Goals for 2011

4:04 AM Nattering 1 Comments

I've never been one for the 'New Year's Resolutions'.  All that 'starting this' and 'stopping that'.  If you really want to improve your life with new habits or losing old ones, then you don't need a new year to motivate you.  I prefer to set goals or have plans for a new year.  It gives you a sense of direction and achievement rather than failure like 'resolutions' tend to do.

This year is going to be a year of change for me.  The cause of this being that my LittleMiss will be starting school in 4 weeks time!  I keep getting asked what I'll be doing (with all that spare time) but I can only see me being busier, mostly due to increased work hours.


I have plenty of personal goals and plans for the coming year, but so I don't bore you all with that I'll focus on my crafty goals for the year.

I've been doing some alterations to a wedding dress for a workmate of J's brother.  It's reminded me of a couple of things.  Firstly, how much I really enjoyed making wedding dresses.  Even though there was a lot of work in drawing up patterns and making 'practice' dresses until finally getting the pattern perfect and making that first nervous cut into the expensive satin or silk, I still loved the whole process and the final product was always so gorgeous!  J has started saying I should just start advertising, but all my other commitments would make it too demanding if I did it regularly.  (Though if you're local and want a dress made, let me know - ball gowns, bridesmaids, flowergirls, wedding dress - I could definitly fit in one customer this year!) And secondly, how much I enjoy sewing in general.  Which is a good thing for one of my goals for this year:

Goal 1 - I plan to not buy any clothes for the girls this year (except school uniforms as I don't have a choice there) but to make everything instead.  (I'm undecided yet if it will extend as far as underwear and socks.)
This is not driven by any eco-conscience (I do have one) but mainly due to financial reasons (I have a lot of materials in stash already) and the simple fact that I cannot buy clothes that fit my girls.


Goal 2 - I plan to not buy any more yarn this year unless I have the funds in PayPal to pay for it (from my pattern sales.)
This is another financial-driven reason, though I might be able to justify buying yarn if I need it for a specific design...(maybe not as I just purchased that huge lot from Bendigo Woollen Mills, all of it earmarked for planned designs - enough to keep me going all year probably!)  This leads onto my next goal:


Goal 3 - I plan to knit from stash as much as possible.


Goal 4 - I plan to always have a design-in-progress on the needles.
This won't be too hard as I have at least six design sketches in my notebook just waiting to be calculated and knit up!  Not to mention all the suggestions and ideas floating around my head...


Goal 5 - I plan to only have one project at a time on the needles (of a certain type - i.e. small knit, design knit, large knit.)
I've already been trying to do this as much as possible lately.


Goal 6 - I plan to make myself a bag/pouch to keep my interchangeable needle tips and notions organised.
This might be a long way off as I don't have fabric I want to make it in yet.


I think that will do for now...