Knitting Goals for 2023: Update

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2023 is swiftly chugging along, and so are my knitting and crafty goals. Well, some of them are. The rest I haven’t touched yet and that’s okay.

1. Knit fun stuff for me, not just others.

3 repeats into the Candy Mountain Cowl and still very much at the beginning. An orange stripe, Dark Grey Stripe, and A light Blue Stripe with Taupe as the Main Color.

So far this year I’ve started a pair of socks, more on those later, and the Candy Mountain Cowl (<- Ravelry link) just for me! It’s nice to have a big project and a small to switch between.

2. Knit with new yarn while it’s exciting.

The Bearded One got me a mini skein kit from Hazel Knits for Christmas. Instead of putting the yarn on a shelf to admire while I worked on other things, I paired it a full skein in light, neutral taupe. I love how it’s working up in the Candy Mountain Cowl so far.

3. Knit with really old stash.

Haven’t had to dig deep down for anything just yet.

4. Just knit - not every day, but most days.

I set up a daily tracker in my planner to track all sort of random things - like if I knit that day. So far I’ve knit on 33 days of the past two-ish months. Not bad.

5. Mend holey socks.

Still the same amount of holey socks around here.

6. Finish lingering WIP’s.

A look in my project basket showing the eight Snowflake ornaments I’ve knit so far and yarn to make more.

I picked up this lingering WIP I started at the beginning of 2022. It’s definitely scratching that itch to knit color work.

7. Knit a blanket for a friend.

All the upfront planning is done, and I’ve got the first few pieces knit and blocked. Haven’t knit on it in the past few weeks though because I’ve been busy trying to finish gift knits with more pressing deadlines.

8. Try knitting different sock heels.

A toe-up sock on the needles laying on top of a halloween themed project bag.

So far, I’ve paired the shadow wrap short row heel with a mini gusset (looking forward to trying it again) and I’m in the middle of knitting a strong heel toe-up. I’m trying to follow the Vanilla Reversed Socks (here’s a Payhip link too) but my row gauge and the pattern row gauge are very different. Figuring out how to tweak the directions for a heel construction I’ve never knit before has been a struggle. I’m not giving up on it though.

I also picked up Andrea Mowry’s DRK Everyday Socks to give the Fleegle Heel another try. The last time I knit that particular heel was when I was just learning to knit socks. Seems fair to give the construction another try now that I have a better idea of what I’m doing.

As for my non-knitting but still creative goals, I’ve got a few I’d like to share here too.

  • Get my spinning wheel out of storage, clean it up, and spin some yarn. As of 2/21/23: It’s still waiting on me.

A pair of purple fingerless mitts laying on top of a log.

  • Publish three knitting patterns. I even know which three I’m going to work on.

    As of 2/21/23: Think I’m going to modify this goal a bit. Instead of published three patterns, I’m going to design three patterns and maybe publish them. This change in thinking is courtesy of a pair of fingerless mitts I had the pleasure of designing from scratch as a gift. I might publish it. I might not. Haven’t decided yet.

  • Set up a shop on Ko-Fi to as a Ravelry alternative. You can download all of my knitting patterns here on WithWool, but it’s not a shop. Ko-if makes it easy to pay what you want, and I’d like to give it a try.

    As of 2/21/23: Waiting on that first new/updated pattern for this to really be a priority.

  • Blog more by focusing on shorter posts instead of saving everything up for one long post that I’ll never get around to publishing.

    As of 2/21/23: I’d say I’ve been doing better at blogging this year thanks to keeping things short. This is my 4th post of 2023, when I only published 11 times in all 2022.

I feel pretty good about what knitting and crafty goals I’ve accomplished so far while also keeping up with the day-to-day and my other projects. Think I can keep this up too which is good news for the rest of 2023. How are your crafty goals and projects for the year turning out?