a new year of knitting

One of my first projects to start off the new year has been to organize my knitting: the yarn, the projects, the patterns, and the plans! Yesterday I tackled the stash. My particular challenges are:
space - we live in a studio apartment
categories - all of the yarn was intermixed
cat - she gets into everything she can reach

Here is the stash in all its messy glory:



These baskets are so disorganized! I have to search every basket for the certain yarn I'm looking for. There are printed patterns everywhere.



Look at all this fiber! I should have like 100 sweaters by now!


First I bagged multiple skeins of yarn together as well as WIPs, re-matching labels with the yarns by wrapping them around with a rubber band. I found that I had several partial balls of some yarns--no more of that now that they're all together! I decided to organize the yarn by weight rather than fiber, because 1) that's how I choose the yarn for projects and 2) it's not being stored in a dark closet or cellar, so no worries about moths. Here are the organized baskets:


Olive kitteh approves of the new orderliness.


Bulky


Worsted


Sport


Fingering (just sock yarn right now)


The last basket has circular needles, swatches, my new winder, and bagged yarn I'm trying to trade/sell.


My notions/current small project box looked a lot better after cleaning out all the extra labels, yarn snippets, and swatches.


I put current projects in my project bag. I hope this will help limit my WIPs.


I collected all of the paper and sorted out the patterns I wanted to keep.


I slipped them all into sheet protectors and organized them into a binder. The sections are by use. Here's is what I have so far:
Techniques
Hats
Scarves
Mittens/Gloves
Sweaters/Tops
Socks
Bags
Baby items
Toys


Here's the finished product, yarn and needles tucks safely away at the top of the bookcase: