Wrapping up year 2015

2015 was a pretty good year for me. I spun 1.5 miles of yarn and knit up 6 miles of yarn.

I am just about finished with the third of five cowls--I need to do the bind-off. I am going to try E. Zimmerman's sewn bind-off, also known as the casting-on cast-off. It is supposed to have a nice neat edge and of course it matches the cast on edge, which I think is perfect. But it requires a tapestry needle and I left all of mine in MN. oops? Oh well, I needed a new Chibi-set of tapestry needles anyway (to carry around with me) so I'll swing by Michael's sometime this week to pick one up.

This was the year I learned to love the hat once more. I made 8 or 9 of them over the course of the year and started planning a bunch more with the stash I have, formerly designated only for shawls or socks.

I had intended to be a selfish knitter this year, only making 6 gifts for others (that was my goal). I had blown by that by the end of April and I finished the year with 18 gifts for others completed, 2 on the needles, 2 hibernating, and 2 that need to be reconsidered. Some of these were fairly small--there's three baby hats and four other wee things-- but still. I do not appear to be good at keeping to this goal. I was much lighter on the knitting for the holidays, just because the end of the year was SO BUSY and I hadn't done sufficient holiday work ahead of time. Good thing the family is understanding.

This was also a great year for spinning. I purchased a Ladybug spinning wheel from a friend and blew through some of my stash fiber. I competed in SpinTheBin2015, finishing in the end >27 oz of fiber for some beautiful spinning projects for that alone. I did another 21 oz outside of that competition, giving me a total of 48 oz or 3 lbs of spinning (wow. dang, go me).

Once again, cold-sheeping has not been 100% successful for me. It's still a goal of mine, to use what I have and love. I have more than 40 pairs of socks that I want to make from stash; more than 20 shawls; four or five sweaters; and tons of toys and other things. I have however begun to notice a trend in my buying habits--I am always compromising on what I really want by looking for something that's "just as good" at a better price point. The result is a stash that has a lot of "and this is gonna be a sweater, except this yarn pills horribly or I don't quite have enough of it so I'll have to shorten it and make it sleeveless or they had this other stuff on sale but not enough skeins so I'm gonna make it stripey." I'm going to work in 2016 towards really only acquiring the things I do love, not the stuff that's "good enough" that in the long run makes me sad or doesn't work.

That brings me smack into 2016's goals:

1) change shopping habits as described above whilst trying to have a net negative stash yardage for this year (not counting handspun)

2) a year of socks. I have lots of sock yarn and it needs some love. I am going to start a pair of socks (or on one or two occasions, a shawl) by the 5th of each month (except Jan, where I'll be running late due to travel) and work on that project for at least 10 hours that month. I don't intend to have 12 completely finished objects but I'd like to make a good start on all of them and really get into that sock yarn stash :)

3) only very precise gifts. I don't care who else decides to produce offspring. I have family and one friend who are truly knitworthy and I can always buy some baby clothes for other people, they'll still feel loved. That means if I feel like casting on a hat in that bulky yarn just to get it out of stash and intend to give it away to Anyone Who Cares Seriously Take It Agh I should take a moment, reconsider, and cast on something I actually want to spend my time knitting on. like that shawl out of 100% silk that I've been promising myself for years, or another pair of socks for my sisters, or I could work on that blasted poncho for mom that's been linger.

4) spin the bin 2016 (see a later post, this'll be its own planning thing, so excited)

5) deal with 3 hibernating projects by the end of the year. This was a good idea this past year, and I finished something, ripped something out, and just randomly bound something off and sent it to someone else by the end of 2015 so this year I'll do the same

6) give up swapping.

Swapping has been a lot of fun but I've reached the point where there's not much I want to leave my stash, and what I wouldn't mind going out no one is interested in. And I wouldn't mind saving the money on postage and the time (usually it takes a full morning, 9-12, to do the post-office run) and stress (2 week turn around is not hard, but I'm so bloody busy I can't seem to hit it). So it's time to call a halt to my 2 year swap-venture, at least for now.