New Year’s Resolutions for Fiber Lovers!

Do you make New Year’s resolutions every year? What is your track record on keeping those resolutions? Like many people, mine isn’t so good! In the past, I’ve resolved to read one book per month, but since I’m not much of a reader, that doesn’t last very long at all! I’ve also resolved to exercise every day, but I’m lazy and I start skipping some days, so that one doesn’t last long, either (or gets modified to a more realistic resolution like exercising 3 times per week)! Why do we set such unrealistic expectations at the beginning of the New Year? I guess we want to improve ourselves in one way or another. That’s not a bad thing to do, especially when we realize where we’re lacking in our lives. Improving ourselves is a great goal and I think we should always strive for improvement! If we don’t strive for improvement, we stagnate and start smelling! Just kidding! But I think improvement in our lives is always a positive goal and I’m all for improvement in my life!

For our New Year’s resolutions in 2015, how about setting some more attainable goals, like learning a new craft or learning more stitches and/or techniques in a craft we already know? Now that’s a New Year’s resolution that would be easy for me to keep! How about you? And it would satisfy the goal of self-improvement, too!

So for my New Year’s resolutions for 2015, I resolve to learn more knitting and crochet techniques. I also resolve to finish more projects than I currently finish and to finish some of my UFO’s (for crocheters and knitters, UFO does NOT mean “unidentified flying object”, it means “UnFinished Objects”). If you’ll notice something about my goals, they aren’t terribly “specific” on how many new techniques I’ll learn or how many UFO’s I’ll finish up in 2015. So these goals are attainable (without being unrealistic)! I guess they’re more of a “guideline” than a goal, but that’s okay with me. At least I can strive for them!

I just did a search on Ravelry.com for UFO groups and there are lots of them! There’s even a group for procrastinating knitters (like putting off the seaming or knitting the 2^nd sock)! I’m all in, since I’m a procrastinator, too! In fact, I have 2 books from the library on procrastinating, but I haven’t finished reading them yet! Dare I say that I’m procrastinating on reading them? Unfortunately, nobody has posted in that Ravelry procrastinators group for 2 years! I guess they’re all procrastinating about posting!!!

Don’t get me wrong: I finish lots of crochet and knitting projects every year (projects for publication and personal projects, too). I haven’t kept track, but I estimate I’ve finished 10-25 projects this year, ranging from small to large. Here are photos of a few of the published projects I’ve finished this year:

Nantucket Cowl from Dec 2014 Crochet World magazine

Easy Cell Phone Cosy & Heart-Shaped Key Fob from Red Heart UK website

Mosaic Blanket (knit) from Vogue Knitting magazine Winter 2014/2015 issue

Each year, I start some new projects that I don’t finish (at least I finish more projects than I start, so it’s not ALL bad!). If I keep adding to my UFO’s pile, there will be too many to finish in my lifetime! So it’s time to get them out to decide which ones I should finish in 2015! I think I’ll organize them today or tomorrow and make some decisions on how/when to proceed with each one!

How about you? What resolutions are you making for 2015? Are you going to learn a new craft? Are you going to learn some new crochet or knitting techniques? Are you going to finish some projects before starting a new one? I’m definitely NOT going to say that I’ll finish ALL of my UFO’s before starting something new! I know myself and I’m very easily distracted by other things, like new projects! Plus I don’t like to set goals that I can’t keep, no matter how hard I try!

Whatever your resolutions (or lack of resolutions) for 2015, I wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year!

Happy crocheting (and knitting),

Susan