Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Resolutions Check-In: March

I think the fact that it's currently April 7 and I'm just now getting to this post speaks VOLUMES about how well I did on my resolutions this month. But the current run of Do All The Things is behind me and I'm hoping to make some headway as I gear up for the next round of Do All The Things. Maybe. I hope. I've got some new strategies, at least. But, let's check in anyway. If only because even though I know I'm failing, I have a scientific need to quantify how hard I'm failing. Or something like that.

Goal 1—Destash I reiterate. Ha. HAHAHAHA. I once again managed to complete TWO projects this month. One of them actually GAINED me yarn. More on that later. Also...since I'm still terrible at making time to post blog entries, you won't actually see either of these projects until later this week when I (hopefully) get around to FO Friday. Even though these FO's were done multiple Fridays ago now. To recap yet again, my goal was to rid myself (through knitting and/or destash) of 24,000m of yarn by the end of 2015. To help me better measure this in small increments, I have a goal to be 2000m of yarn lighter by the end of each month. Progress: Well, I was already behind and now I'm just a little bit behinder. (I had a teacher in HS who once said to us "If I was any behinder I'd be a plumber". This phrase has stuck with me. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm certainly well on my way). I finished two projects (as I alluded to above). One of them was a re-knitting of a pair of socks I'd previously made that were WAY too big. Now that I've learned at least something about sock knitting, I sat down and made them smaller. The only problem with this plan is that the yarn I'd used wasn't factored in to my original accounting on 1 Jan, and because I used less yarn for this round of knitting the socks (because I made the socks smaller), I ended up with more yarn leftover than I'd had previously. Thus... a net gain of yarn after knitting a pair of knee high socks. What even is my life sometimes?
  • T.A.R.D.I.Socks (take 2) – 160g/532.5m of yarn used. In their previous incarnation they'd used 175g/582.5m of yarn, thus leaving me with a gain of 15g/50m for this project.
  • Stark Fingerless Mitts – 35g/147.6m of yarn used.
I made it through almost the entire month without buying yarn (though once again I did get some for free), but then the LYS was having a ridiculous sale and I really wanted the Exploding TARDIS yarn and I knew it wouldn't be that cheap again for a while even if I *could* still manage to get it. Plus I didn't get any of the Exploding TARDIS fabric from the big box fabric store that I feel I'm owed, so I consoled myself with Exploding TARDIS yarn, okay? Plus I won a prize from the KnerdGirl Knits BAW CAL for Jan/Feb, which was a skein of yarn and an adorable project bag that I should really show you all sometime. In total I added:
  • Three Irish Girls Adorn Sock in Exploding TARDIS – 100g/392.3m
  • Honeycomb Yarns Sweet Toes in Message in a Bottle – 100g/423.4m
So I "destashed" (I put this in quotes because seriously, who GAINS yarn knitting knee high socks?) a total of 20g/97.6m of yarn and I added a total of 200g/815.7m. Which brings me to +180g and +718.1m for March. Which in my book is the most epic of failings. Adding that to the February total, I’m at 3199.63 m destashed for the year, 2800.37m behind my current YTD goal. I have a new plan, but unless a bunch of things all come together and all of a sudden I go on another epic destashing binge, I will very soon be facing an insurmountable deficit. Which is neat. I mean, it was a lofty goal and I'm certainly within the realm of what one can expect from reasonable people, but I still feel like I need to think about strategies for making up the deficit.  

Goal 2 – Get my yarn dyeing business up and running I didn't do a whole lot of dyeing in March. In fact, I'm not sure I did any. I have plans for more soon and I sent out the House Stark themed Game of Thrones yarn in my Game of Thrones swap, along with a business card. I also listed it on Etsy, although my Etsy site has been discouragingly slow. The site that I'm trying to transition away from still gets all the hits and the one I'm building the specific brand for gets nothing. I need to think about marketing a bit more, and hopefully if I can get more consistent updates eventually things will come. I did marginally more work on the SquareSpace site (I really need to prioritize this) and I designed ordered business cards from VistaPrint that I've been including with orders and when I send hand-dyed yarn in the swaps. I also established my yarn brand on Ravelry and have listed some of the yarns with some photos. I'll work on listing some more and figuring out how to create the colour palettes to upload onto the site in the next few months. Now I guess I just hope that all the people actually purchasing the yarn will add it to their stashes and link to my page, etc. I don't know how to get the word out about that, but any thoughts are appreciated. I haven't been selling much. I made no sales in all of March. Which is disappointing. I need to sort out what I can be doing better.  

Goal 3—Blog more regularly Once again...fail. I mean, I posted some things, but it certainly wasn't the three posts per week minimum that my resolution says I should have. I had five total posts in March, which is NOT three per week. I have no excuses other than I don't make the time to do it. Blogging is time consuming, especially when it requires photos and formatting. I know this. I knew it when I made the resolution. What I need to do is carve myself some time on Saturday or Sunday (or some other day that I've got a chunk of time) and just draft some posts. They don't have to be final (though good for me if they are), but I need to get them started so that when I have a bit of time and/or when the respective day comes for that post to go up, it won't take too much time to do it. With the ability to schedule posts, I should be doing better with this than I am. I just need to make the time.

Goal 4—Sew more I did another sewing project, but I had to order in fabric for it, so I technically didn't meet my goal. And then I bought MORE fabric, so I extra didn't meet my goal. What I need to do is just go back to Wednesday night sewing nights (with or without company) and just knock some things out. Match up fabrics with patterns and just start doing it. So there you have it. More of me failing at resolutions. I'm sort of hoping that setting myself a new strategy for knitting of knitting the yarn I have the most of first (either until it's gone or else knitting a project with it and destashing the rest) will help me get back on some kind of track for the destash goal. The rest... I think I just need to set myself a schedule. Schedules are the only way I ever get anything done and if I don't get scientific and plan this stuff out in earnest, it's never going to happen. I don't operate in the realm of the nebulous. I need a concrete plan and a schedule and many, many lists if I'm ever going to meet my goals. I hope all of you out there are doing better with resolutions than I am. I also hope I'll have happier things to report next month!

No comments:

Post a Comment