knitting resolutions

I've never been terribly good with New Year's resolutions. I resolve to exercise more, be tidier, read more classics, etc, and this rarely happens. I did end up getting more exercise than planned this year, but that was partly because the car died and I had to switch to walking or taking the bus (which often involves walking, too). And I'm not tidier or more organized than I used to be. I still wish I was, but the closest I've come is getting rid of old school papers from my undergrad that I have no use for (goodbye, chapter summaries from IDIS 400!) and organizing my yarn stash a bit. And I did read Wuthering Heights. And Emma, and I've never made it through that one before. Middlemarch and The Brothers Karamazov are still on the list.

However, I do plan to make some resolutions for knitting/other fibre arts this year. Since I already do a lot of knitting anyway, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to plan some of it. In between school, work, and trying to remember to take out the recycling, I plan to:

1. Finish Sedum (as I'm almost 1/4 of the way through the pattern already, this shouldn't be difficult).

2. Get to the point with fair isle where I can do it competently (I'm working on a pair of mittens right now: slow going but it doesn't look bad).

3. Finish the Leaf in a Leaf shawl and knit at least one more lace shawl this year (probably Percy, since I have the yarn for it already).

4. Make something larger than mitts with my handspun yarn (how about a hat? or can I spin enough to make something lacy?). Also, get better at spinning.

5. Knit a rug for the Knitting Olympics using wool rags (rags need to be wound up into balls and I need to choose a pattern).

6. Knit something out of Knitted Lace of Estonia (the Raha Scarf is the one in my ravelry queue right now).

7. Knit another sweater (maybe Spoke?).

8. Learn to crochet enough to make Chanson En Crochet (crochet has been my Waterloo--my spinning is fairly decent for a beginner, and when I learned to knit, everything clicked and it worked, but crochet drives me batty. And I still want to beat it, and actually be a little competent with it).

9. Learn to do intarsia and double-knitting (I promised my dad argyle socks sometime, and double-knitting looks like fun, too).

10. Knit the Maple Swirl Socks by Debbie New (you should see the chart for these: it's insane! there's arrows and swirly sections and she even includes fair-isle).

11. Finish my wedding ring quilt (it's been a goal for a while, and I just need to take some time, sit down, and sew for a couple days, and then I will be at the fun part. I like the quilting better than the piecing).

12. AND finish those Christmas knitting projects. I've knit something fast for those people for this Christmas, but I'd like to get the projects I started this year done for next Christmas.

And I think that's about it. I'd like to work my way through more of the items in my queue, but some of those will take longer than others. And working my way through some of the stash would be good, too (no, it's not a huge stash, but if I don't buy yarn unless it's for a specific project, and knit mostly from stash, I can get through lots of it this year).