A couple of months ago, I started an Instagram for my knitting as a way to encourage me to take more progress pictures of my projects. I promptly followed many knitters and yarn company accounts so that I would have a mixture of motivation and inspiration. I mostly check my Instagram when I'm at work and found myself liking posts mostly of patterns I want to knit. The problem was, I didn't ever really get around to adding those patterns to my Ravelry queue. At least that was the case until this last week.
To set the scene, I work in a call center for a health insurance company. Most days I'm off the phones for meetings and what not, but when I do take calls, I staff the escalated line (where you get transferred to when you demand to speak to a supervisor). Since we don't get that many escalated calls, I'm usually sitting for a while in between calls. I get a fair amount of knitting done during these days and on Monday, I was trying to plan out all the Christmas knitting I had left to complete when I realized that this would be an excellent time to go through my Instagram likes and make a list to add to Ravelry when I got home. Now, I've only had my Instagram for 19 weeks (I checked) and I didn't think I would have that many likes. I'm pretty particular with the patterns I'd like to knit - or so I thought. After going through all my likes, I had a list of 57 (!) patterns. Now, it isn't like my Ravelry queue was nearly empty. I have 169 patterns in my queue already and adding those 57 more would bring me to a whopping 226 patterns! Who in the world has time for all of that knitting? Certainly not me unless I start knitting at hyper-speed.
I started browsing through the patterns that I have queued, thinking maybe there were some that I didn't like anymore, but all of them were worthy of staying. I have them organized by tags and I have everything from simple baby booties to intricate cabled sweaters to color work mittens and everything in between. I also recently updated my yarn stash on Ravelry, but only have 48 yarns listed, some of which are partial skeins.
I really envy the people who can only buy yarn when they have a project in mind. Staci from Very Pink Knits said in one of her past videos that she doesn't really have a yarn stash like a lot of knitters do. She picks out a pattern she wants to knit, and then goes out and buys the yarn specifically for that pattern. I truly wish I had that sort of mentality. I have one of those large, plastic, Rubbermaid bins under my desk filled with my stash. And while this might not be as impressive as some stashes, it does tend to take up a good portion of my studio apartment. I also spent some time organizing my stash this week since it was getting a bit out of control. I moved all my sock yarns into their own canvas tote bag and all my spinning fiber into another. But while organizing my stash I realized something else, I have a bad habit of not only buying yarn without a particular pattern in mind, but many times I only buy a single skein. I also buy a lot of one of a kind skeins from indie dyers so there isn't even the opportunity for me to get more if I need them.
The next knitting organization goal for myself is to pair up some yarns with patterns. This way, I have a game plan for the next time I need a new project to cast on. I guess that is one up side to have 226 patterns in queue: there's almost certainly a pattern for any yarn I have!
To set the scene, I work in a call center for a health insurance company. Most days I'm off the phones for meetings and what not, but when I do take calls, I staff the escalated line (where you get transferred to when you demand to speak to a supervisor). Since we don't get that many escalated calls, I'm usually sitting for a while in between calls. I get a fair amount of knitting done during these days and on Monday, I was trying to plan out all the Christmas knitting I had left to complete when I realized that this would be an excellent time to go through my Instagram likes and make a list to add to Ravelry when I got home. Now, I've only had my Instagram for 19 weeks (I checked) and I didn't think I would have that many likes. I'm pretty particular with the patterns I'd like to knit - or so I thought. After going through all my likes, I had a list of 57 (!) patterns. Now, it isn't like my Ravelry queue was nearly empty. I have 169 patterns in my queue already and adding those 57 more would bring me to a whopping 226 patterns! Who in the world has time for all of that knitting? Certainly not me unless I start knitting at hyper-speed.
I started browsing through the patterns that I have queued, thinking maybe there were some that I didn't like anymore, but all of them were worthy of staying. I have them organized by tags and I have everything from simple baby booties to intricate cabled sweaters to color work mittens and everything in between. I also recently updated my yarn stash on Ravelry, but only have 48 yarns listed, some of which are partial skeins.
I really envy the people who can only buy yarn when they have a project in mind. Staci from Very Pink Knits said in one of her past videos that she doesn't really have a yarn stash like a lot of knitters do. She picks out a pattern she wants to knit, and then goes out and buys the yarn specifically for that pattern. I truly wish I had that sort of mentality. I have one of those large, plastic, Rubbermaid bins under my desk filled with my stash. And while this might not be as impressive as some stashes, it does tend to take up a good portion of my studio apartment. I also spent some time organizing my stash this week since it was getting a bit out of control. I moved all my sock yarns into their own canvas tote bag and all my spinning fiber into another. But while organizing my stash I realized something else, I have a bad habit of not only buying yarn without a particular pattern in mind, but many times I only buy a single skein. I also buy a lot of one of a kind skeins from indie dyers so there isn't even the opportunity for me to get more if I need them.
The next knitting organization goal for myself is to pair up some yarns with patterns. This way, I have a game plan for the next time I need a new project to cast on. I guess that is one up side to have 226 patterns in queue: there's almost certainly a pattern for any yarn I have!
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