Knitters often joke about achieving SABLE (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy). The truth is, though, many of us do in fact have enough yarn that we need to store some of it for an extended period. Yarn, however, is frequently made from materials that can be damaged if stored improperly.
In today’s blog post, we’ll be looking at several aspects of yarn storage, from pest control to the form your yarn should be in while storing it. Some of these tips apply to all yarns, while others are specific to natural fibers or synthetic fibers. Armed with this information, you’ll be able to make sure your yarn is in usable condition no matter when you decide to pull it out of storage.
Storing Yarn to Avoid Pests
Whenever I talk to knitters about their yarn stash, the most common concern I hear is a worry about pests, especially moths. Moths aren’t the only things that like to eat yarn, though. Silverfish and carpet beetles also love a tasty, fibery snack.
So what can you do to avoid this problem? Well, there are a few solutions, and a couple common tactics that are actually not that helpful.
First, let’s talk about plastic, airtight storage. A lot of knitters think storing yarn in vacuum-sealed plastic bags is the best way to protect them from bugs. This is actually not a great idea, for two reasons. First, vacuum-sealing compresses the fibers of the yarn and puts strain on them. That makes the yarn more fragile and prone to breaking. Second, plastic bags don’t actually keep pests out. While the pests can’t digest the plastic, they’ll chew through a thin layer to get to the stuff they can digest, like wool and silk.
But if plastic bags don’t work, what does?
Depending on where you live and what your weather is like, there are two options I’d suggest. More about humidity and temperature in a moment.
If you live in less humid places, large plastic bins with sealed lids are a good option so long as you don’t pack the yarn too tightly. Remember, we want the yarn to be able to breathe and not be too compressed.
If you live somewhere more humid, lidded bins might not be a great option. That’s because the lid may trap moisture in with your yarn. I would recommend baskets with lots of airflow and moving around the yarn in the basket regularly.
Regardless of where you live, a cedar chest or box can also be a great yarn storage option. I use cedar sachets all over the place in my storage, and that seems to have been helpful, too.
Managing Humidity and Temperature in Yarn Storage
Humidity and temperature are also significant concerns when storing yarn. Too much humidity can result in mold or mildew growing in your yarn. High temperatures can weaken the fibers and make them prone to breaking.
This means that storing your stash in attics or basements is not always a great idea. Attics tend to get very hot in summer and cold in winter, and if your roof springs a leak, that’s the spot that will get hit first. Basements are also prone to being cold and damp or having flooding issues.
If you’re like me and tend to take really hot showers, you probably also don’t want to store your yarn too close to where the steam from your showers might travel. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who stores their yarn in the bathroom, but sometimes we have minimal storage options!
Finally, it’s worth considering the environment where you live when you decide on where to store your yarn, too. If you live somewhere that gets very hot and humid during the summer, for example, you’ll want to think about putting your yarn somewhere that minimizes its exposure to heat and moisture.
Avoiding Unnecessary Strain on Fibers
One thing about storing yarn that is different from storing finished objects is thinking about how to avoid putting unnecessary strain on the fibers.
The first thing to do is to try and keep the yarn in its original sale format until you’re ready to use it. That means that if the yarn comes twisted up as a Hank, keep it twisted up as a Hank. If it comes in a ball, keep it in a ball. Don’t wind it up until you’re ready to use it. That’s because the process of winding the yarn stretches the yarn slightly, and that puts added tension on the yarn that can stress it.
The second thing to remember is that, as I mentioned above, you shouldn’t be storing your yarn in a vacuum sealed bag. Some yarn companies ship in a vacuum-sealed bag for purposes of minimizing the size of the shipping box. If your yarn arrives in this condition, break that vacuum seal when you get the yarn and let it breathe. A vacuum-sealed bag compresses the fibers, which is great for shipping, but isn’t great for long-term storage. It’ll put strain on the yarn and make it more likely to break.
Minimizing Risk of Tangles
For some of us, our stash consists primarily of leftovers from other projects. That’s definitely a large component of my own stash! And when that happens, it’s really common for the leftover bits and bobs to end up tangled together. There are a few ways to avoid this.
One is to use dividers in your storage container for the leftover balls of yarn. These sock drawer dividers, for example, can be a great tool. You can also make your own using some cardboard.
Another option, if you live somewhere that’s not too humid, is to put the balls of yarn into individual baggies. You might even fit two or three coordinating balls in each baggie if they are small enough.
If the balls are very small, I like to pile them all into a bowl and just be careful when I’m moving things around in it. This is admittedly not an ideal solution, but with such small leftover balls, I tend to use them up pretty quickly.
Finally, you can use yarn cozies to secure the ends on larger balls of leftovers. This can get expensive if you have a lot of leftovers, though, so it may not be the best option for every situation.
Reducing Sun Damage
Sun damage is something we don’t often think about, but it can be a real problem for yarn storage, especially for hand-dyed yarn. That’s because the sun both fades and weakens yarn. The last thing you want is to pull your yarn out of storage and find that the parts of it exposed to the sun are really faded while the parts that were in shadow are still their original color.
To minimize that risk, try to keep your yarn out of direct sunlight. That could be a simple as just putting your yarn on some shelves that are far enough away from a window, or you could be a little more aggressive and keep it in a dresser or closet.
Dust, Pet Dander, and Other Particulate Matter
Yarn is much harder to wash before it’s worked up into a finished object, so it pays to keep surface contaminants off it if you can. There are a few ways to do that.
One is to keep your yarn in a container with a lid. This is the easiest approach, though if you like to be able to see your yarn, it’s less appealing than option two.
