A Great Idea!

I love the Yarnathon at ESK, and I was reading Rav this morning where someone questioned how many miles of yarn were stashed by Ravelites. And I thought to myself, “I wonder how many miles I could crochet/knit this year?”

One mile is 1760 yards. I have 57,712 yards of yarn in my stash currently (in my regular stash – not in my trade/sell stash and this number may go down as I reevaluate if I want to put any more in the raffle). That is 32.79 miles of yarn!

I want to make a concerted effort this year to crochet/knit as much stash as possible. Now, a lot of these yards are dishcloth cotton, which I don’t really count as stash. The yarn will keep for years, one needs a variety of colors for various gift-giving events, and, well, it’s cheap. So I don’t worry too much about it. I have three sweaters-worth quantities in there, two long skirts-worth, and three adult-sized afghans-worth. And I don’t want to count how many skeins of lace-weight that I just fell in love with… So I don’t think it is quite as bad as it sounds. LOL!

But, I do want to make 2009 the Year of Handmade. I’m going to make a committment to crafting away 10 miles of the yarn in my stash.

And I think I’ve got enough projects in my stash that I shouldn’t need to buy new yarn for at least 6 months (with an exception for 4 skeins that are being special ordered). Ouch. 6 months! But I’m going to do it this year. I was horrible with the “craft from stash” resolution last year because it became apparent that I just didn’t have project-based yarn amounts. Therefore, I amended my resolution and I only bought for a project in 2008 so I’m all set.

Who is with me?? How many miles are you going to craft this year?

ETA:  I have created a Page to keep track of my progress.  View it here. Or my clicking “2009 Challenge at the top of the screen.