New Year Resolutions

Hello everyone, and hello 2025! As we’re starting the new year, you might find yourself asking if you’ve got any new years resolutions. Some find new years resolutions tacky, some find that they can’t stick to them, and others find them motivating! Which camp are you in?

For the past few years I’ve given the year a ‘theme’ more so than a new years resolution, and I’ve found that it worked quite well for me. A short recap: 2023 was the ‘Year of Using What I Have’. I was about to move from the Netherlands to Scotland at the end of 2023, so I wanted to use up as much of my stash yarns and fabrics as I could. I gave away a lot of my yarns so I would have less to move with me (even though I still had a LOT). In 2024 I chose the theme ‘Year of Home’, because I wanted to create some decorations to liven up our rented home until we could move to our own house. That proved to be quite a challenge, and I didn’t get as many projects done as I had hoped. But still, I really liked having a yearly theme as it simplified some project-making decisions.

2025 – The Year of Stash!

For 2025 I chose the theme ‘Year of Stash’, because honestly… there’s too much of it! The past year I’ve been buying a lot of yarns, especially since I got a knitting machine which works smoother with coned yarns. My two main rules for 2025 are:

1. I won’t buy any new yarns
2. I’m going to use up as much stash yarn as I can

My main motivation for this challenge is that I simply don’t have the space to store all of my yarns right now. I still have my own office space at our new house, but it’s not quite as roomy as what I used to have back in the Netherlands. I don’t have that many storage closets, and honestly I don’t want to fill every wall of my room with tons of storage space. So I figured.. If I use it, I don’t need to store it anymore! At the end of the year I hopefully have a more manageable stash. If I still need more storage space then, so be it!

Do you want to join in? It’ll be fun!

Check-in Point Each Month

At the end of each month, I will weigh my current projects to see how many grams of yarn I have used up since the month before. If you want to join, here’s how it works. At the beginning of the month, weigh the yarns of any in-progress projects and note it down somewhere, perhaps in an Excel sheet or a page in your notebook. If you start any new projects it’s the same, note down the weight shown on the label, or weigh your yarns if you’ve already used part of it.

If you want to participate, share your monthly result on social media with #2025YearOfStash

Using up as much stash as possible!

If you want to use up as much of your yarn collection as you can, you want to go for thicker yarns rather than thinner yarns – this will give you fast results and will keep you motivated to tackle the rest of your stash. Ask yourself – are there any yarns you can hold together so you can use up more?

This year I will probably be using my knitting machine a lot, because 1) I want to get better at machine knitting and 2) because it knits a lot quicker. I’ve knit a couple sweaters and a cowl this year, and I want to knit so much more. The knit shown above is a cowl which I’ve knit on my machine using punch-cards. I’ve been meaning to make another one, so I can record a video and show you the process. Check my Youtube Channel for updates! I also want to learn how to knit socks on the machine, so hopefully I can get some pairs finished with stash yarn.

As for handknitting, I’ll be focusing on projects that use up more yarn. I’ve got a crochet granny square blanket in progress which is sure to eat through some balls of yarn quickly. I’ll be knitting more sweaters with DK weight or thicker yarns – I’ve got so many sweater quantities of yarn which I bought yeeeaaars ago, time to transform them into actual sweaters!

Focus on the positive

The first part of my ‘Year of Stash’ is not buying any new yarns. But instead of thinking about all the gorgeous yarns I can’t buy this year, I want to focus on all the lovely yarns I have in my stash which I can work with. There’s yarns from 5+ years ago which I haven’t used yet!

If you do feel like buying yourself something at a yarnstore or yarn show this year, why not get yourself a giftcard so you can treat yourself next year. Or for all the money you are not spending on yarn, get yourself something that would make crafting even more entertaining such as an audio book subscription. Or – this is something I’m thinking of myself – pay for Youtube Premium so you can watch your favourite creators or listen to music without any ads. Perfect background noise for your craft project!

Because I want to focus on the positive things, I’ve not called my challenge ‘No New Yarn’ or ‘Yarn Ban’ or something like that. It focuses on the negative and might not be as motivating. It works the same if you’re trying Veganuary for example – focus on new and exciting plantbased meals to create, and not on the things you’re not ‘allowed’ to eat. By the way, if you’re looking for fun recipes I can highly recommend this website, there’s free online recipes and the physical cookbook is great too (and easy to get on secondhand websites, just saying).

Exceptions

With stash challenges you sometimes want to allow yourself to make an exception. If you want to finish a certain project but you’ve run out of yarn – and you cannot substitute it with other yarn in your stash – you can allow yourself to buy enough yarn to finish the project.

Since I’m a designer, I’m going to give myself the exception to allow any specific yarns for yarn brand collaborations or commissions.

Want to join in?

If you want to join in with the Year of Stash, make sure to share your progress photos on Instagram or other social media with #2025YearOfStash

Happy Stashbusting!