It's All About The Planning

 My small stash of Shetland Spindrift for my Fair Isle Knitting class at this year's Yarnover Event.

There's a group I belong to on Ravelry called Pre-process Yarnies.  They are knitters who love the planning of projects possibly more than the actual knitting itself and tend to get themselves into trouble by acquiring too much yarn and more patterns than they could ever knit up.  Loosing themselves down the Ravelry rabbit hole for hours on end.  Does that sound familiar?  The hope of these knitters is to have more yardage go out, in the way of completing projects or selling yarn, than comes in over the course of a year.  It all started with the group leader's blog post which you can read here.

 

The leader has developed a great Spreadsheet to help the group members track their progress oddly called The Spreadsheet of Doom. It helps you track the yardage of the yarn you knit up, bought and sold (as well as fiber and spinning if you are so inclined.) So far mine spreadsheet numbers are abysmal as so much yardage has gone into my stash with my local yarn shop closing.  Also, since I am in the midst of a large knitting project I have only been able to add 2 small projects to my finished knitted items column.

To help get me an accurate picture of what I have on hand I dove into my stash (yes, again) and pulled all the yarn I haven't yet photographed to get them listed on my Ravelry Stash page.  I do love this process, the organizing and cataloging, as well as just tossing the stash to say "hi" to all those beautiful skeins of yarn.  It was a pretty enlightening.  My stashed yarn listings went up quite a bit more than I expected.  Remember this photo?  Well, imagine adding 3 more of those tubs and you have my current stash.  I'm going in the wrong direction folks.

The yarn budget now has only one fourth left with less than one month of the year gone, but the stash looks like about 3-4 years of solid knitting.  I have a lot of sweater quantities which got me to thinking of a challenge for myself:  I am going to try to knit and complete four sweaters this year.  Basically a sweater per quarter.  Definitely doable don't you think?.  Probably there will be a little room leftover for sock and accessory knitting too, at least that's my hope.  A girl doesn't want to get too sweater crazy right?

The Best Laid Plans

Simply Shetland Lambswool and Cashmere yarn.  I love the rich colorways.

Ah, it's always interesting when your actions counter your intentions.  When I talked about my fiber budget in this post I mentioned my local yarn store that's closing and liquidating it's stock.  Well, I went back to purchase some Jamiesons Shetland DK (my absolute favorite yarn brand as Shetland is so durable) with which to make a sweater for my mother, Miss Rachel's Yoke by Kate Davies to be exact (although I intend to steek it and make the pullover into a cardigan), when I saw some other yarn by Simply Shetland (an off shoot of Jamiesons) that was 50% off.  It was Jamiesons attempt to make a more luxury yarn by mixing Shetland with Cashmere.  But what pulled me in so completely was the beautiful colors - especially the yellow curry shade.  I decided right there and then to make the same sweater as I'm making my mom but as a the intended pullover for me.  It was a heck of a steal for such wonderful yarn, and I'm still within my yearly budget, but I certainly did not plan on this purchase.

I have sold some more items, mainly the leftovers to my knitted toy business as well as some yarn, needles and project bags, to help boost my budget back up, but I'm at the halfway point and only 3 weeks into the year.  Sigh.  I really need to stay away from temptation and focus on what I already have.  I feel there are so many temptations and people enabling others to purchase more, but not many on the other side.  Is it just an aspect of our consumerist culture that acquiring is always good?  I saw this on Instagram the other day and it made me feel so good that someone was taking such time and care to renew something old instead of just tossing it.  I want to be that type of person.  I've always loved the saying "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without." but it really is difficult when the new is so inexpensive and readily accessible.  This really goes into the idea of Slow Fashion, which I think knitting can be a part of, but it can also so easily be about consuming too. If your interested in Slow Fashion there is a great conversation on Instagram started by Karen Templer of Fringe Supply Company.  

It seems to come down to making conscious choices.  So, I will redouble my efforts about really thinking about my purchases and sticking within my fiber budget.  Do you have any techniques for sticking to a budget or goal?    

A Fiber Budget

My now more organized yarn stash.

To buy or not to buy that is the question.  This year I am on a fiber budget to help curb my impulse control and overspending.  It was a joint decision between my husband and I that we need to be more aware of our spending.  Surprisingly, so far I'm finding having a budget is comforting.  What?  Yup, I said comforting.  For instance, my local yarn store is closing (the proprietor wants to retire so good for her, sad for me) thus she is liquidating everything in her store.  I could go crazy shopping, but with the budget that has to last the whole year, multiple fiber events and holiday gift making I simply can't if I'm going to keep my sanity.  So, instead of grabbing anything and everything that suits my fancy I actually mapped out a few projects and took stock of the yarn and needles I already have before purchasing.  And you know what?  I only bought what I planned for and no more.  Wow!  That has never happened to me.  I always come away with something I didn't plan on.  It felt really good to be in control, like really good.

I'm also finding myself figuring out how can I add to my budget.  This has me sorting through my yarn stash, needles, project bags and thinning out what I don't really love.  Basically, I guess I'm simply de-cluttering.  Then, I'm selling those items I've culled with the proceeds going back into my yarn budget.  Thus far I have paid for a class and the teachers dinner for my local fiber fair called Yarnover with these proceeds so my budget hasn't even gone down that much.  Now, this probably won't work for next year, but it is helping ease me into budget life with the added benefit of being more organized.

Since I do have enough yarn for years of future knitting projects, ahem, I am thinking I will save most of my budget for classes, events and experiences.  In Minnesota we have Yarnover and Shepard's Harvest in the Spring and the Fall Fiber Festival in Autumn.  They all have classes and lots of local fiber vendors.  I'm hoping to learn more about Fair Isle knitting from Mary Jane Mucklestone in her class Fresh Fair Isle at Yarnover as well as how to use a knitting belt used by the people of the Shetland Isles from June Hemmons Hiatt at the Yarnover teacher's dinner.  Both I think will be money well spent as they are based on key interests of mine.  

Well, it's only January so I'm still feeling pretty optimistic about this whole Fiber Budget idea.  I'll check back in with you on this subject in the coming months to let you know how it's going.  Do you have a fiber budget?  What helps keep you on track?  I'd love to hear from you.