Year of Projects – Plans, Plans, Plans

Note – some links below are to Ravelry. Proceed with caution if you’re one of the people having issues with the new layout.

This year, I’m joining in with the Year of Projects group over on Ravelry. This is a group of bloggers who each come up with their own list of projects (not just knitting!) they want to work on, and work on them through the course of the year, usually posting weekly updates on Sundays. I’m new to the group, but looking forward to joining in with what seems like a great group of people. As I’ve said before, I’m not very good at things that require daily, weekly, or monthly “things to do.” But I’m looking forward to having some structure for this blog, and posting on Sundays seems like something I can do. The “year” goes from July – June, so I’m just in time to get started.

When it comes to knitting, I’m not very good at making plans. I tend to knit whatever I seem interested in at any given moment. That’s the other reason I’m sort of hesitant about this whole YoP thing, but also excited to do it. I will start “easy” with the thought that I’ll work on other projects as they come up and inspire me. This will mean I’ll continue to test knit, do MKALs, and leave it open for amazing new designs released. YoP will be about what projects I want to prioritize getting done in the next 12 months. I’m going to divide my YoP list into 5 main goals:

• Finish longstanding WIPs/UFOs
• Work through sweater stashes
• Make 4 sock pairs from stash yarn
• Make progress on the scrap blanket
• Sew some small things

Let’s dive into those some more!

Finish longstanding WIPs – After my WIP purge in May, this list is much more manageable, but over the next 12 months I’d like to finish the following: I Need a Revelation socks, Danzing Shawl, Catkin Shawl, Great Western Way Shawl, Grandma Shawl, Druid Circle sweater, Larksfoot blanket. Phew! And yes, that’s a lot but actually much better than it would have been before May! I’m hoping doing monthly WIP round ups will help keep me accountable in getting these done.

Work through sweater stashes – I have a bunch of yarn that I bought specifically to make sweaters that is taking up space. I’ve started the Ranch Coat, and my goal is to finish by October for “Rhienbeck” with the yarn my friends and I all bought for “matching” sweaters. Then, I think I’d like to make at least two of these which I have yarn for: Moraine; Corstorphine; Sheffield; Gateau; Ursa

Make 4 pairs of socks from stash yarn – this one is pretty self explanatory. I have a very large amount of single skeins of indie-dyed sock yarn, plus some scraps of commercial yarn that I got from a friend, so I need to start putting a dent in that! 4 pairs is 1 a quarter which seems doable with all these other projects.

Make progress on the scrap blanket – I think I can commit to doing at least 5 squares a month, so that’s 60 squares this year. So, since I’m at 68 squares now, I’d like to be at 128 squares a year from now. Blanket knitting has now become my preferred conference call knitting. If I’m working from home past September, which I think I will be doing at least a few days a week, I might up this goal.

Sew some small things – when my parents moved to a condo last fall, my dad gave me his sewing machine. I have used a machine in the past (did some very basic costuming for the theater in my college) and it’s something I’d like to get back into. But I don’t know if I enjoy it so I’m going to just commit to sewing a project bag, at least one mask, and maybe this apron pattern I have from when I bought it from my friend for right now and if I like it I can start to add some sewing goals to this!

So, that’s my year of projects! I think it will go pretty well. I know if I tried to plan out every little thing it would not so I think this is a really good starting point!