Collect other bits as you come across them. Things like French knitting dolls, which make tubes of knitting, daisy wheels, and pompom and tassel makers.

You never know when you will need them. Make sure you keep the instructions in a place where you can locate them. I have wasted hours trying to work out what on earth to put where. I now have a special drawer for instructions. I intend to get rid of a card which explains what to do with a panda faced watch that I threw out twenty years ago, and little books about cameras so old that they should be in a museum. I’ll also throw away manuals about long gone kitchen appliances, tons of juicers and sandwich makers.

Soon.

30.

Plastic milk crates keep my knitting life in some sort of order. Unfortunately, when I bought them, the wholesaler only had pale green or cream boxes, a bit mumsy for me, but I don’t really see them any more. I have more than a hundred and every one is in use. They almost cover a wall in my workroom (sorry, the studio) and the stacks have spread to the garage. My yarns are easily accessible, labelled and all sorted into colours, yarn types and any other way they can be catalogued. I can find one ball amongst zillions in a moment, and dismantling a stack of boxes to get to the bottom box is wonderful exercise.

All my yarns, sitting in cardboard boxes, in another garage, in another life, sucked up water during a flash flood. My helpers and I washed thousands of balls of yarn for days and days and days, ran out of space to hang wet hanks, and had to throw away so many precious treasures that couldn’t be saved. At least the water would have to be quite high to get into the milk crates. They make me feel as if my yarns are safe.
 
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