What to do with Yarn Labels?

When first start knitting,

I never knew what to do with my yarn labels. I thought of them like water bottle labels; it was only their to tell me the brand and that’s it. Which usually led me to throw them away when they slip off the yarn balls. What a huge mistake that was.

Deciphering Yarn Labels

Later, I came to find out that yarn labels have all kinds of useful information on them. Like the weight of the yarn, what size needles are recommended to be used with it, yardage and what material the yarn was made out of. Things that use to mean nothing to me become so important over time.

For example, I’d find a pattern online to make a scarf so I just buy two balls of yarn and start working on it only to discover that my scarf came out too short because I didn’t pay attention to the yardage (how much yarn I would need to complete the project.) Or I make a hat and go to wash it only to have it it come out too small because I didn’t pay attention to the washing instructions on the yarn label. Point is, proper acknowledgement of the yarn label can make you’re project a success.

So now that you know the important information that yarn labels contained the question that remains is, what the heck to do with them?

Quick backstory:

I used to knit with the outside string rather then with the center pull (it never occurred to me that their was another yarn end that I could start with) this cause my yarn to be jumping to and fro all the time. So much so I started putting my yarn balls into Ziploc bags to get them to stay in one place. As I knitted the ball would get smaller and the label would slip off and stay in the bag.

Bam! A thought hit me.

Why don’t I just store my labels in a Ziploc bag. So I dictated one bag to hold all my yarn labels but I didn’t stop their. I found a post on Tumblr for a yarn binder. I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Now I didn’t have to rummage through my label bag looking for that one label. I could turn pages at my leisure to find the yarn information I need by simply looking for the color of yarn I was using.

To wrap it all up

Keeping you’re yarn labels is important. It can keep you’re projects from being a disaster. I still keep my labels because “I am human thus I err.” They are always that one thing I forget to write down so off to digging into my labels I go.

PS: The way you store it is up to you. Sticking them in a bag was a quick and easy solution for me.