I anyone making any? Has anyone broken any yet? I’m still tickled by how much the giftalong thread helped keep me focused, I’m hoping maybe this one will keep me going for 2017.
Happy New Year to all. May your 2017 be full of peace and good wool for all.
I resolve this year to raise my voice against facism, tyranny, and greed; to not go quietly into this dark night.
Happy New Year to this wonderful knitting tribe and thanks to Kay and Ann for their hard work, smarts, and humor.
I have actually been struggling with this, trying to decide whether to make resolutions or not. And trying to phrase things in a positive light, instead of negative.
So far, I have “resolved” to:
Donate to causes that are important to me.
Be kind, and respectful, but also loud.
Read more and watch less television.
Drink more water.
Many many thanks to Kay and Ann for building this community. I look forward to spending more time here in 2017.
I’m not a big resolution person, I try to make small changes quarterly–more likely to stick that way.
On the knitting front, try to use more stash than I buy. Get creative finding patterns for the yarn that I have. Starting with the Hadley sweater coming in the new book!
I like to think of these as my goals for the coming year, as opposed to resolutions. Some are changing habits, some are improving and maintaining good habits, and some are trying and learning new things. Although I do have ones relating to improving my personal health and becoming a better person, the fun (and often most challenging) ones for me relate to knitting.
First goal: get the bulk of Xmas knitting done before the fall. This is a real stretch for me (I’ve never come close), but I hate that I’ll never meet the deadline feeling. I have already chosen what I will knit for my husband, kids, and their significant others (socks for the guys and cowls for the girls) and even have the yarn ready to go in my stash.
Second goal: complete the process of moving my downloaded knitting patterns from iBooks (where some of them get eaten during syncing) to my google drive. This is just boring time consuming work that I need to get done.
Third goal: start wrangling my stash down to a more manageable level. I plan to destash for the third year in a row via my LYS annual Super Bowl Sunday yarn swap (you bring in what you no longer want and can take what you like that others have brought). The first year I made the mistake of going on Super Bowl Sunday and came home with some new yarn that I didn’t really need. Last year I just dropped my yarn off a week early which I plan to do again this year. I will try to be more selective in my purchases, asking myself how much do I really want/need this yarn, do I have a viable substitute in my stash, and if I am truly in love, can my lust be satisfied with a small 100g or less project. Finally, I need to more consistently knit from stash.
Fourth goal: push myself to learn new things. I will continue to participate in Sock Madness, because I seem to learn a new technique with every project. I am attending a retreat run by Amy Herzog to learn new ways to make my sweaters better. I bought a Finnish knitting book last fall, and I want to translate and knit at least one accessory before year end. Since I know zero Finnish and have always found learning new languages challenging, this will be a big deal for me if I manage it. I also want to be able to crochet well enough to get consistent gauge and not look at the instructions constantly.
Do any of the rest of you make knitting resolutions? What are they?
I am going to restart the whole 30 in a week or so. Not on Jan one or two, but soon. I have also decided to quit the gym and put an exercise bike in my daughter’s old room. I have a trainer thingie which you put your actual bike into and you can use it instead of an excersize bike, but my bike needs a special adapter so I cannot start it until we locate the adapter. So that is the plan. We moved DD3’s bed out of her room to make space for the bike so it is just a matter of time- or I will have to buy an exercycle which I would like not to have to do. There is also a yoga mat in there and I am waiting to receive a book for yoga for curvy people, By Anna Guest-Jelly which I pre ordered.
Deep Breath. I also put in my calendar writing and stitching but only for the next ten days. That is long enough for a resolution, right?
Well, for many years now, my new year’s resolution has been to make no resolutions. So far, I have succeeded! Such a feeling of accomplishment, too.
Something else has emerged, however. I recently became aware of wanting to knit more for myself, much much more. Since the early 80’s I have knit a hat and mitten set for myself and two cowls, the last of which I finished knitting two years ago but have not yet woven in the ends. Now, I am realizing that I am worth so much more. I am worth the love and the care that I put into my knitting. Unfortunately home since Friday with a bad cold, it was my opportunity. I put stitches on my needles for making that Age of Brass and Steam “kerchief” that I have been wanting, using two skeins of Silk Garden Lite. As Kay would say, I “knit like the wind” and the garment is now complete, waiting to be blocked! All kinds of sabotaging doubts arose as I knit the thing, and I simply “noticed” those thoughts and kept on knitting anyway. My next project is to make a scarf with yarn that was gifted to me for Christmas. I am happy, over the moon, to finally be able to say that I am worth it.
I’m not a big fan of having a resolution that has to happen on January 1st. I must prefer having resolutions that speak to how I’m going to live in the new year. Here’s a post that I put on Facebook on January 1. This just about sums it up for me.
I’ve been home today enjoying the first day of a new year and making plans for 2017. As I look back at 2016, I have realized that it was not a bad year at all. In fact, the people who we have lost have given us all so many gifts that we need for 2017.
There are so many, but here are a few.
Like David Bowie and Prince, let your freak flag fly. You have no idea whose life you will make better and easier by sharing your own oddities and talents. And like Prince, don’t make a big deal about it when you help but always help when you can.
Like Leonard Cohen, find the poetry in the mundane. And regardless of whether or not your voice is traditionally pretty, sing out loud.
Like Alan Rickman, don’t let your age dictate your ability. Follow your dreams whenever you find them.
Like Dan Haggerty, spend time in nature.
Like Glen Frey, keep coming back for more.
Like Maurice White, find your groove.
Like Vanity, invest in good lingerie regardless of who is going to see it.
Like Joey Feek, share your pain with the people who care about you. It will be easier for everyone to carry a small piece of it.
Like Morely Safer, tell it like it is. And make sure you check all your facts.
