2014: The Knitting Year in Review

OH HAI blogosphere. Before it mysteriously becomes February, I wanted to do the customary summary of the last year's knitting. I really fell behind on documenting this stuff, and to be honest I probably won't catch up. So this will have to do and I'll try to do better this year!

In 2014, I had 11 FOs.



(All links to my ravelry projects)

Top Row: Tiny Owl by Anna Hrachovec, Rye / Ruista Ranteeseen mitts by Hanne Katajamäki, Catkin Hat by Kate Davies, Grassroots by Melissa Schaschwary.

Middle Row: Wethersfield by Cecily Glowik MacDonald, Dragonflies by Joji Locatelli, Song of the Sea by Louise Zass-Bangham.

Bottom Row: Mini Manu by Kate Davies, Crystalline socks by Cailyn Meyer, Earlybird socks by Cassandra Dominick.

I also made my dad a hat, but I don't have a picture of it yet. I will do a separate post about it when I get a photo, since I'm super happy about this hat!

Thinking back to my knitting goals for 2014, I fulfilled most of them, but not all:

Knit at least two sweaters for myself (check!)
Knit something for my dad (check! For some reason I didn't put this in my original post last year, but it was still a goal).
Knit 14 FOs in 2014 (FAIL.)

What I have learned from this is that goals for sweaters contradict goals for project quantity. I am slow at sweater knitting, and if I want to make sweaters I'll have to sacrifice other output. This is fair. I know it is quality over quantity that counts, but I put in the "14 in 2014" goal because I managed to knit 12 in 2013 and it felt so close!

Bearing this in mind, I have no aim to knit 15 in 2015. I had a hard time coming up with any knitting-specific goals at all, to be honest. However, I have decided that this is the year I need to stash down, so I'm going to focus on that.

2015 goals
1. Stash down, with a few exceptions.

Exception 1: I will buy yarn to make a Pomegranate sweater.

Exception 2: I will buy yarn at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival and/or the yarn crawl, should anything unmissable jump out at me. But I will show restraint!

Exception 3: I will buy yarn to make gifts if I don't have anything appropriate in my stash.

2. Finish allocating yarn to patterns in my Stash Match project, including my sweater-quantities.

So. Here we go!