Year in Review: 2013

Like most knitters I'm spending at least part of my New Year's Day thinking about what I accomplished last year and what I want to achieve in this brand spankin' new year. First I want to take a look at my 2013.

Knitmeter says I knit 24,796 yards in 2013. This is roughly 6 to 8,000 yards less than I've knit in the previous couple of years but I'm totally fine with that number. Much of the 24,000 yards came directly out of my stash except for Christmas gifts since I didn't have non-wool fingering weight yarn or the correct yardage of other weight superwash yarns.

I knit 18 pairs of socks:

I don't have pictures of Mr. B's Christmas socks yet (he wore them straight out of the box and I forgot to snap a picture) or my brother's Rye socks. That's 11 pairs of gift socks over the year - not too shabby.

As co-host of the Doubleknit Podcast I hosted a Deep Stash KAL and pulled out a lot of "precious" yarn and finally used it. It was a great exercise and worked well in tandem with Stash & Burn's Use it or Lose it challenge - I ended up knitting 16 projects that worked for both KALs.

I published a hat pattern, Pillsbury, which is free on Ravelry (photo by Quixoticpixels).

I knit a ton of accessories this year. Here's a sampling of them.

I also knit several sweaters but I have a particular favorite from 2013 - Audrey in Unst.

 

 I also joined Instagram this year (I'm ErinBirnel) and cultivated several online friendships with other knitters and crafters, you know who you are!

This was also my first full year Cold Sheeping. The idea is to either put in place a system whereby you knit more yarn than you bring in (Cold Sheeping Lite) or create custom goals for yourself. I had several exceptions in my Cold Sheeping: Stitches West, my birthday, and yarn for gifts or to finish projects. Honestly, I did end up buying yarn more than that but I was way more thoughtful about it than in the past. I'm continuing my Cold Sheeping efforts until Stitches West 2014 and then reassessing my goals.

I feel good about the progress I've made this year and I think 2014 will be even better.  I'll be posting goals and my somewhat non-resolutions for 2014 soon, stay tuned for that! You can see all of my 2013 projects on Ravelry if you follow this link. If you're interested in tracking your knitting progress over the course of the year I highly recommend adding a tab in your projects for 2014 and then tagging each project you knit as well - you'll be amazed at what you can achieve.

Happy 2014, knitting friends! I hope it's a good one for you!