Downsizing a Pattern Stash

This morning, at our charity crafter's session in our senior MHP's clubhouse, a resident dropped of about two dozen knitting books and magazines. Only one of our five knits. She is still recuperating from an auto accident Christmas week (an ankle fracture and a wrist fracture, both on the left side) and hopes to be back in her home in 10 to 14 days. I'll have to check with her about dropping these off for her to go through. We can always find someone to take what she isn't interested in.

It made me think about my own pattern stash. I do not even want to begin to mentally calculate how many cartons of old crochet pattern leaflets, brochures, magazines, and books I have stashed in my home. That doesn't even take into consideration the ones I've saved from online free pattern sites.

I really do need to go through them, and save only those I know I will use, and pass along the rest. Getting the time is the tricky part. Oh, okay, another tricky part is getting the motivation, if I want to be truthful.

Knitters and crocheters almost always end up with a double-problem when it comes to supplies: their always-multiplying stash of yarn and threads, and their always-multiplying stash of patterns. It is a love affair with our supplies, and like any love affair, it has its good side and its difficult side. The good side makes the difficult side bearable.

All this talk and all these words do not solve my problem - I still have to find the time and motivation to do this. I wish all of you luck in finding it for yourselves, as well.