The Year Ahead

Every year right before the year ends I begin thinking about my crafting goals for the new year. There is a group on Ravelry where you set of goal of items you want to complete that year. It can be anything from crafts to housework. It started at 111 items but you don't have to do that many. This year the goal is 115. I've always tried for the large number. I think the closest I got was 90 last year. I think, for how much I had going on last year that I did pretty well. To try and help myself with the large goal I set smaller goals:

• 12 socks 
• 12 fingerless mitts/gloves 
• 12 hats 
• 24 amigurumi 
• 12 books
• 12 scarves 
• 12 designs 
• 6 shawls 
• 3 sweaters
• 1 vest

Just reaching the smaller goals gives me 106 items completed if I don't count a new design as the design and the item it is. Which I am not planning on doing. All of the goals should be fairly easy to reach. It doesn't have to be 12 new scarves for example. If I finish one of the scarves from last year that is still a WIP it still counts towards my numbers. I am planning on doing Tour de Sock again this year. That means at least four socks will get made for that. I would like to finally do all 6 pairs this year. I usually manage to get about 3 done on any given year with one pair or more left as a WIP. Sometimes I finish them but other times I frog the project.

I have already started on my weaving and sock knitting for the year. The scarf I've started weaving is one I've wanted as soon as I saw the yarn. The yarn was dyed by my friend Shayla for one of her yarn clubs. I missed out on most of the yarn club and this yarn was the last of the Celestial yarn club, Milky Way.

I'm working on stashing down yarn this year in addition to stocking my etsy with more things. Weaving is wonderful for that. I can use up about 400 yards in less than a week and sometimes I'll list the scarf on etsy. An example of this is the Gryffindor scarf I made last year. I don't have it listed yet because my store is on hiatus until I can rebuild stock a little bit more.

The socks I've started are part of the Three Musketeers set. I'm going to do all of them. They were designed with men in mind but I should be able to modify them enough for my smaller feet. The pair I started with is Athos. The picture doesn't show the yarn as well as I would like. It is a bit darker than shown.

As far as my etsy goes, my main focus is going to be getting the Harry Potter items made. This means I need to get the hats back in stock and make all of the scarves (once my current scarf is done) before I can come back from hiatus. Harry Potter is what brings the most traffic to my store and I know that no matter what time of year it is, it will sell. Spring and Summer are always my hardest times of year because a lot of what I sell is made to wear during the cooler months. But I'm also going to be making plushies so hopefully some of those will sell too.

I hope everyone had a wonderful new year and I can't wait to see what everyone is making this year!