Year In Review: Part I — Craft

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My craft goals for the year were to:

Let’s see how I did — 😳 , 😛

I didn’t think I did as well as I actually did with Cold-sheeping.  Once I got off the sheep in May this year, it felt as if I was always off but after I checked my list, I realised that I wasn’t bad as I thought I was.  😀  As I went through the list, I actually did make some headway.  Wanna see?

  1. Catalog KP yarn stash on Ravelry by January 31, 2013. DONE!!! 12.06.2012
  2. Cold Sheeping Knitpicks for 2013. Absolutely NO yarn purchases from KP for 2013. DONE  I didn’t purchase any KP yarns this year.  Although I got some sweater quantities as a Christmas gift, my first purchase from them was some roving I bought after a year of no purchases during their week long Cyber Monday 2013 sale.
  3. Cold Sheeping includes craft book purchases.  This was partially successful.  I bought four technique books during the earlier part of the year. And for Christmas I bought Martha Stewart’s Craft Encyclopedia and the S & B Superstar from Debbie Stoller for Christmas.  6 purchases is better than the 15 I did last year!  LOLOL!
  4. Combine KP Stashdown, general Stash Knit Down & Craft Book Challenge. Done
  5. Shop KP stash for swaps in KP loving groups. If I can’t shop from my stash, then I wouldn’t participate in the swap. Done
  6. Reduce KP stash by at least 12 projects of varying sizes worth of yarn including blankets. Attempt made. 😛  I got mesmerized by other yarns and did projects with those instead.
  7. Make first sweater using KP yarn. Sweater Done (although not with KP yarn).
  8. Finish or frog languishing WIPS. Done
  9. Start Christmas 2013 gifts using KP yarns early.  No yarny Christmas gifts made this year.
  10. For larger stashdown goal: Catalog all yarns by January 31, 2013. DONE! 12.29.2012! WOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!
  11. Browse Ravelry and blogs less, craft more! — Total Failure.  LOLOL!  Am I the only one with this problem?   Although I was introduced to some wonderful crafters, I really need to cut down my online time for 2014!

All in all, I think I did pretty well.  Where the Craft Book Challenge is concerned, I totally rocked that!!!!  I even managed to do some non yarny crafting from DIY instructables that I’d save a long time ago!!!  Winner!  I’ll to a collage in another day or two  — once I can access my photos again … oh boy! 😀  And I’ll also post my 2014 crafting goals.  My Coldsheeping page has already been updated with the next year’s goals.  Some are the same, others a little different.  I’m really looking forward to another year of Coldsheeping — maybe this year, I’ll earn my Golden One Year badge.  I so much yarn already, there’s no reason I shouldn’t aim for this.

I’m so ready to start my 2014 crafting.  For the new year, I want to test my skill-set, enhance my skill-set, craft more and continue to use the resources I already have while continuing to enjoy creating with my hands.

Have you done your crafting goals / resolutions yet? 😀    Or rather, I should probably ask, will you be making any crafting  goals / resolutions?

52/52

Nicky2 Comments

Well it’s here.  The end of the year, the end of my 52 weeks of blessings posts.  I never thought I’d make it to the end, but I did and I’m glad I made the effort.  It was wonderful while taking a blog break to go through each post.  Each was a reminder of some of the issues I dealt with this year and the things/people/reflections/revelations that helped and/or made me grateful/blessed this year.  I’m not going to lie, some weeks, it was hard to see the sunshine through the thick of the “forest” but it was always there!  Sometimes shining brightly, other times, dimly, but still there.  So to end, this week I’m grateful for:

  • All of you who came along on the journey with me.  Your interactions after reading the posts by email, phone call, text message, and commenting / liking the post mean so much to me.  Your support and encouragement really helped me power through the rough weeks and for that I’ll always be grateful.
  • Actually doing this project.  I learned so much about myself.  My ability to deal with certain issues, my inability to deal with others, my triggers, my joys, my tenacity, my faith, my limitations and in many instances, what the definition of my truth is.  It started as a “project” but it ended up being so much more.
  • Good friends.  My friend T aka “Sunshine” came to visit me yesterday.  She came bearing soup for this cold ridden, sick, congested woman.   She came bearing sunshine through laughter and friendship through support and deep sharing of life stories.  I’m honored that she trusts me to share so much with.  Yesterday was a new beginning for us and for that, I truly am grateful to call her friend and to have her call me friend.
  • Rest.  I came down with a head cold on Christmas day and that killed all the fancy plans I had for the day.  Although my Christmas celebration turned out to be more subdued and restful than I’d planned, it was what I needed and that made it just perfect despite my not feeling so well.
  • Making it through the end of the work week.  I had to go to work on Thursday and Friday and it was all I could do to not sleep in my office after taking cold meds.  I’m super grateful that I was able to not sleep — LOLOL! — and get some work done.  I’m even more grateful that I’ll be starting the new year with a week of well needed vacation.  I’ll be off work until Jan 6th and I can’t wait to enjoy some more down time and prepare myself for 2014!
  • Being able to exercise some patience with my computer.  Got up yesterday to a corrupt login.  Since I didn’t want to mess with the registry, I had to do a system restore.  I’m grateful that I had a backup from the last time I logged in 12/21/2013 so I didn’t lose any files.  I’m grateful for my former IT training that allowed me to fix the corrupted log-in and create new profiles in the event this happens again.  I see a Mac book in my future (g.w.)  I bought this machine in May 2012 and the O.S is already acting janky.  I’m so over P.C. issues but I’m glad I was able to fix it. 😀

I’m not sure if I’ll continue this project into next year.  If I don’t, I’ll definitely find some way to honor 2014’s blessings — I’m just not sure how yet.

I hope you each had a wonderful Christmas, a well-rounded year, and cheers for all the lessons, blessings and moments of gratitude / contentment we experienced in 2013!  ❤