Back for the New Year with a New Goal

With New Year’s having come and gone, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what I’m knitting, for whom and how I’m tracking it. I will admit now, I’m a big tracker. I like logs, and keeping track of how many, and how long and how…anything else I can think of. This was very evident in my other life as a cross-stitcher. I don’t show many people my tracking methods for those projects, since very few people can even grasp how crazy it all is.

I’ve found I’ve slacked a bit with my knitting and crocheting projects, and quite frankly, it really bugs me. I like looking back and seeing everything I’ve made and who I made it for. And with a tool like Ravelry, there really is no excuse for how lazy I’ve become. I usually blame it on the fact that I really despise taking pictures of stuff (I never really learned how to do it well), but I can usually coerce my mom into taking pictures, so this really shouldn’t be an excuse. So I’ve decided that this year I will start being better about this. I know I’ll appreciate it down the road.

The other thing I’ve been struggling a little lately with is who I’m knitting for. Like many knitters, I’ve seen the allure of knitting for charity. We have a romanticized view of some poor child in Africa or homeless person downtown receiving a handknitted item and being overwhelmed with the fact that someone somewhere cared enough about them to knit it. Problem is, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I’m sure people appreciate things, but someone who is either not a handcrafter or closely connected to a handcrafter (and therefore stuck listening to why handcrafted items are so special all the time) will probably never appreciate a handknit the way I want them to. Some people are perfectly fine with this. They know the value of their work and that’s all that matters. Or, they figure I’m going to craft anyways, why not for a perfect stranger? But I will admit right now, I’m sort of selfish. I WANT MY HANDKNITS APPRECIATED. There, I said it. I like knowing people like what I make. And knitting for someone you love is part of the fun anyways.

That all being said (and 100 crocheted squares for Knit-A-Square in Africa later), I realized that I do love to knit for other people, it just has to be people I know for the most part. I love to follow Robyn of She Makes Hats (who is an incredible charity knitter), and she loves to set goals for herself (like 10,000 hats for charity, friends and family in her lifetime – WOW!). So I’ve decided to borrow her idea and start tracking what I’ve made for other people.

This was a pretty wordy way of saying I’m making more lists, huh?

I would like to keep track of project totals by year – although the early years are a bit fuzzy. They’re over there ----> in the sidebar, with links to Ravelry pages if I have them. Starting this year I’ll try to document them here as well.