How to organize your Yarn & create a Yarn Inventory spreadsheet

I have quite a large yarn stash and my poor TV room cabinets were bursting at the seams! (along with some laundry room shelves, a few bags in my living room, a few stray skeins in my bedroom.... you get the idea!) So I finally took a day (or three) to consolidate everything into one space, sort through, weigh, log, and finally store! I'm sharing my process in case it can help other yarn addicts out there! 

Now, just because you take a weekend to do this one time, this organization system will still need some maintenance from time to time, if you are like me and always have a dozen projects going! Here's a video I did to show how I was doing a catch-up re-org after a couple months of many, many projects.

It's helpful to have a kitchen or postal scale so that you can weigh partial skeins to get an approximate remaining amount. Not necessary but very helpful.. 

I'm sharing my Excel file here, Yarn Inventory Template, for you to use when logging your yarn. It's on Google drive for you to download. You can use Excel or upload it to your own Google drive & use the "Sheets" program on that site. It may work on other spreadsheet programs too. Just remember that it needs to be downloaded as it won't let you type on MY copy on my Google drive.

Now if you have some boxes you ordered where the box is full of the same brand/name of yarn, go ahead and leave the yarn in that box and we can use that as the container.

Ok, if you are ready, put on some tunes, grab a drink, and let's get started!! 

1. CONSOLIDATE

This is the part where you need to go through your entire house, car, garage, closets, EVERYTHING, and pick a space that won't be disrupted for a couple days. You want to get ALL of your precious yarn into one space so that you can account for everything that you have. This includes WIPS (work in progresses), so that you can be sure you have all of your yarn listed, even stuff that's being used. You will want to dump all of this random yarn into a big pile in the center of the space. You can put your wips in one area too, and if they are in bags, keep them in there so they can stay together. Any boxes of similar yarn you bought online, that can stay in the box, just put it in the same room with the rest of your yarn. When you are done & staring at this big pile of yarn, it may seem overwhelming, but that just means you are doing it RIGHT!

2. SORT
This step will help make sense of the chaos before you! Go through and sort all the yarn into smaller piles based on the brand & yarn name. For instance, put all the Red Heart Super Savers into one pile. Grab the Lion Brand Mandala's and put them into another pile. Your Joann's Big Twist Soft can go into another pile. Don't worry about colors or sizes at this time, but be sure it's the same brand and yarn name. As you go, you will see that you have a LOT of certain types, and a small amount of other types. And you may end up with a few stragglers that you only have 1 skein of. That's ok, we'll figure that out when sorting into bins. 

3. CONTAINERS

Now we want to go through your containers (bins, boxes, etc) to see what all you have to store your yarn in. You might have enough to use once you've emptied out all the randomness, or you might need to make a run to the store to grab a few more bins. These can be the cheapest grey ones or the pretty purple ones with a geometric pattern. It doesn't matter if they are clear or solid, as you will be numbering them and entering that into the spreadsheet so you know exactly which bin/box to go to when you need a certain type of yarn. (of course shopping for home organization stuff is a fun adventure in itself so don't let me stop you if you feel the need!) And again, while it might look boring, if you have some boxes full of yarn you bought online and it's all the same type, it's easiest to just leave it in that box and label the box. You might not know exactly how many containers you need yet, so you can wait and see after you've started to "contain" some of your yarn. 

These fabric ones on Amazon look interesting - a bit less weight than regular plastic bins & easier to store when not in use...

4. LOGGING YOUR INVENTORY

This is where you will need your computer & the Yarn Inventory Template provided here, and the oz scale if you have one. Go to the biggest pile & grab a full skein with a label, as ya gotta start somewhere! 

