Planning ahead

When it comes to knitting, I’ve decided that a better approach, for me, is to plan ahead as much as possible. It’s good for me to know what I want to do, so I don’t end up with a million WIPs; even if I’m not loving a project while I’m in the middle of it, I can look at my list and say “well, this is on the list, so I’m going to work on this for a little while and then come back to this other thing.”

My momma would be so proud; she used to struggle with me to plan my clothes for school the night before. (I do, occasionally, plan out my work clothes the night before, but usually only because I’m excited about a new outfit or crazy color combination.)

I have a few crafty ideals for next year, two of which are very important to me. The first being no buying yarn. My stash is out of control. There are a few “get out of yarn diet free” cards:

• If I’m making a project for someone else (like as a gift or in a swap) and I absolutely do not have a suitable yarn (“suitable” here meaning a yarn in the right weight for the project, and in a fiber that the recipient is not allergic to), I can buy yarn for that project; but I have to post it here as part of my accountability.
• I’m planning to go to Maryland Sheep and Wool, and I am allowed to set a pre-determined budget and buy yarn or fiber so long as it is a) something I do not have in my stash already; b) something I cannot find easily in a local yarn store; c) within that budget.
• An indie dyer friend of mine is doing a yarn club next year that I am very excited about (and no, I’m not telling you what it is). She’s holding a lottery for spots, and if I am lucky enough to win a spot in that club, I will be buying that yarn. But this depends on my luck with a random number generator, which isn’t usually so good.

So the goal is to knit from stash and to be creative about using up the yarns I have. I’ve got enough fingering weight yarn for a slew of socks, and I’ve got enough yarn in sweater quantities that I should be able to hold out the whole year.

The other important goal is to knit 12 pairs of socks in 2011. That’s a pair a month. I’m planning on doing this something like The Yarn Harlot’s self-imposed sock club, but I’m not able to be quite as organized as she is; some of my patterns are from books, others still exist virtually as PDFs, and since I’m hoping to get an e-reader of some kind in 2011, I don’t want to waste the paper printing them out. BUT, in the next couple of weeks, I will list out my top 15 pairs of socks to knit, and then I will use a random number generator each month to choose the sock of the month.

Anyone interested in going for a pair of socks a month with me, or attempting a yarn diet? Solidarity, folks!