July 2020 Monthly Craft Report

Time for me to report what I’ve done with my personal crafts this month. I ended up focusing more on my personal projects. This ended up pushing the projects I had planned to get done for the blog off to the side. I’m determined to get better about allotting my time! With no further ado, the July 2020 Monthly Craft Report.

 

 

Why I’m doing these reports

If you didn’t see last month’s report, make sure to do so. Then you can see what the point of these reports are. I’ll eventually have a page summarizing this just in case you forget.

 

What I got done

I finished two small projects this month. The first was so early in the month I forgot I got it done. I remembered it once I looked at my goal list from last month’s post.

The first project I finished was some wool mittens for our 4th oldest daughter. She was disappointed she couldn’t use them, but they’re all ready for our first snow. While the heat is wearing on me, I still hope that snow is far off.

I also finished a knitted fish washcloth for our preschooler. This was fun to make and I learned a lot about the mechanics of knitting from it. I’ve already been requested to make more fish. This one is her “bumbybee fish” washcloth because it’s yellow and grey and she’s more familiar with bugs than fish.

 

Other progress

I made a lot of progress on another washcloth, too. This one is apparently using knit lace techniques and it wasn’t working well on my wooden Knit Picks needles. I was knitting too tight and the wood was gripping the yarn too much. I bought some Chiaogoo lace knitting needles and my progress was SOOO much faster after that. I’m starting to feel a bit like my husband with needing to buy a new tool for every new project.

When starting to work on the sweater for our 2nd oldest daughter I realized why putting something away for a while can be a problem. I had lost my place because I didn’t write down where I was. I even had to tear back rows because I looked to have lost my place before I stopped working on it.

 

Developing a system, what I do best

In order to keep one project from dominating my time, I’m trying a simple system. I’ve classified by projects as small, big, and blankets (one full, one motif). So daily I plan on getting 4 rows/rounds of the small ones done, 2 of the big, and 1 of the blankets. I’m cheating a bit and doing 4 of the sweater because while it’s a big project the rows are shorter ones.

 

Analysis

Overall I’m pretty happy with the progress I made this month. I feel it’s a nice, sustainable plan that will help me get more of my crafts done. Plus finishing a project with time to spare makes it even more satisfying.

 

August 2020 plan

I still need to rework my Project Clean Queue into a finite list. Then I’ll have to find out how I’m going to document the other projects I complete. I might make a board in Trello.

My bare minimum goal is to get 3 projects done. I got 2 done this month so let’s set the bar a little higher. I’d be really happy if I got 5 done and bouncing up and down happy if I got all 7 done.

 

The 7 projects I’m currently working on:

• knitted lacy washcloth for kid #1: Lacy Spa Cloth pattern
• knitted heart washcloth for kid #3: Queen of Hearts pattern
• a sweater for kid #2:  Pine Ridge Pullover pattern
• a knitted shawl:  Simple Lace Triangle Shawl pattern
• our Moogly CAL blankets:  one block at a time, simultaneously working on blankets for all of us, 7 in all with 1 not started yet so 6 for now
  • Currently working on a square 21 for kid #4 from the 2019 CAL
• a baby blanket/sweater set I first saw in Crochet World magazine: Butterfly Days Baby Set blanket pattern, keeping on it even though #6 has already outgrown it, sweater is done
• music quilt: Yellow Brick Road pattern

Note: I used kid #X in my descriptions just so you understand where in the order they are. I know it could come across as unloving and I don’t mean it that way!

 

 

What are your crafting plans for August? Did you reach your goals for July?