Making Progress

Last night I went to Open Knit Night at Knit Picky, one of my local yarn stores. It was my first time and it was great to be in the company of other enthusiastic knitters. It will hopefully become a regular part of my Great Knitspectation odyssey. I definitely need a project to work on that is fairly basic and does not require a lot of attention while I am at Knit Night. There is so much good conversation going on that it is easy to get distracted. So, I have been evaluating potential projects in my WIP-n-Stash to find the right thing for next week.

I read Margene’s post yesterday where she talked about her WIP-n-Stash policy. She believes in few WIP’s and no UFO’s! She said that if a project doesn’t grow then it goes bye-bye. She actually frogs when needed. I hope that some day I can get to the point where I can follow her policy. I think she is absolutely right – if you only have a few things on the needles then the growth rate for those projects is quicker which insures a greater level of success and completion. I keep debating the best way to approach my reduction in WIP-n-Stash and I think that will require on-going evaluation. I do know one thing, actually doing the knitting is the only way to make progress and I am trying to do that every day.

I haven’t really shared a lot of information yet about my WIP. I probably have about 20 projects in varying degrees of completion – many aren’t very far from crossing the finish line. A lot of the projects are wool sweaters for me and it will probably be about three and half months before I can wear any of them - so my goal is to have them done by the end of October. I have a few heavy sweaters that I would like to see done by Christmas and then some other odds and ends like hats and bags that I would like to see get done by the end of the year. How much of a dent can I make in my WIP list by the end of 2008? Let’s set a goal that I will reduce my WIP list by 50% by the end of 2008. That will equate to about 10 projects which I think is doable. I took one off the list with the Einstein Coat and I will just have to keep making progress every week. It feels good to know that at some point I will get passed the point of having too much WIP. The stash I can deal with, but the WIP has been bothering me for a while now.