2023: Knitting Plan and Goals

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone. Wishing you all the best. I love creating a new knitting plan and it’s companion spreadsheet calendar for the new year. Life is always full of possibilities at the beginning of the year and that includes my hopes for my knitting world. But for me my planned projects and goals are simply guidelines. Life happens, I change my mind, whatever. Still I prefer having a rough plan rather than bounce from pretty new pattern to the next pretty new pattern. I’m trying to be a bit more intentional with my gift knitting this year also. So here’s the plan:

PROJECTS FOR ’23

Whereas 2022 was the Year of the Sock/Shrug, 2023 will be more of the Year of the Sweater/Tee. This is driven in part by my desire to reduce my stash. I still plan to knit socks of course, just not as many.

Sweaters/Tee – 9
This is definitely an aggressive goal for me since tees take me about 2 months and sweaters take about 3. Have to admit Newspaper, the brioche sweater, is the most likely to be skipped as I also have to relearn how to fix brioche mistakes. Fortunately there is someone I can take a private class from at my LYS once I return to Ohio. Here are 6 that I hope to knit. (Sea Glass Tee, Party Cardy, Newspaper, Clifton Crop, Deschain, Night Blooms). Yes, I already own all the needed yarn.

Socks/Shrugs – 4

Knitting less socks will hopefully improve my ability to get sweaters/tees knit. These are mainly socks I want to gift.

WIPS – 3

I have 3 carryover projects, 2 hats and a pair of colorwork socks. One hat will probably become a Christmas gift so there’s no hurry to get it done. Same for the colorwork socks.

Misc – 3

These are low priority projects. I may knit a toy for my granddaughter and I may knit Christmas stockings for her parents.

The projects stay within my stitch goal so it should be possible to complete them with the exception of mastering brioche.

GOALS FOR ’23

Based on what I learned from my 2022 review, I’m reducing my goals in 2023. I want to keep that “improve/get better” pressure out of my knitting. Getting better should be a delight not an expectation. This year I have 5 Goals and 3 Ideas. The “ideas” are more a way to keep in mind some new things to make that I’ve never made before (toys, slippers, and felted gnomes).

GOAL #1 – Knit 600,000 Stitches

This year I’m tracking an annual stitch goal versus a daily stitch goal. Also I’m not increasing my stitch goal. 600,000 stitches is basically the same as the number of stitches I knit in 2022. I was starting to feel pressured by my stitch goal. I am recognizing there are travel times where I’m not going to get knitting done so my “goal” includes days off from knitting.

GOAL #2 – More Yarn Out than In

This is a carryover goal from 2022 since it was such an epic fail. Still it’s a good objective. I just need to resist “sales” so that I can enjoy splurges if I attend a wool festival or go on a “girls trip” to a yarn store. I’m not ready to give away any of my yarn yet as a way to reduce stash. I still love all my skeins.

GOAL #3 – Make Something Brioche

Another carryover goal from 2022 and most likely goal to be missed again. My project plan calls for knitting a brioche sweater. This may change to a hat as a more “doable” project.

GOAL #4 – Make a Mini Skein Sweater/Tee

I’m very confident I’ll meet this goal. I’ll be casting-on my Sea Glass Tee to use my 10g mini skeins hopefully today. I also have the Party Cardy in my project plan which will use many of my second advent calendar mini skeins.

GOAL #5 – Make Something Colorwork

Again, pretty confident I’ll meet this goal since one of my carryover WIPs is a colorwork sock. I also hope to make a fairly simple colorwork sweater.

IDEA #1 – Knit a Toy

My granddaughter will be getting old enough to enjoy a knitted toy so I’d like to do this for her birthday or Christmas.

IDEA #2 – Make Felted Slippers

I don’t really need more slippers but I think felted slippers would be a nice Christmas present so I want to learn how to make them.

IDEA #3 – Make a Felted Gnome

I love all the gnomes I see people make. When Grocery Girls featured a gnome that was knitting, I was unable to resist. It is my birthday present to myself. It will be a fun knick knack for my knitting area.

READY, SET, GO

I’m excited to start a new year and I’m excited by the projects I have planned for ’23. Since I was good in ’22 at completing the number of socks/sweaters I had planned, I’m optimistic that I’ll complete my ’23 projects. It will be interesting to see if I do a better job of knitting the pattern I planned though. I already keep oscillating between Night Blooms and Love Note. I have many more sweaters/tees in my queue so it wouldn’t be a big surprise if I change my mind on which ones to knit next.

This is a year of projects (YOP12) update. YOP is a Ravelry Group – make a plan for the year ahead for all your fiber activities, then update your blog each week. Plans can be calendar year (like mine) or mid-year start (like many). Following the plan is optional and creates some of the fun of posts.  YOP started it’s 12th year in July and I’m starting my third year in the group. I’ve been knitting for six years.

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