A Practical Birthday Present

Today is my birthday! Yay! I love birthdays. I feel like there aren't enough special times in life dedicated to celebrating the people we love, so birthdays are important to me, both my own and others'. It irks me that some folks think excitably enjoying birthdays and holidays is childish. It's not childish, it's human. Happy Birthday to me! I think I'll spend the day making myself some orange flavored chocolate chip cupcakes, ignoring my chores, watching movies, and... you guessed it... crocheting!

I have such a dear husband. We decided to celebrate my birthday together this past weekend since it falls on a weekday this year. He took me to The Melting Pot for dinner. Yum! I feel so fortunate and blessed. When I was young I always wanted to try fondue, but it was so expensive. I am grateful for my life and the amazing, fun things Alex and I are able to do together. This whole year has been pretty incredible.

Wanna know what else we did this past weekend? We journeyed to Ballard to pick out my birthday present... yarn storage! Yes, friends, I am thoroughly enamored with storage. I love organizing and my yarn had gotten a bit out of control. I'm working on a few large projects at the same time, so the yarn for those projects ended up overflowing my old, modest storage and colonizing my project box, linen closet, and a dresser drawer. Yikes! Not to fear, my days of yarn ferreting are now behind me. Meet my new storage. It was immensely satisfying sorting my yarn into it.

Isn't it delightful? It enjoys a place of prominence in our dining/living area. There's my project box on top where I keep my hooks, notes, scissors, and whatever my current project happens to be (with the exception of the one I'm hooking up now, which is too big to fit in the box). This may be a modest yarn stash compared to some, but I personally don't like having a lot of stuff lying around. I only want to have yarn in the house if it is going to be used soon. In light of my preferences, this storage seems super large to me! Let's take a tour. Sorry for the poor lighting. Not much natural daylight to be had in Seattle in late autumn!

The top drawer houses my nicer yarns. Lots of Cascade Cherub, both Aran and DK. Be on the lookout for an awesome new pattern in that teal color in the coming months! There's some Berroco and some nice nylon cord hanging out in there. I also keep my indie yarn up top.

Next up is my Lion Brand Drawer. Lion Brand makes my favorite craft store yarns, of which I prefer Vanna's Choice. Vanna's Choice makes up 75% of the drawer, though there's some Kitchen Cotton, Lion Suede and Jiffy in there too.

Finally, I've filled the bottom drawer with Simply Soft plus a bit of Red Heart and another acrylic yarn by Caron. I have a somewhat lofty goal of slowly phasing out the yarns in the bottom drawer, moving the Lion Brand to the bottom, and filling the middle drawer with the same quality of yarn as the first. We'll see how that goes. Yarn can set you back a pretty penny, another reason I keep my stash small and make sure to use what I have.

Here's a gratuitous cat picture. Ranna has always loved sitting on my project box on the ground (and in it if she's sneaky!), and now that it's elevated she's positive we did it just for her. You have no idea how hard it is to take pictures of anything around here without a cat in them. She is the worst photo bomber ever. She's so friendly she just has to follow me around the house and climb in every shot. Every picture you see here had to be retaken at least three times as a result.

I want to show you what I upgraded from. I've also put some other supplies in the old storage. Let's check it out.

It sits in the corner of the nook next to my craft tower that's full of quilling, card making, and other miscellaneous supplies. Notice that it's like one third the size of my lovely new birthday storage.

The top drawer now houses all of my remnants/scraps. These balls of yarn are too small to be used in a substantial project but may be useful for appliques, simple baby hats, and other small projects. They look rather large in this picture but the largest of them would still easily fit inside a cupped hand, and my hands are fairly petite.

The second drawer is filled with odds and ends. Safety eyes, pipe cleaners, felt, that sort of thing. The bottom drawer is crammed full of bags of stuffing. I didn't open it because, ahem, it's rather hard to close.

Well then, now you and I have no secrets. I feel like showing you my stash is like showing you my diary or something. I'm a bit envious of those folks who can proudly and prettily display their yarns on shelves or similar out in the open, but my little yarn stealing fiend of a cat makes that impossible. Despite those limitations, I'm pleased as punch about my new storage. Thanks, Alex! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to enjoy my birthday :)