Although most of my stash is in quantities to make substantial projects, I don’t necessarily have something specific planned for them.  I usually buy something I like or that is on sale in “sweater quantity” and then just wait until creativity strikes.  I could easily match yarn with people on my gift list though.  Which brings me to Project Sanity.  In addition to being a great way to prevent one from going crazy around the holidays it could really make a dent in stash yarn.  There are some recipients I consider “sweater worthy” and some that I would rather make small projects for but I’m sure I could find the materials for all of them in my stash.  Gift knitting is a little more flexible too since fitting the yarn to the project or person could be easier when doing it for someone else.  So here is the idea and I hope you’ll join in with me.  First, I’ve created an excel spreadsheet to get you started.  The categories so far are very simple:  recipient, due date, yarn, idea and pattern.  Or, you could add the same things to Ravelry as “hibernating” but I think it’s a good idea to be able to sort them by due date.  Over the next month or so, I’m going to decide who gets knitted gifts then look at my stash and patterns to get ideas about what to match to who.  Then it should be pretty smooth sailing.   I’ll try to choose a variety of projects to keep me interested and figure out the timing so that other stuff I want to do goes easily in between.  Voila!  Stress free gift knitting for the entire year.  I’ll see how this goes, but for now please spread the word and just comment here to let me know you’re participating. I’d also love to hear any suggestions for gift knitting you may have. 

Hmm…seems like a good time for another little contest.  Here is a pitiful button for Project Sanity (right click to save).  I know you can do a much better job!  Create a button and email the file to sanitybuttons@divaknitting.com.  I’m not imposing any strict guidelines…just make it roughly “button sized”.  The deadline is January 25th midnight EST.  ETA:  The deadline has been extended to February 8th.  Please help me spread the word!  I’ll choose some of the best then we’ll do a poll to choose the winner.  What do you get?  Yarn, of course! 1

2/11/08: 

It’s time to vote for your favorite Project Sanity button…spread the word! I’ve chosen some lovely Malabrigo lace weight yarn for the winner. You can vote until February 16th. The contestants are listed below the poll.

Button 1

Button 2

Button 3

Button 4

1. yet another fantastic stash management tool [↩]