This is a lesson I’ve had to learn many many times. I’m often inspired to get moving on a new project. I fall in love with a pattern, yarn, and I’m off to the races. I move along either until it’s done, or until I get distracted by something new. Then my formerly inspiring knit gets put away for a while, sometimes a long while. Now, I don’t necessarily think this is a big problem, it happens pretty often and I usually get back to projects and they eventually get finished. Do I have moments of knitterly guilt? Of course, that’s what eventually gets things finished! All of that being said, there are some pretty annoying things that often occur when I return to a project.
I don’t take good notes. I have no idea where I left off (having not really known I would be leaving the project for any length of times, I suppose I should just know myself better than that by now). How many decrease rows have I completed? How many inches was I supposed to work in stocking stitch? Or even worse, what size was I making? What needles was I using? What colourway was that? I can usually figure out what the yarn is just by looking, but it certainly wouldn’t kill me to write it down. Second socks are terrible for this, let me tell you. How many heel flap rows was I working? What shoe size is the person I’m making this for? And so on and so on……
So here are a few things you might want to make a noteĀ of when you are working on a project, whether you intend to put it down or not. You may even find this kind of information helpful if you decide to knit something again, or if you need to make a repair etc. Ravelry is a great place to make such notes as well. In the interest of the knitting community you might not be the only one who wants to know how many decreases you made or what size etc.
Items of Note:
1. Yarn: colourway, dyelot, and yardage
2. Pattern source: where did you get this pattern? Book, website, magazine, etc.
3. Needles: size and any important information like whether lace needles were helpful, length of circular etc.
4. What size you are making
5. How many decreases or increases you have made or inches/rows you have knit, I might make a note of this every so often, you never know when you might be inspired by something new!
6. Any alterations you might be making to the pattern. This is particularly important. If you are knitting a large size, but you are making it shorter or longer, you will definitely want to know this and by how much.
If anyone can think of anything else of note let me know!
–Alexa–
Also it is really great to note where you put the rest of the yarn for that project, so that once you have used up that first delicious ball of yarn and wish to continue your project, you don’t have to tear the house upside down only to realize that you really don’t know where you put and wonder if your 2 year old son did something with it!!!! Obviously this is written from current personal experience!!!
i don’t really want my husband to know b/c so often I put something somewhere and then we can’t find it! ; ) Drives him crazy but after all our years of marriage he just says “Oh Marcia, really you are the one who put it away?” And he knows that we just won’t see it until we are looking for something else that I put away. So hopefully sooner than later I will find my yarn!
So true! I was trying to be organized the other day and I even took a piece of cardboard, labeled it with the garment name and put a healthy dose of the yarn around the cardboard, that way I know where a little extra is for any possible repairs.
I’m bad at note taking as well. Those favorite pair of plain socks – how many stitches did I cast on? How long did I make the leg, foot, etc? Yes, I can pull them out and count, but how sad (and wasteful of precious knitting time!) is that???
One other thing I’d add is where did the yarn come from…. if you really like it, or think you’re going to run out, it’s nice to know where it was purchased/obtained from….