Eventually, my grocery bags of yarn took over the whole house. I had to get things under control! After reading a few posts online about putting yarn in Ziploc bags and stuffing them in drawers and other multi-shelf organizers, I decided that this might only contain the mess. I could just see myself picking through drawers and still never finding anything I needed. But, at least the Ziploc idea had some merit, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I happened to have a couple boxes of Gallon and Quart bags. Small skeins go in a quart bag, larger ones go in the gallon bag. If I have a lot of one color, I can stuff them all into a gallon bag together. Yarn compresses easily when you squeeze the air out of the bag with just your hands. Those “Space Bag” folks would really be on to something if they could make something as easy and affordable.

That’s a lot of yarn. Just getting it into bags helped relieve me of the concerns of having to deal with tangles and knots, skeins fusing to one another, and ending up with a mass of string that seems to have knitted itself into something with a mind of its own. Yep, the Ziplocs should keep it all sterile.

After getting that part out of the way, I decided that canvas basket drawers would never do the trick for me. I’m the type of person whose food will spoil if it is in the back of the fridge. I need something in plain sight, or it is completely forgotten. So, my husband and I decided to look for some solution where the yarn could be stored one layer deep, and we found just the thing.

Wal-mart had these Sterilite 50-quart wheeled latch boxes that are relatively wide, long, and shallow. I managed to fit ALL of my yarn into two of them, and the lid shuts down easily and now I can roll them under my bed if I need to put them away. When I need my yarn again, all I have to do is roll out the box and grab what I need. No digging necessary. I think that I might like just one more, since this seems to be packed pretty tight, but it’s not a bad start!

Now, to deplete the stash…