1.19.2010

2010 Knitting Goals

'Normally quite goal oriented - especially with my knitting in recent years, I suddenly realized after leaving my 20th knit blog comment cheering on the adoption of goals by other knitters that I have yet to express or frankly even think about establishing any for myself!

So now, having spent a couple of days thinking about it, I'm ready to state what they are - or to be more accurate, what IT is...

(Drum roll please)

My Knitting Goal for 2010 is to...

knit things that I love so they properly fit me or the recipient for whom the knit is intended

Pretty simple, pretty attainable, not much of a goal really unless you consider the flip side - the things I must avoid so as to successfully reach it.

To achieve my 2010 Knitting Goal I must consistently avoid...

  • Stupid Errors
  • Rushing (because it leads to stupid errors)
  • Knitting late into the night when I just don't want to stop or because I want to finish something because it leads to stupid errors.
  • Casting on without attending to all measurements of all elements of every knit. (Failing to do this was, at one time, a necessary evil in my learning curve. Now I know better. Hence failing to avoid this in future is nothing but a stupid error (see above). 
  • Failing to very carefully read (and here's the trick) understand all instructions, directions, notes and descriptions of every pattern before as well as during the knitting process (This includes searching for and noting all applicable errata.) No publication will add more text than is absolutely necessary. If they take the time and expense to include it and/or publish corrections I should take the time and make the effort to integrate them into my thinking about and execution of a pattern. If I'm too lazy to read, I'd better be energetic enough to remedy stupid errors, which are to be avoided (see point #1).
Phew, its kind of a negative list but really - these things are the obstacles to enjoying my knitting these days. I'm not so foolish as to assume changing these habits of laziness will be easy so that's why I'm setting their eradication up as a full blown goal. They don't belong - not any more - so in 2010 I'm going to work at getting rid of them!

To be honest, another obstacle to enjoyable knitting time  for me is the state of my dried out char woman hands. By the time I sit down to knit most evenings my hands are raw and sometimes even sore, Its like knitting wearing velcro gloves. Waiting to knit while hand cream absorbs drives me nuts. This week I discovered something wonderful to remedy this. Sally Hansen Manicure in a Minute. The idea is you rub it around on dry hands for one minute then rinse it off with warm water. Almost instantly my hands are clean, dry, soft and comfortable!

Finally, just a little note of thanks to Carol and Drea, the co-moderators of the Toronto North Knitters and the kind ladies at Passionknit for organizing and hosting the SnB I attended last night. I arrived late and had to leave early but its always nice to sit, surrounded by yarn, amid the sound of softly clicking needles. Besides the new Valentine's window display complete with giant knitted heart on equally giant 3' long needles and the box of knitted "chocolates" amongst the gorgeous completed knits was great fun to ogle for a few minutes before I left!

Thanks for dropping by!

3 comments:

Sandra said...

the understanding of patterns and checking for errata are things I have to get better at as well. THere's no excuse for erros in patterns with the internet age - errata should be easy to find.
I'm going with the "knit what I want to knit, when I want to knit it" mantra. No excuses, no apologies.

Brendaknits said...

That is a (Those are) great goals).
The trouble with knitting sweaters that fit, is that I find they all fit differently. Pullovers different from cardigans, indoor different than outdoor etc. I long for one simple formula for my one and only size. But it never seems to work out that way.
Thanks for the tip re the hand cream.

Stephanie said...

Your hands get really dry too? I wonder if I should check that Sally Hansen stuff out. I've been using jojoba oil in the mornings on my hands, and it takes a couple of minutes to soak in while I'm running around a bit and then my hands feel conditioned for the rest of the day. It's nice.

I'm awful about the second-to-last one. I don't know how things are supposed to fit on me! Since I grew up in California and we never had a real 'winter', I never wore sweaters or cardigans until I started knitting, so I feel like I have to knit a lot more of those before I know how to get one to fit well, purposefully. Still - I really admire the sentiment behind your knitting goal this year! Go you!