Crafty Goals

I suppose you can almost call this an addendum to my last post.

I need to find a way to motivate myself to get out of and stay out of the chaos that my crafting life currently is, especially since crochet has always been my escape from the chaos of every other aspect of my life.

I need a system.

First things first, I actually got at least half of my yarn stash at least listed on Ravelry. The other half is either scraps or unidentified, and I'm not quite sure how to put it in the 'system'. But it's a lot easier to see the grand scale of things in a list than it is to stare at a few overflowing boxes in a closet. Looking at the actual number helps me say "Good god, woman! Use some of that up before you buy any more!"

I've also been spending a bit of time winding any oversized skeins into smaller balls. While skeins are easier to work from, balls come in handy when you have to frog a significant amount of a project and don't expect to get back to it anytime soon. if I was to be working on a large project, I would rethink this, but for the most part I don't see myself doing too many long-term projects, I don't have the attention span for it. Converting skeins to balls is also involving a significant amount of detangling, which is pretty much the bane of my existence, but needed to be done.

In between anything related to organizing (and spending a little bit too much time in the Ravelry groups and forums...), I am still working on the Mario Bros tote that I have listed on the top right of my blog. I have the question mark square completely finished, and while the pattern calls for 2 of them (one on each side), I decided that you're only ever going to see one side at a time, and decided to make the opposite side in black and dark purple stripes. I have about 8 more rows of that, and then to make the sides of the tote and the strap, and it will be finished. I'm not allowing myself to start another project until this one is completely done.

When I do finish it, I intend to put all of my crochet tools aside for a time, and seriously take on learning how to knit. I tried this a few months ago, but kept getting distracted by a cool crochet project, or frustrated with how long it was taking me to knit, or not being able to read the patterns correctly. I can knit. I can purl. Both are very slow and tension is very inconsistent. I am also intimidated by all the different needles... At least crochet hooks are all pretty much the same, just different sizes. Although I know what all the different knitting needles are FOR, I still find them intimidating. The idea of managing 4 DPN's at one time really frightens me, not so sure I have the dexterity for that!

So, in short, these are my short term goals for the next few months:

Organize. Finish. Learn. Conquer.

And when I say "conquer", I really just mean get comfortable with two pointy sticks. I want to be able to look at either a knit OR crochet project and say, "let's do it!"