Like Muhammad Ali, make sure you tell the world just how fabulous you are.
Like Bill Cunningham, capture and commemorate the beauty that you see in the world.
Like Marni Nixon, do your best to make sure everyone around you shines.
Like Alexis Arquette, be your true self.
Like George Michael, be the person who makes everyone else want to dance.
Like Janet Reno, break down the barriers.
Like John Glenn, do at least one thing in your life that makes everyone else say “Holy shit, did you see what he/she/they just did! Wow!”
Like Sharon Jones, fight as hard as you can, even if you know you will lose.
Like Elie Wiesel, survive to tell your story. And then tell it well.
Like Zsa Zsa Gabor, be glamorous and beautiful at all times. Even when you’re not.
Like Abe Vigoda, be reliable and consistent. It’s good to be the person that everyone can rely on.
And like Gene Wilder, see the humor in life, show it to others and laugh alone if no one else gets the joke.
Like others I don’t make resolutions. I do however need to keep on trying to reduce my W-I-P’s if only because I need to get some of my needles free. To that end I finished the knitting on a chemo cap over the weekend. In my rooting around for something, don’t ask what, it escaped my mind the minute a dishcloth fell at my feet that I had forgotten was in progress (loosely speaking of course) so I finished the knitting part of it. What next? Maybe one of the several scarves I still have in progress (don’t ask how many, I don’t think I can count that high). Being accountable to you MDK knitters and Ravelry knitters has helped keep me keepin’ on my W-I-P’s.
This is a wonderful list! Death is certain; let’s have some fun and change the world.
I am remembering Patty Duke and The Parent Trap movie.
Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds too. 
“Be kind and respectful but also loud.” I’m just going to adopt that wholesale! Thank you.
Like many of you, I make no resolutions of the self-improving variety. I do like to keep an eye on self-cultivation, and this year I’m looking at being at home, and being out in the world.
I wish to make home a lovely comfortable haven, for me and my husband but also for guests. I want to have lots of guests this year coming to enjoy our beautiful pirate house and seashore.
I also want to be out in the world in a very comfortable way - not with a swaddled kind of comfort, but a self-trusting kind. Having the capacity and savoir faire and adventuresome spirit to go anywhere - travel far, or just to be a flâneuse in my own part of the world.
And of course, to crush fascism and patriarchy in my stilettos and hand-knits. Onward!
Oh my! I’d forgotten about the Superbowl Sunday swap. That’s the ideal way to destash. I was diving in my stash before Christmas, and finally had the stern talking-to-myself that I was never actually going to knit that toddler sweater in red and black cotton for my son… especially now that he’s in high school.
I’d never thought about dropping the yarn off early. That would be a great way to make sure that you came home with less than you arrived with.
I’m actually already progressing on my destash goal. Out of the blue, a woman contacted me on Ravelry and asked if I would be willing to part with the London Tweed I had left after knitting a sweater last February. Since I don’t post my stash on Ravelry, she must have figured out that I had some left by looking at my project notes. It was surprisingly painful to part with the yarn even though I didn’t have any plans for the remaining yarn. She bought the yarn, I shipped it off, and now I have a sweater’s worth of yarn gone.
A group of long time knitting friends hold a retreat each year the first weekend following New Years. I have never gone because I always seem to have a family conflict. A few years back they instituted a yarn swap that has proved pretty popular. This is the second year in a row that I have sent yarn with one of my friends. For that event, I send mostly project quantities of yarn. I make other knitters happy and I rid myself of yarn I am unlikely to miss.
I need to do a more thorough and thoughtful review of what I have before the Super Bowl swap. Smaller quantities of yarn (not an entire sweater kit) seem more appropriate for this one.
Actually, yes! I always make knitting resolutions, often before I have any other resolutions! 
This year I have resolved to get good at Continental knitting. I’ve always knit English style, for almost 17 years now, but Continental is so much faster that I really want to get good at it. I can do it, but my gauge is all over the place, especially when I purl. I’m determined to get it down!
There’s a serious destash resolution going on in my heart. (also, should I be worried that my phone’s autocorrect wants to change ‘destash’ to ‘death’ every time I type it?)
In that vein… 50+30+30+30 (I counted while I was loading up the bags) skeins/balls of less-loved yarn are off to the Superbowl Stash Swap (if they’ll have me. I’ve always been the one coming in to purchase stuff during the swap…) And there’s more yarn where that came from, as I’m finally being honest with myself and those sweater quantities of orange/rust/maroon yarn? They’ll never EVER look good on me.
My goal of ridding my house of 2017 things in 2017 is off to a fairly robust start.
This is absolutely brilliant. Can I share it, of CV course giving you credit.
Next weekend is the Super Bowl swap and I’ve pulled out these yarns to give them.
These yarns are either the wrong color for anyone I routinely knit for or yarns that I don’t enjoy working with or (in the case of a few sock yarns) I have something very close in a slightly better colorway.
Not as impressive as what Robyn culled, but I already cleared out about 75 skeins/balls with what I sent to the January retreat.
I didn’t go to the retreat and I will be traveling on Super Bowl Sunday, so no temptation to restock with Robyn’s cast offs. 
Made one more pass through my stash while waiting for a load of laundry. Two knit/felt kits (haven’t felted in years) and three scarf quantities of yarn.
As much as I loved some of these when I got them, I don’t any more. Hope some one else will.
Your offerings look so well organized, though. I’ll be going through mine, and bagging like with like in ziplocks, to help with distribution. I realized that I’ve got multiple skeins of some yarns that I thought I merely had singletons, and the extra yardage may help someone else love the yarn more than I have. Nice yarns (for the most part). but I have to admit to myself that if I haven’t knit the ‘super fantastic, just can’t wait to cast on!’ project in five+ years, I’m probably not going to…