• Column A is for the bin number, and since we are just starting, enter #1. 
• Column B is for the brand, so go ahead and enter that. 
• Column C - enter the name of the yarn, such as "Super Saver" or "Mandala".
• Column D - enter the color (and color # if desired)
• Column E is for the weight number of the yarn - not the oz, but the thickness. Some will have a 4 for this number (Red Heart Super Saver), some may have a 3, 5, 6, etc.. (those are the most common from what I've seen). 
• Column F is for the oz. of a full skein, so use what's listed on the label for that, even if it's not a full skein. (although for your first one, it's easiest to use a full skein) 
• Column G is for the yards per skein, again listed on the label. 
• Column H is where you enter how many skeins of this particular size/color you have. Go through and find all of those same brand/size/color skeins now, and enter that number. Any partial skeins, put to the side and we'll do that next. 
• Column I is for listing out the weight in oz of your partial skeins. If you found any that don't quite look full, weigh them on your scale in oz. List that number into column I. If you have more than one partial skein, you can add those up into the column by first typing an equals sign, then the first oz, then a plus sign, then the next oz, etc. 
  example:  = 2.3 + 4.5 + 6.7   This will tell Excel to add them all up & give you one figure.
• Column J - Once you are done with those columns, the last column has the formula to calculate all of the previous numbers into the amount of yards you have of this particular yarn. The trick is to use the formula from the example cell at the top of the spreadsheet. (grey italic row) To do this, click on the formula cell shown in the example, then click the little green square in the lower right, and drag that down through the rows you have your entries listed.

Now that you have this first row done, guess what? You can copy that entire row into the next few rows so you only have to enter the color & number of skeins you have for that particular color! You won't have to enter the other columns such as brand, name of yarn, etc. To copy the first row you enter into the next few, click on the row number itself at the far left (highlighted in yellow in the image below), then right click & copy. 

Next, holding down your shift key, click on the next 10 empty row numbers below (or however many you want), to highlight those rows. Next, right click & paste. This will enter that same information into all of those rows. Now, you can delete out the copied entries for the colors & number of skeins, but you can leave the rest in there since you are still logging the same type of yarn, and then you only have to enter the new colors & numbers of those skeins. (and of course any partials)

While you are doing this logging, pick an empty bin and start putting them in there as you log. When the bin gets full, start a new one. Be sure to label the bins as you go with the number you are entering on your spreadsheet. You can use a sharpie or sticky note, whatever works for you. 

Eventually, you will get to the point where you don't have enough yarn to fill a bin. Or you ran out of bins and now is the time to go out and buy a few more. Or you have some random skeins that have no home. What I do is look for bins that still have some room, and find the most similar yarn to what I have left to sort, and place them together. I have one bin that's full of random mandala type of yarn, even though the brands are all different. Or you might have one bin full of thick weight yarns (5's & 6's) but all different brands. This seems to be a logical way to sort those random individual strays, at least for me. 

5. "CHECKING OUT" YARN

You know how when you go to a library and check out a book? This is the same type of concept. When you need some yarn from your inventory, put a little note in the far right column with how many skeins you are taking out. You could write whatever you want, like  "2 skns out for project xyz". The important thing is to put back what you don't use or weigh the partial remaining skein & update your spreadsheet. If you use up all of that yarn, just delete that entire row. Or put a note in the far right to buy more next time you're at the yarn shop.

6. WIPS

On the 2nd tab of the spreadsheet, there is an inventory for your wips. (work in progress) It's pretty self-explanatory, so go ahead and list out that information. I add a note sometimes with the container it's in, such as "blue flower tote", or you can store those in those clear vacuum seal bags if you are working on other things. I also write out a little index card for what hook I'm using and the name of the project, and if I have a printout of the pattern, I put that in the bag as well. If you want to have the yarn available, then don't store it with the project, but add it to your inventory instead. You run the risk of not having enough yarn to finish that project but sometimes you gotta prioritize! 

Anyway, I hope this was helpful to you! I feel as if it's a never-ending battle with the stashes upon stashes of crafting supplies, but at least we can hopefully tame a bit of the chaos of being a creative, expressive person!

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