Here we are at the end of 2024 and while I've never been big on New Year's resolutions, I do like to take some time at the end of the year to reflect on what I've accomplished in the past year and think about what I would like to do in the upcoming year.
As I sat down today with my new planner I jotted some things down in the front on the "yearly goals" page.
- Net stash reduction
- Knit a pair of Latvian Mittens
- Knit at least 2 sweaters, one of them being from handspun
- Knit at least 6 pairs of socks, prioritizing the skeins of sock yarn I purchased this year that haven't been knit up yet
- Get more experience with a technique I haven't used very often/ever/for a long time
- Spin the yarns from Wool 'N Spinning's Year of Yarn study
- Do at least one sweater blend project on my drum carder
- Spin up another sweater quantity of yarn
- Play more with my blending board
- Play around with luxury fiber blends on my 120 tpi drum for my carder
I thought this was as good place as any to talk about these goals in a little more detail.
My first goal of a net stash reduction necessitates a little bit of an explanation of the how and why of how I've been tracking my yarn and fiber stash for the last couple years. My primary goal is to keep my stash stored safely in the space I have allotted for it. I'm really fortunate to have space in my home that can be a crafting area/office for me and therefore I don't want to be expanding into other areas of the house with my yarn and fiber beyond what I'm actively working on in those spaces and I want my space to remain usable. There's also the whole aspect of keeping my purchases within a reasonable budget and not overwhelming myself with too much to do. As a spinner and a knitter I include fiber from raw wool all the way through to finished yarn in my count. I set up a spreadsheet and have in/out columns for raw fleece, scoured fleece, processed fiber, handspun yarn, and purchased (aka commercial or mill-spun) yarn. I track in grams because that is the easiest way for me to quantify both fiber and yarn. It also means I get a lot of credit for grams out when I scour a fleece or process it which definitely helps move the wool through the process. Long story short, this has worked really well for me the last couple years both on keeping my incoming purchases to a reasonable level and for motivating me to work through what I have and let go of things I really don't want or see a personal use for anymore. It is also nice that it still allows me to bring new things in and therefore doesn't quash my creativity or leave me bored. Both last year and this year I've been able to end the year with a net reduction. I want to do that again.
"Knit a pair of Latvian mittens" is pretty self explanatory. I received one of the mitten kits for Christmas so now I finally have a good sense of the yarn I need to use and I have multiple books with Latvian mitten patterns so I feel all set to either knit the mittens from the kit or another pattern or maybe even multiple. I didn't knit any colorwork mittens at all this year so I am feeling ready to get started on some again really soon.
Knitting a couple more sweaters is on the list as well. I have had years where I've been able to knit several, but for the last couple years I've only managed to finish two for the year. I think in some ways I needed a breather and time to work on other things. I would actually like to make more than 2 sweaters this coming year, but I will feel happy if I can at least maintain my current rate. I have a bit of a backlog of handspun sweater quantities because I have completed several large spins in the last couple years so it is a priority to make at least one of them with handspun. Honestly those are the yarns I am most excited to work with anyway. The handspun sweaters I made in 2023 are at the top of my favorites list.
Next up is my sock goal. I've knit at least a dozen pairs for the past few years, so 6 pairs is completely achievable. I guess I would like to give myself a little bit of a rest on them in some ways, but I also really like to have a pair going at all times. I purchased a lot of sock yarn this past year, some at festivals but some I ordered in colorways that I knew gift recipients would like. I think I have 4 full skeins of fingering weight sock yarn, plus one skein of DK weight sock yarn, and then a half skein and two sets of mini skeins in fingering weight. I would like to use all of that in at least some quantity and I'm sure I will pick up a few skeins this year as well at festivals. I never feel bad about buying sock yarn because I am always using it, but I do want to use it within about a year of purchase before it starts to feel stale to me.
My final knitting goal is a little vague because it is one I want to keep open for exploration. There are several special knitting techniques I've not used much, if at all. Some of them I have maybe tested a little on a swatch once upon a time, or only used in a small quantity, or if I ever used it for something it has been years since I've tried it again. I'm thinking about things like intarsia, double knitting, entrelac, and even brioche. I'm currently working on a project that has a small amount of brioche, but I am not well-versed in it at all. I'm not sure how many of those things I will do, but I would like to do at least a project that has me doing one of them.
Now we are into spinning territory. This is also "learning" territory for me. I joined the Wool 'n Spinning Wool Circle this year to work through Sarah Anderson's book The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs. I was doing really well with keeping on track though the summer, but this fall was really busy and I got behind. I would like to get caught up now. I did do a little sample of the chain-ply yarn with the remainder of a bobbin I had, I feel like that is good enough since I've done chain-ply, but the upcoming yarns will be ply structures I haven't spend any real time on yet. I need to spin up singles to get caught up on October and November's yarns and then I hope to catch up to where the study is in real time and stay on track until its conclusion at the end of 2025.
I have a couple sweater quantities worth of fiber that I processed this year and are now waiting to be spun, I definitely want to get at least one of them done, especially because the next goal is to prep another sweater quantity's worth of fiber on the drum carder. I have commercial combed top I've been wanting to blend up as well as some clean, nice combing waste I want to blend with some sari silk. I want to finally get around to some of these projects now that I'm all caught up on fleeces. Along the same lines, I want to give myself time to play with blending in smaller quantities too. I have a lot of luxury fibers in 4 oz or less that I would like to play around with blending into wool like Mellyknits does in her batts. I just got a 120 tpi drum for my drum carder so that is better suited to that sort of thing and I am really excited to play around with it. I also just want to play around with my blending board more, I haven't really taken it down to play with recently and I have stuff I can use on it.
That's really it, I think it is a good list that has me doing a variety of things but all of them are really achievable. The hardest part may be deciding what to start with!
