Organizing Needle Stash

After buying duplicates of needles I had in stash (somewhere), I decided to organize my needle stash.

Double Point Needle Stash

My double point needles were in a giant pile inside a notions bag. All cluttered, all mixed up. I’m normally very organized, but for some reason the double points lived this way for years.

I would spend 10-20 minutes digging through the bag each time I needed to find a specific size. And I had no clue what sizes were in there and which ones I needed.

My organizing project discovered I’ve apparently bought 2, sometimes 3 sets of the same size, same brand needles. Pretty hilarious since I can’t imagine what I’ll ever do with 15 double points of the same size since I knit mostly on MagicLoop these days!

Organization by Spreadsheet

I started with a few sheets of paper, writing down the needles I had but it was all disjointed and not in size order. Again, I’m usually very organized and I needed a better list!

Off to the spreadsheets. I haven’t opened one of these since my icky business job which I do not miss a bit. But, this spreadsheet wasn’t as tiresome to build since it was all about the knitting. Funny how that works…

Here’s what I did:

1. Create separate tabs for each cable length, a tab for DPNs, and a tab for crochet hooks
2. Build columns in each tab for metric size (mm’s), US size, brand/type, and notes/quantities
3. Sort the actual needles by tab categories and add them in any particular order
4. Use auto-sort on the metric size column and set to ascending so the list is smallest to largest

That’s it – All organized!

Once I had the spreadsheet built, it probably took me an hour to add all the needles, but now it’s done and I’m all organized! I saved my “needle inventory” to my phone, too, so now wherever I am if I wonder if I have a particular needle in stash, I can check my list.

Seriously, I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner. It was so easy and it’s so convenient. I wasn’t surprised to see most of my needles are Chiaogoo because they are my favorites.

Shopping tip, if you like Chiaogoo, check out Smartisans, an online small business, it’s where I get mine from these days.

Let me know if you have ideas on organizing all the actual needles – my needles are all in separate Ziploc bags with labels. Not great. I definitely need to do something about that next…