there, but my stash is like an iceberg; only the top 10 percent is visible. The rest of the stash lurks unseen and unknown, sunk deep below the surface of my Victorian semidetached. My smoke-screen long-term stash is more or less contained in the linen closet, stuffed into boxes, plastic containers, Ziplocs … whatever will get it in there. My short-term yarn and projects fit into enormous baskets in the living room. These portions of the stash are mostly organized in a way that would make a yarn organizer proud, though anyone who believes a stash should stop there may want to avert his or her eyes and skip to the next story in the book.
    That other 90 percent is where extreme stashers need to get creative. If you have so much yarn that you are resorting to these measures then I’m pretty sure that discretion is in order. Not everyone understands. To help get you started, here are a few strategies that work for me:
The freezer. We have been vegetarians for quite some time. Vegetarians just don’t need chest freezers. I didn’t get rid of mine, it’s still plugged in and running, and I’m certain that you can guess why. Yes, my fellow zealots, my freezer contains four pork chops from 1986, a loaf of bread (to justify the freezer), and my enchanting (if frosty) collection of Ballybrae that I scored when the Patons outlet closed. Freezers provide lots of potential space and offer the added bonus of being 100 percent mothproof. If you can give up meat, this will work especially well for you.
Closets. I know, I know—you’re thinking that closets aren’t discreet, that many knitters keep yarn in closets, and that if you had a closet to put more yarn in you wouldn’t have a problem in the first place. Well, my skeptical fiber friend, you gotta think outside the box. Go to the store. Buy a suit bag, the kind that you hang in the closet. Black is good, but anything other than transparent works well. Now fill the suit bag with yarn. Try to stick with wool and acrylics. Cotton is too heavy for the bag; it will break the zipper and blow your cover. When you have the bag full, just hang it in the closet and admire how it just sits there looking like a suit. (Note: Should you forget the “no-cotton” rule