SarahTheCoat

as im getting more into knitting, i'm left wondering -- how the heck do folks keep their needles organized?? i have yarn and notions storage already, and im able to stash some of my needles away, but as im acquiring more needles for more projects i am running out of places! do y'all have storage suggestions for needles and things?

First, be aware: you will lose this battle. The needles will escape wherever you put them, and end up in places you never thought they'd be (the couch, the bed, under furniture, and so on). They will refuse to be contained. 😂

They're not as bad as stitch markers though.

For a more practical answer, though, I have to confess, I've never known knitting life without a needle case of some kind. I inherited my mother's needles and needle case, and used that for years until it finally fell apart. And it's so, so useful. Sure, not all the needles make it back into the needle case. Many needles live in the project bags with their projects, (or have lives as escapees until I find and sequester them again!), but having a central-yet-portable storage option for all my needles (and crochet hooks), has been a Godsend! After my mother's old needle case finally was non-reparable, I splurged on a needle roll to hold all my needles. If you have enough needles, it's totally worth it, I think. I got mine from a wonderful shop on Etsy that has since closed down, but you should be able to find someone who makes or sells them without too much trouble. Mine is fabric, but you can get them in different sizes - I got a super tall one to handle my 14 inch long wooden straight needles!

these days i mostly use circulars, and some short dpns. i gave away nearly all the long straight needles, because for me they are just awkward. so most of the ones i am really going to use, can fit into quart ziplock bags. i have one for each size, labelled with the (american)size number, and the millimeter size. these stand up in order in the little cupboard next to my comfy chair where i do most of my at home knitting.

i did also make one of those rollup things out of fabric for straight needles, but there aren't that many in it since i purged the slick aluminum ones. it's not really that hard to make, and doing it yourself lets you customize for the needles you actually have.

How do you people FIND anything when you need it??? Do 41% of you just have relatively small stashes? I have things sorted into a bunch of opaque drawers & boxes and I've got labels on most of them, because aside from the Good Stuff drawers I cannot remember where exactly anything is.

I just like... look at it?

Beautiful stash! I can't do that because my sewing room gets direct sunlight in the afternoon & evening, so it all needs to be kept covered to prevent fading.

The boxes are pretty much identical and I don't always put them back in the same place if I get several down, so they've got to be labelled.

At least the fronts lift off of three of the drawers on the bigger cabinet, which makes those things easy to see, but I've got to dig for everything else.

It's all sorted by fibre content first, and the linen, silk, and wool take up one drawer each, so it's just the cotton that's subdivided by colour. The smaller scraps have their own boxes.

I also somehow have a large plastic bin full of quilting cotton, despite never having made a quilt in my life, and it's divided by colour into a bunch of bags.

I decided to live with the risk of fading, because if I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

This is all 1-2 yard cuts. Ignore the stuff on the floor, that’s from when I was rearranging the room.

These are half and quarter yards. The wine crates just fit behind the door, which is nice.

And larger cuts of fabric live on another shelf, which I’m not photographing right now because I’m embarrassed about my dressmaking backlog.

i love seeing collections. :) the costume shop had (has, i think, but in a separate room now) those drawer/shelves that open at the front. very handy.