Organising Your Knitting

Hi everyone, Nicola here, the professional organiser behind Moss & Earth, and today I want to talk to you about what I did and the process I went through to declutter and organise this knitting cupboard in Dormansland, Surrey, UK.

Contents

1. Gather the items to organise

2. Sort the items into groups

3. Declutter your items

4. Plan how to organise your knitting and space

5. Execute your plan

6. Label everything

7. Summary

Before photo of the knitting cupboard

After photo of the knitting cupboard

First off, this was the perfect project for me, because I am a knitter too, and an avid crafter (I've been an illustrator for the last seven years, you can find my work at howellillustration.co.uk).

I also love getting projects like this; it feels like I'm unravelling a mystery.

In this particular project, the knitting paraphernalia and projects were actually dotted around the whole room, in boxes, in drawers and in this cupboard.

Step 1: Gather the items to organise

So, the very first thing we did was gather it all together and put it all in one space. My client wanted to use this cupboard for all of it, which was located under the TV. This is because they often knit at night, in front of the TV, so it made perfect sense for them.

Which brings me on to this point: often people will have an idea of what they want something to look like, but if it doesn't work practically for you, then get rid of the idea, because it'll just end up messy again!

Step 2: Sort the items into groups

Then I set to work: I separated all the wool, and sorted it into colour groups, then all the various knitting needles and practical items like patterns, then I sorted all of the paraphernalia that comes with knitting, things like eyes for toys and buttons.

I put everything in little piles around me, in perfect categories. Anything that looked like real throw-away junk went into another pile for my client to look at later.

The picture above shows what the cupboard looked like once I'd done the first two and a half hour session: all the different wool colours are separated into different bags I found in the client's cupboard.

The other paraphernalia has been sorted into the jars above, some of which were just standard food jars, and some of which I brought with me.

Step 3: Declutter Your Items

This was actually quite a unique case, because we didn't do a declutter here. As everything here was some form of crafting supply, I needed to find a home for all of it, or risk my client having to buy things again!

So, I untangled and rewound all the wool, put the scraps in a little jar, and generally sorted a home for everything.

However, usually, this would be the point at which we'd do a declutter: once it was clear what everything was and how many of each item were present.

A basic rule of thumb for decluttering is to ask yourself: Do I love it? Do I use it? If the answer to both those questions is no, then throw it out!

If it's an item that has meaning to you, I've found that thanking the item, Marie Kondo style, before you relinquish it, really helps any anxiety around it.

Step 4: Plan how to organise your knitting and space

At the end of the first session, I took a load of measurements, and went away to plan the space.

I thought about it for a while, wondering how I was going to get all the wool and paraphernalia organised, but then the solution jumped out at me.

I ended up settling on a design to use the cupboard for the wool, and the draw next to it for all the other items.

I wanted to organise the wool by colour, because I thought it would look attractive and be practical.

Don't underestimate the power of an organisation system looking attractive! It'll make you want to keep using it.

Step 5: Execute Your Plan

With that decided, I designed and built the little cubby shelves out of scrap wood my client provided and some scrap wood I had left in the house. I then stained all the wood white, so it looked nice and clean.

I'm no expert woodworker, but I loved building these, and I will be doing a course in carpentry shortly. It's just that sometimes, if you need something as bespoke as this cubby unit was, you need to do it yourself or pay a lot of money, which wasn't in the budget.

I then put everything else in containers I brought with me, and sorted them into the drawer.

Finally, I made a box for the knitting needles, paired the knitting needles up using coloured rubber bands, hung the box on the back of the door, and popped all the needles in there.

Step 6: Label Everything!

Apart from anything else, if I don't label it all, how will the client understand what I've done? So, the next step was to label everything!

I love the look of an embossed label, and it can be easier for dyslexic clients to read white on black, so I went for these cool, retro embossed labels, which I made with a Dymo Omega Labelmaker.

Always label everything, if something hasn't been assigned to a category, or if there is no category for it, it will just get dumped and you'll end up with a mess again! Take the time to decide how to group that item, and if it needs a new category, make one.

This also happens to be the funnest stage, and leads to the satisfaction of a job well done!

Finally: All finished

And so, after gathering everything together, sorting it into categories, decluttering, planning and building for the space, executing the plan and then labelling everything, I had an organised knitting cupboard for my lovely client. And the satisfaction of both helping someone, and hearing her say 'Gosh, it's life-changing isn't it!'. I hope so.

As always, thanks for reading!

Nicola x