Knitting

focus friday. tackling my WIPs.

…I mentioned a few months back that my pile of hibernating projects was surprisingly big. Carole suggested I decide what to finish or frog and at the time I thought “great idea. absolutely. someday.” But this past week, that pile of projects has really started to weigh me down. I’m close to finishing a sweater and that means I’m thinking hard about what to knit next. And there’s a sweater in that pile (very uncharacteristic of me to start a sweater and not finish it – well, now that I knit seamless sweaters 🙂 Maybe it’s time to take Carole’s advice and decide (and then act!)

Last night I stumbled across this Ravelry post, and then this blog. Thank you, ExecutiveKnitter (Denise), for laying out a great process (and for making me feel way better about how many projects I’m tackling here!)

This morning I set to work. I have an older version of Excel, and I couldn’t apply her very helpful tips for exporting data from Ravelry. Thank goodness I only have 11 projects (after frogging one to give Karen the yarn) to look up and enter manually!

Once I had the data input, I followed Denise’s approach (except I used a 5-point scale) for scoring each project to get something quantifiable into the process. Those are the five columns Product, Process, Effort, Motivation and Score. I copied her Issue definitions exactly. Then I sorted the projects by Score and Percent Complete. It was almost a no-brainer where to draw the line. Yep, those last three projects are going to the frog pond, and I’m going to finish the other eight. Likely starting with the braided hood tunic. …as soon as I finish wispy!

Random observations:

1. One sweater, three pairs of socks, two scarves.
2. Only two projects are past the halfway point; four are barely started.
3. Three are from shop KALs.
4. Socks seem boring right now.
5. I’m no longer a fan of tedious (maybe because my kitchen table knitting time buddy left for college?)
6. I haven’t added anything to the pile since May.
7. I’m going to have a skein of malabrigo sock, 330 yards of DK wool/silk and a ball of noro laceweight to add to my stash!
8. I like the scoring approach – think it would be helpful to apply it before I start a project (instead of once I get bored with it!)

9 thoughts on “focus friday. tackling my WIPs.”

  3. Inspiring! Even though I hate to create charts and hate to frog, I think you have come upon a great idea. Still, I am afraid of my forgotten wip's. Do they bite?

  4. Thanks for sharing these links. I am going to apply the process to all of my crafts, not just knitting. I may also use it to pare down my wardrobe a bit more!

  5. now that's just too darn cool-it's a good idea to seriously evaluate WIPs on a regular basis-just like going throught that "junk drawer" in the kitchen.

  7. What a great process! I ditto everyone's remarks, especially Beverly's. I imagine that would be quite sobering for me but probably not too surprising. Thanks for sharing and for your " focus Fri" posts. Cheers~

Comments are closed.