Low Impact - Highly Effective - Stash Recording
I've come up with a very effective way to keep up with my Yarn Stash. You could also use this for fabric and probably other things you buy on impulse for later use.
I bought the largest Rolladex I could find at an office supply. I created a tab for all the different yarn weights - Worsted, DK, Bulky, etc.
I then went through my stash and created a card for each of the yarns I had on hand. I cut a little piece of yarn and taped it to the card. I wrote out the amount, gauge, content, suggested needles and any other pertinent label information. If I had several ball or skeins, I actually pasted a label to the card. You could put a location, but right now I have all my wool, silk, cotton separated and know where they are.
Some people say "I just look and see what I have." Well, that's great if you have all your yarn stored in one place and visible. Mine is under the bed, under the desk, in a credenza, on the shelf, etc. etc. To find a particular yarn and to find out how much I have, I'd have to pull each container out and go through it, count the balls, tally up the yardage - not very efficient.
Now, if I have a pattern that calls for 800 yards or worsted, I just go to the worsted tab and flip through each card checking yardage. No more guesswork and no more yarn great yarn getting shuffled to the bottom of a bin.