Option two involves shelving with glass doors. You can go the sleek and modern route with the classic Ikea Billy cupboards and glass doors. There’s also my favorite option, which is finding a vintage china hutch on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. You’ll often get just as much glass-door storage with sturdier construction for a cheaper price. I’ve even written a guide for finding good vintage furniture on Facebook Marketplace.
Scents from Your Environment
One of the best things about wool is that it’s naturally odor-resistant—but that doesn’t mean it’s odor-proof, and there are lots of other fibers your yarn might be made of.
To a certain extent, it’s hard to prevent odors from our homes from attaching to the things in the home. Just about every home has a scent of some kind (mine smells like potted plants and books, which I only really notice when I come home after a long time away).
Some odors, however, are particularly difficult to get out of fabrics and can be especially irritating to others (relevant if you’re giving finished items as a gift or looking to destash yarn). The most common culprits are pet odors, cigarette smoke, cooking scents, and artificial perfumes.
For all of these, the easiest solution is to keep your yarn stored where it won’t be exposed to those odors. That might look like keeping yarn in airtight plastic containers or a cedar chest. It could also mean keeping the yarn in a separate room where the sources of these scents aren’t allowed or the door is always closed.
But here are some other quick tips that can help minimize scent issues in your yarn stash.
Quick Tips to Minimize Scent in Yarn
- To reduce pet odors, make sure that your pet’s supplies are kept clean, especially their toileting space.
- If you have a cat who is having continence issues (been there myself with a few elderly cats), plastic bags and up-high storage will be your friends.
- Dogs with water-breed backgrounds can get especially pungent because of the oils in their coats (hi, fellow Lab lovers!), so grooming them regularly helps with that.
- Strong-smelling pet food dishes, like saucers with wet cat food, should be washed regularly.
- Cigarette smoke lingers, so the best way to keep the scent out of your yarn is to avoid smoking near the yarn. If possible, also avoid handling the yarn immediately after smoking.
- Despite various prejudiced myths floating around, nearly every culture has at least some foods that smell strongly when cooked. Whether you’re using lots of spices, frying in oil, or just baking up a nice salmon fillet, you can help minimize the likelihood of that scent settling into your yarn by opening windows (if available) and turning on the range fan (this may be obvious to some readers, but when I was growing up, I thought it was just to clear away smoke from burned food).
- If you can close off your kitchen, the room where your yarn is stored, or both while cooking, that can also minimize the flow of scents from one area of your home into another.
- Synthetic scents (like those found in fabric softeners, many candles, and air fresheners like Febreeze or Glade Plug-Ins) can be especially challenging for two reasons. One is that they tend to be more likely to trigger negative reactions, such as allergies or migraines, in certain people. The other is that many of them are engineered to be ultra long-lasting. Ever bought a piece of second-hand clothing with a synthetic perfume scent that you can’t get out even after several washes? Yep. Me too. Your best bet is to avoid applying them to your yarn at all. Better a wooly smell than a synthetic scent that the new owner can’t get rid of.
Accessibility and Organization for Ease of Use
Now this is where things get both fun and tricky. Different people have different needs, and this is just as true when it comes to storing our yarn. When thinking about accessibility and organization, consider the following questions:
- How tall am I? If I put the yarn up high, will it be a pain to get it down? Will the range of motion in my shoulders also cooperate with up-high storage?
- How flexible am I? If I store the yarn down low, like in an under-bed storage container, will I be able to get it out easily?
- How strong am I? Will I be able to easily lift a 20-gallon storage tote full of yarn, or should I store in smaller containers?
- How often will I need to access my stash? Am I adding/pulling out yarn regularly or just occasionally?
- How tidy do I need my space for me to feel comfortable? Will having the yarn out and visible be a distraction for me?
- When I’m reaching for yarn for a new project, what aspect do I think of first? Should I sort the yarn by color, weight, fiber content, or something else?
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here. I wish there were, because I love helping to solve problems! But these questions will help you reach some good conclusions.
Rotation to Minimize Many Yarn Storage Concerns
There is one magical technique that really helps to cut back on the risk of a lot of these problems. It’s rotating your yarn.
What I mean by that is that periodically, you should move your yarn around. Take it off the shelves or out of the bins, get some fresh air in there, shake out any dust, etc. Bugs that eat yarn, plus other problems like mold and mildew, thrive in dark, still places. The more you move your yarn around, the less likely you are to have some of these problems show up in there.
There’s no set frequency for how often you should do this, but I try to move the yarn around every couple of weeks or so. It doesn’t have to be a big production. Sometimes, I just shove my hands in and tumble the skeins of yarn over each other.
Storage Concerns Specific to Acrylic and Nylon Yarns
I have heard several people say that they prefer knitting with synthetic yarns because bugs don’t eat them. While that’s less likely, I have found bugs in very old skeins of acrylic yarn, so don’t ignore this blog post just because you don’t use natural fibers.
In addition, there are some storage concerns specific to acrylic and nylon yarns. One is that because these yarns are essentially made of plastic, you need to be thoughtful about the temperature where you store them. It’s not a good idea to keep these yarns in the attic, especially if you live somewhere that gets hot during the summer. Attics can get very warm, and that heat can damage or even start to melt the fibers in the yarn.
In addition, because these synthetic yarns are made of plastics, they can degrade overtime and become brittle, even with excellent storage practices. You can reduce the likelihood of that degradation by minimizing their exposure to sunlight, but time press presses ever forward, and there’s no way to completely prevent its effect on synthetic yarns. This is just one of many reasons I’m such a firm believer in using my stuff while I can.
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