Kinzy Crafts: frog

It's been a pretty good week for me. I made it to work every day this week, I went to the gym once, I got in some healthy grocery shopping, and so much more. More details on non-crafty related items can be found on my personal blog if you are interested.

Now for the crafty goals!

1. Buying yarn. - This is a big fail. But, the majority or yarn I purchased is for specific gifts for specific people, so I am actually OK with this.

2. Using stash yarn. This is actually working for me. I was accepted to do a brioche shawl test knit and I will be using approximately 9 skeins, 3 of each colour, of the luscious Cadena Alpaquita I have in stash. This is going to be a gorgeous and super squishy brioche shawl! I can't wait! Sneak peek below!

3. Finish WIPs. No finishes yet, but I have been working on a few. My Mara is coming along, as well as the New Year's MKAL (I completed clue #1 on time!) and my Shimmering Stole.

4. Frog unloved projects. I frogged another project this week. It feels good. It was another victim of not swatching and ending up super HUGE! 30 inches just for the front...yeah... I am going to see if my mom wants this yarn since it's cotton and she loves cotton.

5., 6., and 7. Nothing to report.

8. Be more social. I went to my LYS knit night on Thursday and it was great to sit around and knit and chat (and buy more yarn of course).

Also did some work on one of my technique goals by accepting the brioche shawl test knit. I am really looking forward to this!

Overall, a very productive week! How did everyone else do?

I am looking forward to 2018 for many reasons. More focused crafting goals are indeed some of them.

Every year I make fitness goals, general self-improvement goals, education goals, and of course crafting goals. Pretty much every yeh I fall flat and blame illness or something else.

This year I am so much more motivated. If you are interested, beyond crafting, feel free to visit my personal blog, Everything Gwenny. I will be posting a 2018 goals entry there as well.

With regards to my crafting goals, the last few years I have made the same goals, and not been very successful at them.

This year I am much more dedicated. After two years dealing with major illness and having to take full sick leaves, I need to spend a year saving and have made some other life goals for this year to help.

My main crafting related goals are as follows:

Try to avoid buying yarn as much as possible.

I am making exceptions for Unique Sheep KALs only this year. No sweater club, geek club, etc. /sadface
I also already preordered some yarn for a specific project, so even though that will be paid for and arrive in the new year I am counting it as 2017 yarn.
I have worked in a way to “earn” yarn buying money with exercise minutes. I will be making a more detailed blog post about this later.

Try use up stash for any new projects.
Try to finish off some WIPs languishing in my pile.
Frog projects that I know I will never bring myself to finish to repurpose yarn or donate to charity.
Go through my stash and sell or donate skeins I no longer love.
Attempt the Boo Knits 2018 Challenge. My entry post can be found here.
Learn double knitting. I am hoping to do the GAL afghan this year, or at least some of the squares. I am just waiting to see what the theme(s) will be before I commit.

For item #3 I have created a Ravelry project titled Knit The Bin 2018 where I list which WIPs I want to focus on, and the progress towards completing them. The project page can be found here. I currently have 10 projects listed. I doubt this will happen, but I want to have something to strive for!

This item also includes the full finish, which means weaving in ends, seaming, and blocking! I am notoriously bad at finishing something and then showing it in a bag, or somewhere else, and not truly finishing it. I have already started working on this habit by blocking the shawl that I completed and posted about in last week's post. It looks so lovely! I always forget how much a good blocking changes a project for the better.

The next item I have from the WIP pile to be finished is my Mara shawl. I started it with my best friend in August of 2014. She finished hers long ago. I have no excuses. I just have to finish the edge and cast off. It is to be 4 inches. I am so close. I have quite a bit of yarn left though so I might make it longer. I am also considering an i-cord bind off, but that might be insane.

I have already started working on item #4. The first victim is a sweater I started for my son in late 2013. This was before I learned the ins and outs of a gauge swatch (well gauge in general really), carrying colours up the side, and so much more. It has been sitting so long there was dust gathering on it…oops.

I am hoping this yarn is not lost now. I am hoping to reskein it and give it a gentle bath and maybe save it. Honestly, I wasn’t much of a fan of the yarn anyhow, part of the reason I didn’t keep working on it. It’s a 50/50 merino wool and cotton worsted blend. I would like to at least donate it to one of the groups that knit for charity (of I can save it).

For #5 I already have a bag set aside that I have been dumping the skeins into. I pick out any high-end ones that I might be able to sell and then list them on Ravelry stash page. I then let my mother and sister go through it and pick what they like first, then my sister-in-law who knits for charity, and anything left goes to my local charity.