Top of '23: Next Year's Goals!

 

It wouldn't be a new year without some new plans. In truth, my plans are always ongoing, and I post about them all the time here, but I do always like to see what I was thinking about at the beginning of the year. So here are some of the goals I have right now that I hope to accomplish next year.

1. My Make 9 patterns - I have loved the idea of the Make 9 list ever since someone started it years ago, and while I have a hard time sticking to the list, plus I have a hard time narrowing it down to just 9 patterns, I decided to give it a go once again.

• Folkwear Austrian Dirndl
• Ora Lin Sophie Dress
• Vintage Simplicity 8498
• Deer & Doe Bleuet
• Charm Night and Day Dress
• Charm Gardner Top
• Anna Rose Blouse Paule
• Simplicity 8486
• Vintage Simplicity 5259

As I look at this I'm realizing how many dresses are on this list, lol. So I'll just call it now and say that a lot of these won't happen, like usual, but maybe this will be the year I surprise myself?

I also still plan on making these patterns that I had already planned for this year and didn't get around to. I have these already mentally earmarked for certain fabrics, so these will more likely be some of the first things I make.

• Wildflower Coquelicot Skirt
• Sew Chic Palazzo Pants Skirt
• Simplicity 8462
• Simplicity 9464
• Blue Ginger Doll Peggy Skirt

2. Knit a colorwork sweater - I've never been very good at colorwork. I've tried a few smaller projects over the years, but despite my best efforts I always knit the color sections too tight and they won't lay nicely. I really really want to get the knack of this though! This is the year! I'm feeling more inspired about this lately, so I'm going to use that momentum to buckle down and learn how to fix my issues with colorwork and make a sweater. These are my current contenders:

• Ixchel - I've wanted to make this sweater ever since its release in 2018, but the colorwork always felt out of my league. I got brave a couple of years ago during a sale on Knit Picks Stroll Tonal and I purchased enough in the Inverness and Poppy Field colorways, but I just keep picking other projects. So this is a bit of a dream project that I don't know I will end up tackling yet, but it's still always on the radar.
• Pocket Ride Cardigan - Can this really count as colorwork? lol I Adore this cardigan and I bought the book finally this past Black Friday along with Knit Picks Palette in the Comfrey colorway for the sweater itself and I have LOTS of colors of palette on hand for the kitty. I plan on making it look like my cat, Daisy, with gray yarn. 
  
• Carivel Colorblock Sweater - In truth, I think this will be my first colorwork sweater. I saw someone make this and steek it to be a cardigan and I can't get the idea out of my head. I love the color combination and I got all the Knit Picks Palette colors I needed to complete this. I went entirely by the color choices of the person on Ravelry I am copying because I couldn't find a list of the color names anywhere on the site, which seems a bit odd to me. But I love this design and I think it will be a good first colorwork sweater :)
  

3. Buying ban - When I say I have too much stuff, I think people greatly underestimate what I mean. I am not one of those ladies on youtube complaining that the one cubby hole in their Ikea unit is full of fabric and therefor they have too much stash. I have been extremely lucky with people wanting to give me things relating to my hobbies for years now and I have literal closets (yes multiples) full of fabric, yarn, patterns, and more. My sewing room has become so full that for one I can't find things I want to use, but it's also hard to even move around in there to make anything. Every surface is covered and I have to move things to do anything. I have constant avalanches of fabric when I pull a piece out of the huge stack. I'll want to make something and be missing just 1 piece I need but I can't find that in the mire. So this year I will be going through a good destash, but I also want to enact a buying ban. Will I be doing this immediately? Of course not, lol. I plan on going to The Sewing Studio sale on New Year's Day because there are some things I need for specific projects and the reality is I will end up with things I didn't plan on, but after that trip I will be implementing a full scale buying ban on fabric and yarn and most other things. I just can't keep so much inventory at this pace. I need to deal with what I have first. 

4. Knit more vintage designs - I enjoyed the challenge of sizing up a vintage sweater this year and now I feel more confident to try again on another design. The problem is there are so many cute vintage sweater designs that I can't choose! These are 2 that I purchased recently, but there are so many others on my radar I can't even gather them all.

• Bernice - This was a bit of a detective project for me this year. I saw Syndey Crabaugh wearing this design made up in an olive green with white flowers and yellow centers. I loved this top and I'm not sure if she knit it or if it was original vintage. Either way, I set about the task of finding what pattern this was, and Subversive Femme had it! She just names her patterns and doesn't tell what booklet they came from, but it was originally called a snowflake design, which it is that as well in the right colors. I plan on using the flower idea and making my own someday.
• #39 Bobble Jumper  - This one was a whim purchase because the pattern is already in a size 40" bust. Part of me really would like to see what the process of knitting a vintage pattern as written would be, so this may be the one for that. I have some Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in the Zadie colorway that I think would be very cute for this pattern. We'll see.

5. Make a sweater on the knitting machine - Now that I've made official finished knit items on my knitting machine, I want to branch out into making sweaters. I have 2 knitting machines - a standard gauge Brother and a bulky Babylock (Bond) knitter. Since I just came off making a bunch of items with the Babylock, I feel pretty confident that I could make a sweater on that machine now. I have wanted to make this sweater for YEARS and I bought the yarn for it back in 2015 (holy cow). The Mudblood Cardigan is a worsted weight plain stockinette sweater and even though I swatched it last year to possibly make, I just have never wanted to knit such a boring design. I love wearing sweaters like this, but knitting them is just not very interesting. At some point in the last month or so, I had the thought that I could try to convert this pattern to be made on my knitting machine. It really should not be hard to do, so I'm hoping that I can finally get this sweater made up and the yarn out of my stash.

6. Embroider and sew a clothing project - I talked about this project several months ago and then never made it, lol. I want to recreate this polyester Walmart brand shirt I got in a thrift store a while back but make it in linen. I try not to wear synthetics, but this shirt is so cute that I just couldn't get rid of it. It has a simple embroidered panel in the center with insertion lace at the sides and bottom. I hate the flouncy hem, but all the more reason to make it myself. So I need to narrow down a base pattern for the shape I like and then hack it into these pieces to recreate this design. My Husqvarna Viking Ruby machine is more than capable of this, and I bought it from a quilter so I actually have all the large and rolling hoops that would make this idea possible, but I just haven't sat down and devoted the time to getting it all figured out and make a project. This will be the goal!

7. Learn to spin - Friends ... I'm diving down yet another fiber related crafting rabbit hole ... I got a spinning wheel! I find it funny that I remember saying years ago that I would never have the desire to spin my own yarn. Well ... here we are, lol. This isn't something that was actively on my radar because I have more of an idle curiosity about spinning than anything and the cost of getting into this hobby is ... prohibitive, let's say, lol. A new spinning wheel like this costs about $600, which for a hobby I don't even know I will like is just not do-able. I always figured I would get a wheel one day and try it out, but I wasn't actively looking. Then the weekend before Christmas this wheel popped up on Facebook Marketplace in my area and for a steal of a deal. I jumped immediately and now I have a spinning wheel. I'm working on getting it cleaned up and waxed now, but even my kids are super excited about the idea of helping me make yarn. So I want to learn to spin this year and produce a useable yarn and then knit it into a shawl. I feel like that's a great entry level project, so this will be added to the list of goals this year. I'm excited to play with my new toy I got for Christmas, lol.

I have other goals as well, but these are my crafting related ones and I'm pretty happy with this list as a starting point, lol. Plenty to keep me busy, for sure. Do you have any goals of things to learn in 2024? I'd love to hear them!