Wednesday 30 March 2011

KnitCroBlo Week - Day 3

Before I get started, I just wanted to say a massive thankyou to everyone who has popped in to read and commented so far this week. It's been so much fun reading everyone else's posts, and I've certainly added more than a few new blogs to my reading list!


Today is all about Organisation. Tidy mind, tidy stitches is the official topic header. I expect we’ll see quite a variety of posts on this topic today!

A place for everything, and everything in its place.


I like to think of myself as being quite an organised person. I like for everything to have a place. However, I am extremely messy and lazy, so once I have organised everything, it rapidly falls apart and becomes a mess again.



A place for everything, and nothing in its place should be my motto.

Of course, organising your knitting/crocheting is far more than just where it’s kept. I have my nest, my area of the living room you see above, where I keep my yarn, books, tools and WIPs. It’s also where I do most of my work, so everything is close to hand.

When I started out, I didn’t have much to keep organised. I was working on one project, I only had the materials and tools needed for that one project. As time has gone on, I have built up a little mini stash of spare yarn, mostly leftovers. I have not yet got to the stage where I go into yarn stores and just buy yarn because it’s pretty! I can’t get my head around that. Of course, my collection of tools has expanded as the projects have come and gone, as I’ve needed a variety of different hook sizes and so forth.

Staying organised is really more about keeping on top of the projects I’m working on. I’ve gone a bit crazy of late; I currently have eight WIPs on the go, whereas before I would have maybe one or two. Admittedly, I’m only working consistently on one or two at a time, so a week may go by before I touch a project again, if I’m not in the mood for working on it.

Ravelry is a great tool to stay organised. I can keep track of my library, my stash, my hook selection, my finished work and my current projects. It’s also a great planning tool. I’ve built up quite a queue of patterns that I’d like to have a go at someday. But because they’re all in my queue, I don’t have to keep remembering them. When I get to a stage where I want to start a new project, I can search my queue instead of the whole database.

Ravelry helps keep my stash in check too. Because of the yarn information on the site, I can easily narrow down my selections for projects where I need to substitute yarn. A lot of the patterns are American and suggest using yarns not readily available in the UK, so substituting yarn is fast becoming an essential skill for me. Searching through Ravelry means that when I finally get to the yarn store I know I’m only looking for one or two yarns, I don’t have to search the whole shop, peering at ball bands and trying to remember what gauge I’m meant to be working at. I don’t get distracted by pretty yarns that are no use to me, either, which keeps my OH and my bank balance happy!

One thing that does annoy me though, is when people don't bother using Ravelry's features to the full. I have to substitute yarns a lot, so it's really helpful to go through the finished projects and find ones using the yarns I'm thinking about using, to see exactly how much it will use etc. So often I see the projects without vital details, like how much yarn was used, or which hook size was used. Or people who say "I made some modifications to the pattern" and then don't say what they did differently! I try to make sure all of my projects contain information that is not only useful to me (e.g. keeping accurate track records of how much of a particular yarn I have left in my stash) but for other people. I want people to find my project pages helpful, so I make sure they contain all the information I would want to see. I just wish everyone did the same.

And of course, keeping track of everything’s progress via WIP Wednesdays and FO Fridays means that I stay on top of my active projects, and make sure everyone gets some attention at least once a fortnight, to save on embarrassment when I have to announce for yet another week “I still don’t have any FOs to share”!

Don’t forget, this post is part of KnitCroBlo Week, search in Google for “2KCBWDAY3” to find out how my fellow bloggers keep their crafts organised. Who knows, might all learn a thing or two from each other today!

25 comments:

  1. Yes, like you I organize and it quickly falls into shambles....

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  2. xxxmckingbirdxx30 March 2011 at 00:41

    That's what my craft corner looks like...super messy XD

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  3. Oh I agree about people who don't fill in the project pages fully. I tend to witter on a bit in mine!

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  4. I'm with you, I try to make all my notes and things in Ravelry as complete and useful as possible! I even weigh my yarn or FO so I can give an accurate idea of how much yarn I used.

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  5. I am like you, good at organizing but things fall into a mess quickly ;)

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  6. Hmm should have chose a different identity to post with as my Google profile is not set up apparently!

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  7. I think we are soul-sisters! ;-) I think my craft corner stays organized for a max of 1 week. beyond that, it degenerates to its previous messy state.. sigh

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  8. 'A place for everything, and nothing in its place' - loved this!

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  9. LOL... I need to show my husband some of these posts. Maybe then he will not think I'm the only one with yarn problems. :-) Great post!!!

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  10. yep, I agree about the poject pages :)

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  11. I weigh all of my yarn too. It's such an easy way of keeping track!

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  12. I have a depressingly small amount of yarn compared to most other posters today! They put my meagre stash to shame!

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  13. Good tip about making sure project pages are up to date - not something I'd thought of before but I've not used ravelry to its full extent yet. Must remember that other people might find my info handy, not just me! Thanks :)

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  14. my stash is hopelessly unorganized. Like you, it is for about a week and then it all just falls apart. One thing I think I'm going to do that you've mentioned is the WIP Wednesdays and FO Fridays. I have so many WIP's that I really need something to give me that push to get things off the needles!

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  15. I always try to put the important stuff into my project notes! I agree, it's frustrating to read that someone's changed a pattern in what looks like the most perfect way, and then to not know how they did it...

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  16. Looks like I could learn a lot from you about Ravelry. :) While I've been a member of it for a long time, I've only recently been learning about the various features. But I DO try to use all of them that I can when I put my projects in or by the time I reach the completion stage of a project. GREAT post. :)

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  17. xxxmckingbirdxx30 March 2011 at 16:51

    I wish I kept my stash and projects page more up to date XD

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  18. Ok, I'm with you on the let's get organized so we can then get disorganized thingy. I'm pretty good with my books and magazines; very bad with the yarn stash. No organization there. None. Only in my head. :)

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  19. I like how you have a bookcase for your knitting books and yarn. I love bookcases.

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  20. It's dangerous when you start buying yarn just because it's 'pretty'. Slippery slope to becoming one of those people on one of the many hoarding reality shows. "She just wouldn't stop buying yarn, and she suffocated in it!" (I'm not quite there yet...)

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  21. Hah! I don't think my other half would let me get that bad.

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  22. I spent too long reading the "Flash your stash" thread in the Ravelry forums, and saw so many pics of people's stashes in Ikea bookcases. Sadly, I have no Ikea nearby, so I have to make do with cheap Argos bookcases. Luckily I already had about 10 of them!

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  23. For me it's the "how much yarn I used" bit missing that annoys me, as I'm often looking at a project thinking "you've used the yarn I was thinking about substituting, how much do I need?"

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  24. It's a bit of a two-edged sword though, as you find yourself starting more and more projects so you always have something to blog about!

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  25. I've just gotten in the habit of making more detailed project notes on Rav... but it would probably be a good idea if I uploaded all of my stash in there. The guilt would stop my yarn purchases for a while... I think.

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