I spend endless hours on Ravelry, searching, day-dreaming, getting inspired. It’s like knitters porn for me to cruise people’s gorgeous projects. I love it all. However, I barely graze the surface of what Ravelry can do–I rarely participate in forums, I’ve never queued anything, and most tragically of all, my stash was empty.

Enter Rayna. Organizer of Things. Kicker of Butts. Grand Poobah of All Things Fiber.

Rayna offered to come over and boss me around organize my stash. Now, while my stash is about half the size of Rayna’s, it is no small thing. Also, there were a few dozen balls of yarn that had been wound in a bout of optimism, and then left that way, their ball-bands gone the way of the dodo.

Then there’s vacation yarn. “Where did you get this?” She’d ask. “Um…. Nova Scotia? Montreal? Calgary? Boston? No, I don’t remember the store. No, I don’t remember when”. Rayna’s poker face at these moments was admirable.

Over the next 4 hours I held up yarn, raked my memory and took photos. Rayna asked questions, did math, and rocked out data entry. She was brilliant and patient and hilarious. She also showed me that there is a whole world of Raveling that I haven’t touched yet. I’m still quietly amazed that, with a kitchen scale and a little math she deduced (and recorded) exactly how much I had in the way of partial skeins… that’s never even occurred to me.

At the end of it, this

…had turned into this:

And this:

…had turned into this:

Thank you Ray, for making something that sounded like a nightmare so much fun I could have gone twice as long (though you might have throttled me by then). You’re a rockstar!

Check out my schmancy new stash page here–and it would be lovely if you would add me as a friend on Ravelry while you’re at it–I’m going pro!