Hobbies & Makers · Mobile + Web
YarnStash: a yarn stash tracker app for the bins you cannot search
Photograph the bins so you know what you own before you buy another colorway.
YarnStash is a yarn stash tracker app for knitters and crocheters whose yarn lives in bins and whose patterns live in screenshots. You photograph every skein, log fiber and yardage, and see which queued pattern you can cast on from stash.
Waitlist Not built yet Updated 5 September 2026
What problem does YarnStash solve?
Yarn arrives faster than it leaves. A sweater quantity from a fiber festival, a sale skein bought for the color, and the leftovers of three finished hats all end up in the same clear bin under the bed. The ball bands come off. The dye lots blur. Six months later you know you own something in a worsted-weight teal, but not how much, and not where. So you buy the colorway again, and it turns up next to the first one when you finally tip the bin out. The other half of the problem is the queue. A shawl pattern needs a set yardage in a set weight, and answering whether the stash already covers it means unwinding skeins and hunting for a band you kept. Meanwhile two works in progress sit in project bags with the needles still in them, and neither one gets finished because you cannot remember which yarn is committed to which.
Skeins calculator
Pattern yardage and skein yardage in, skeins to buy and leftover yardage out, with a safety margin you set.
Free to use. No account. Nothing you type here is stored.
What would YarnStash do?
YarnStash would put the bin in your pocket. You photograph a skein, and the app holds the picture next to the fields that matter: fiber, weight, yardage per skein, how many skeins, dye lot, and which bin it sits in. Scanning a ball band fills most of that in. Patterns go into a queue with the yardage and weight each one needs. The app can then answer one question before you spend money: can you cast this on from stash, and what is left over if you do. Skeins can be marked as committed to a project, so a work in progress stops looking like free yarn. Search is by color, fiber, and weight, and it works with the lid still on the bin.
How would it work?
- 1Photograph each skein and scan the ball band to capture fiber, weight, yardage, dye lot, and bin.
- 2Queue the patterns you want to make with the yardage and weight each one calls for.
- 3Ask whether a pattern is coverable from stash before you order another colorway.
- 4Mark skeins as committed when you cast on, so works in progress stop reading as spare yarn.
Who is it for?
- Knitters with a sweater quantity or two hiding under the bed and no record of either.
- Crocheters buying yarn at festivals who cannot check the stash from the vendor's table.
- Anyone with three works in progress and a queue longer than the bins can supply.
How do you inventory a yarn stash today without a yarn stash app?
Work one bin at a time and do not tip the whole stash onto the floor. Number the bins with a marker or a luggage tag: Bin 1, Bin 2, and so on. Take a photo of each yarn in the bin with the ball band held against the skein, so the fiber, weight, yardage, and dye lot are readable in the shot. If the band is gone, put a sticky note in the frame with your best guess and the word guess on it. Open a spreadsheet on your phone and give it these columns: photo name, brand, colorway, fiber, weight, yardage per skein, number of skeins, dye lot, bin, and committed to. Fill the row straight after you take the photo, while the band is still in your hand. A bin of thirty skeins takes about an evening. Two evenings clears most stashes. Add a yardage total column that multiplies yardage per skein by the number of skeins. This is the column you will use in a yarn shop. Before you buy, look up the pattern's yardage for your size, add a margin for swatching and a longer sleeve, and compare it against what a single colorway in your sheet already totals. Yardage, not skein count, is the number that decides whether a project is possible, because skeins differ in length between brands. Keep the photos in one phone album named for the craft so search stays quick. For works in progress, write the project name in the committed column and the yarn stops counting as available. Once a month, when you finish or frog a project, correct the rows. The sheet is only useful while it is honest about what you have used.
What do people use today?
| Option | Good at | The gap |
|---|---|---|
| Ravelry | A very large pattern database, project notebooks, forums, and a stash section that has been running for years. | It is organized around patterns and projects, so the physical stash is a second record you keep by hand, and it is not built for a phone in a yarn shop. |
| Your phone's camera roll | Free, instant, already in your pocket, and it holds every skein you ever thought to photograph. | Photos cannot be searched by fiber or weight, and a folder of pictures never adds up to a yardage total. |
| A spreadsheet you keep yourself | Exactly the columns you want, totals that add up, private, and free on any phone or laptop. | Nobody opens it at the vendor's table, photos are links at best, and dye lots drift out of date within a season. |
| A notes app with a page per bin | Quick to start, and searchable as text if you are disciplined about the words you type. | No yardage arithmetic, no pattern queue, and nothing that tells you a project is already covered by what you own. |
What would it cost?
Free
$0
- 40 stash items with photos
- Pattern queue and yardage totals
- Search by fiber, weight, and color
Pro
$39/yr
- Unlimited skeins, bins, and photos
- Shop or stash answer for any queued pattern
- Ball-band scanning and dye-lot tracking
- Shopping list for the yarn you still need
Prices are proposed. Founding members lock in the lowest price if we build YarnStash.
Questions people ask
What is a yarn stash tracker app?
A yarn stash tracker app is a record of the yarn you already own: photo, fiber, weight, yardage, dye lot, and where the skeins are stored. YarnStash would add a pattern queue on top, so the record can answer whether a project is coverable before you buy more.
Does YarnStash replace Ravelry?
No. Ravelry is where the patterns and the community live, and YarnStash would not try to be that. YarnStash covers the part that happens in your house: what is in the bins, how much of it there is, and whether it is already spoken for.
How do I get a stash of two hundred skeins into it?
Photograph a bin at a time. Scanning the ball band fills fiber, weight, and yardage, so most skeins take a few seconds each. Leftovers and bandless mystery yarn get a weight and a guess, which you can correct later when you weigh them.
Does it track dye lots?
Dye lot sits on the skein record, and skeins of the same colorway from different lots stay separate in the totals. That matters for a sweater body. It matters much less for a granny square blanket.
Can I use it for crochet as well as knitting?
Both crafts, one app. Hook and needle sizes, yardage, and gauge notes work the same way for either, and the queue does not care which one a pattern was written for.
Does the app work in a yarn shop with no signal?
That is the plan. The stash and the queue would be stored on the phone, so a basement shop with no bars still shows what you own. Photos sync whenever the phone finds a connection again.
How much would YarnStash cost?
A free tier covers a small stash of forty items with photos. Unlimited skeins, ball-band scanning, and shopping lists sit behind a yearly subscription. Prices on this page are proposed rather than fixed.
When will YarnStash launch?
There is no date. YarnStash gets built only if enough knitters and crocheters join this waitlist and say they would pay for it. Joining costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Where does this stand?
YarnStash is a proposal, not a product. This page collects demand from search and answer engines. Askwright builds it only if enough people join the waitlist and say they would pay. Read how this works.