06 December, 2009

Resolutions 2010

Anyone who has followed this blog for long knows that I failed miserably at all of my 2009 resolutions. Throughout the year, you will see post after post of my attempts to find a way to make it work out, only to end up with more yarn then I started with. I did succeed in one of my goals that I set for myself later in the year: I managed to use up a good-sized portion of my random skeins of fingering and sport weight variegated yarns. There's a reason 2009 was a big year for hats and shawlettes for me.

It was a bad year for reducing stash size, and I was not the only one feeling it, as my Yarn Snobs group can attest. The monthly diets were fun, but more of a yardage tally then a stash reducing effort for the majority of us. Stash down groups and threads were all over the place on Ravelry and more are popping up this month. One group has a thread about going Cold Sheep in 2010; pretty cute name for stashing down. The NaKniSweMoDo group is setting up for their 2010 challenge, which I'm taking part in. It's a dodecathon: 12 adult sweaters in 12 months. Many have echoed the sentiment that they would like to knit solely or mostly from stash this next year. Excess stash seems to be plaguing the online knitting community as a whole; it makes me wonder about our counterparts who do not participate in Ravelry or maybe have no internet access at all.

Right now, I'm participating in the test mini-quarter of our 2010 Stashdown effort. To date, I am doing pretty well: averaging 2 yards out for every yard bought. Something rather amazing has happened in the last month of participating in this effort. I have found the zen in regards to yarn buying that I spent the rest of the year desperately trying to find. When I wasn't looking, I found some of the peace I was trying to buy with yarn. I did make one large purchase at the very beginning of last month, but about mid-way through, yarn lost its temptation for me. I ignored all of the Black Friday yarn sales. Good ones. At my favorite online yarn stores. Even the one I consider to be my virtual LYS.

If I can keep in this frame of mind, my resolutions for 2010 will be easy peasy to keep and I won't feel so embarrassed by my complete failure with almost double the yarn I started the year with. I've been mulling them over for months, wondering how big of a fall I was setting myself up for. Now, I think it just may work, so I'm going to blog about my knitting goals in 2010. They're solidified now and I'm hoping I've found ones that I can stick to but are still challenging.

Most of these revolve around the fact that while I love knitting and have been having a torrid, passionate, and mostly exclusive love affair with it for the last two years, I do indeed have other hobbies I'd like to work on but can't, because I feel obligated to use up most of my yarn first. My stash has become a hindrance to my creativity in other areas; something a lovely bunch of yarn should never be. Stash is nice, but perhaps having more then a dozen sweaters' worth of yarn in one's tote is a bit excessive. For me, anyway.

My ultimate goal for 2010 is to get to the point that in 2011, I can quilt, sew, read, art, embroider, or whatever-else-my-heart-desires without feeling obligated to knit a sweater first. I hope to find balance in my hobbies.

To achieve this, I plan to:
  • Continue to knit down my random fingering weight skeins of yarn. I would love to complete a minimum of 3 pairs of socks in 2010 as well as 2 other accessories using that type of yarn.
  • Make a good effort to win one quarter of the Snob's Stashdown 2010. In my fantasy world, I will be the Stashdown Queen for the year. I'm hoping to make 2 out of 4 quarters with no yarn purchased/in, just yardage out. Hopefully, I will not be gifted or given yarn either, since these will count against me.
  • Participate in the 2010 NaKniSweMoDo challenge almost entirely from stash. I plan to purchase the yarn for one sweater later in the year, after I have cleared several times more out of my stash. I will not do this until I am about to cast that particular project on. At the end of the year if I make it to 12 sweaters in 12 months (or beyond!), I plan to reward myself with buying yarn for one new sweater project of my choice--this could also be a skirt or a dress project.
If I can do all of these things, I should start 2011 the way I want to: with 2-3 sweater quantities in my tote and a small handful of other projects to work on when I feel like it. If all goes well, I will be able to resist impulsive stashing and purchase yarn for a project when I'm ready to work on it. Because truly, that is the greatest crime my current situation has committed against me. I am unable to purchase yarn for a new pattern I love now because I have so many obligations already in stash.

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