A new stash credit plan

I’ve been thinking about my stash credits and how well they worked last year. It seems that I am fairly motivated by having a counter in the corner. I did a pretty good job of cleaning out some of my stash items and when I did go buy thread last year I didn’t feel guilty about doing it when I already have a big stash. It is nice to know that some of my experiments work out nicely.

This year I want to continue to rein in my stash. In particular I need to work on my specialty threads so I am going to modify my stash credit scheme to help motivate me.

First of all I am going to reset the number to zero. There’s no point in carrying over a three digit total when all that will do is let me justify buying new thread. I’m a little sad to see it go but… bye bye 104 credits for 2009. Hello 0 for 2010.

The second thing I am going to do is modify the points I get for using perle cotton. Since I really want to use other threads this year I want to weight them more in the credits, but I don’t want to credits to accumulate too quickly. So, perle cottons (#5 or #8) will be worth a half point when I use them or one full point when I use up a skein. Other fibers will be worth one point when I use them or two points when I use up a skein. That means I get double the points if I dig into the specialty fibers; that should be motivating!

I am being very liberal in defining ‘specialty fibers’ here. Basically I mean non-perle cotton fibers so that it also includes the small stash of floss that I rarely pull from. It would be good to use that up too.

Since I am pretty good at using up the old wrap odds and ends that I had hanging around I think I will stop giving myself points for them entirely.  But, since I do have a good sized collection of wrap threads in general, I will charge 2 points for new additions there just like I do for all other new additions.

So, let the new stash credit counting begin! I am going to start off positive because I just finished another temari! I can’t share it with you yet but I can count the points… 9 colors of #5 perle for 4.5 credits.

Don’t worry, I’ll share the temari with you soon as well as two others that I did last year in the same pattern. It is someone else’s to share first so I am waiting.