Revel in Ravelry and Organize Your Stash

If there is one thing most librarian's love, it is applying order to their collection, whether it is a collection of books or a collection of yarn.  There is an amazing free website out there to help you do this.  Ravelry is a social networking site that has a place for you to "catalog" your stash.  It will allow you to add your own pictures, notes and projects.  You can keep a list of the needles and hooks (yes, it's for crocheters as well as knitters) and print it out for when you go shopping.  To give you an idea of how this site can change your life, here's a screen shot of some of my stash.

Yes, it has the name of the yarn, a picture of the yarn and how many skeins I own.  What you don't see are the notes:  where the yarn is stored, what I may have planned, etc.

Once you have your yarn "catalogued", you can click on Projects within the yarn and you will be able to see what projects other Ravelry members have completed with this yarn.  It will tell you the pattern, and if the pattern is available online, you can download it for free or for a price.  If nothing else, you will get ideas for things to make.

This website is definitely worth a few hours of your time exploring.  For the first time, I actually know all of my stash and can start working through it, instead of buying new.  Okay, I probably will keep buying new as well.  I think I may have a bit of a problem.