Guidelines for Stashing Down

 My stash problem goes back quite a few years.  I know this because I joined the Great Stash Knit Down group on Ravelry in December 2007, and I have been trying to get the stash under control ever since.  Just about everything I know about stashing down comes from the members of the group who have been on this journey with me.  So here are my guidelines for stashing down, learned the hard way over the past 14 years:

1. Stop buying yarn.  Once you start concentrating on using your stash, it can be easy to fool yourself into thinking that adding to your stash is no big deal.  I did really well using stash yarn for the first two years and then wiped out all my gains with only a few ill considered purchases.  Trust me, it is a lot faster to buy yarn than it is to use it up once it is in your possession.
2. Keep away from temptation.  Avoid your LYS.  Unsubscribe from yarn store email lists.  Avoid yarn catalogs.  It is a lot easier to "cold sheep" when yarn is not in front of your face constantly.
3. Multi-stranding is brilliant.  This is something I don't do very often, but I intend to incorporate it more into my crafting life going forward.  Just remember that the thicker the yarn, the harder it is to multi-strand.  2 strands of lace weight yarn are the equivalent of fingering weight.  2 strands of worsted (size 4) yarn are the equivalent of super bulky and will make a very heavy afghan (or anything else that isn't designed for super bulky yarn).  But if you want to see yarn fly out of your stash, I can't think of a faster way to do it.
4. If the pattern and the yarn aren't playing nice together, try something else.  I am fortunate that I knit and crochet, so I can switch from one craft to the other.  I have often found that if a yarn doesn't want to be knit up, it will work very well being crocheted.  Some yarn is horrible when crocheted, but responds really well to being knitted.  I have been able to use up some difficult yarns this way.
5. Always try to finish the entire skein of yarn.  This is surprisingly harder than it sounds.  For acrylic yarn, I have a box for the ends of skeins that can be made into scrap afghans, but other types of yarn are more challenging.  However, ultimately it is far easier to keep an accurate inventory of yarn on Ravelry if you finish the whole skein.
6. If you like to read, audiobooks are your best friend.  Unfortunately, I have never gotten into audiobooks, so I can't put this one into practice right now. Maybe someday.
7. Focus on just a part of your stash at a time.  This makes the task seem much less overwhelming.  I know that I don't have a lot of sport or bulky weight yarns in my stash, so if I ever get my WIPs under control, I intend to work on those two categories first, then move on to other parts of my stash.