I'm always looking for ways to whittle down my yarn stash. Here's my bin in its current state:

I have hardly any acrylic yarn left, which is good because I want to work more with natural fibers, but crummy because it's cheap and I can buy a lot of different colors to work with. I have very little red, yellow, or black yarn. When everything is just crammed together in one big bin, it's hard to figure out projects to use it up.

So I've decided to pick out several different types of yarns, the ones I always pass over for something more in my comfort zone, and look for projects that would use that type of yarn.

Here are the yarns I picked out. It's mostly the finer weight stuff. I have some silk in white with flecks of pink and purple, a spring green yarn I picked up in a grab bag from the Latimer Quilt Museum, some sock yarns, a forest green yarn with strands of silver, and a bag of cotton yarn.

Project Ideas:

• Christmas tree filet wall hanging (green and silver yarn)

• More sweater ornaments (silk, pink, spring green yarns)

• Bathroom shelf basket (cotton yarns)

• Hat, mitten, stocking Ornaments (various yarn types)