Goodbye 2012! Overall this year pretty much balanced out between good times and less good times, but the back end was definitely overloaded with crap, and created situations that are unlikely to improve any time soon, so I’m not particularly looking forward to 2013.
Knitting-wise, this was an incredibly productive year. Without planning to, I knit six garments for me that worked out (and one that didn’t). And as you saw in the last Sweaterday post, I’m a little more than halfway finished with another one.
This is the first year I’ve churned out this many sweaters since the original launch Sweater Odyssey a couple of years ago. And this was mostly accidental. I’ve got a good amount of yarn queued up to knit a few more sweaters and cardigans next year, which is awesome, because sweaters get rid of a lot more yarn than socks do.
I did knit three pairs of socks this year, in addition to six shawls/scarves and a few hats (one of which still needs to be sewn together, oops). Quite a few baby projects were made for a few babies who debuted this year.
Oh yeah, there was that Loki scarf too.
I had a goal to not buy much yarn to help save money for my trip to Paris, and while in general I did pretty good with that—didn’t really impulse buy much yarn—I did keep buying yarn to knit those sweaters. And I knit them up pretty much as soon as the yarn appeared. So that’s good. But next year, I really need to buckle down and knit from my stash and not add to my stash via my own means (meaning, if someone sends me yarn as a gift, obviously I will accept it and love it, and I can buy yarn for other people, but I can not buy yarn for myself). I have a ridiculous number of pattern + yarn-in-stash match-ups and I need to work through the queue.
So my two knitting goals for 2013 are:
- Knit from the queue. I only finished around 25 projects this year (partly because the Loki scarf did take up a bit of time—I figure next year I could knock out about thirty projects, depending on the size and complexity). I have about 140 patterns matched to yarn in my queue. I’m set for a while.
- Don’t buy yarn. I obviously don’t need any yarn. I have enough projects to keep me entertained from here to the next apocalypse without fail.
Pretty simple, really! Here’s hoping I can stick to them. Are you making any crafting goals for the new year?
I’m going to join your Lilac Wine KAL which is my first KAL ever. I too must knit from the stash, and not keep buying yarn. My project list isn’t nearly as long as yours, but I’ll never get any of it done if I keep adding.
Congrats on finishing so many projects! What a productive year!
If you ever feel the need to buy yarn that cannot be added to your stash, you know where I live.
[…] Threadpanda – Year in Review 2012: Rightfully celebrating a very productive year of sweater knitting, and the creation of the incredible Loki Scarf, which throws me into ecstasies every time I see it. […]
This year seems to be the year of the sweater. I have really admired yours all through the year.
I was secretly trying to knit from the stash all year. I did ok knitting personal projects from stash. But I had designs and gifts that kept needing yarn I didn’t have. Oh well.
Sounds like pretty reasonable, reachable goals. Good luck!
Those are some great goals for 2013. I’m trying to stick to a yarn diet, which mostly works, but I’m going to try to be more strict about it in 2013.
I’d also like to try something new, perhaps plunge into steeking and take some interesting classes on Craftsy.