Get Organized for the New Year with These Resource Packs

Every year I decide is the year I’m going to get my knitting stuff more organized. And every year I make a little bit of progress. I’ve decluttered my yarn pretty well over the years, and this year I finally organized my yarn storage by color, which is something I’ve wanted to do since I changed offices in the house (probably five years ago?).

If you need a little help getting your knitting life on track for the new year, I’ve got a couple of good resources for you from The Blue Elephants on Etsy.

First up is the Make it Happen Resource Pack, which is for knitters who need cheat sheets. This guide is for both knitters and crocheters, or those of us who do some of both. It includes:

Crochet hook sizes conversion chart with a place to check off what’s in your inventory
Common crochet abbreviations and a conversion chart for US and UK terms
Knitting needle size conversion chart with space for your inventory of different kinds of needles
Knitting abbreviations and symbols
Yarn weight guide
Laundry care symbols
Hat sizing guide
Blanket sizing guide
Sizing for other projects (scarves, shawls, household items, but not garments as far as I can tell)
Additional resources and favorite tools

In all its 23 pages you can print or edit on your computer.

There’s also a pack for people who knit things to sell and knitwear designers. It includes:

Project trackers
Yarn stash inventory
Project ideas list
Brand identity plan
Product line planner
Custom order tracker
Handmade pricing guide
Monthly income and expenses report
Pattern templates
Resources for makers
Printable tags to use on products

They’re really meant to be used together (there’s also an undated planner you can buy to go with them) but if you aren’t a designer or someone who sells, the first one would be good to have just for the cheat sheets.

If you have organizational or other knitting-related goals for the new year I would love to hear them!

Next Pattern:

One great thing to knit when the weather is warm (or honestly any other time) is dishcloths and washcloths. They are fun and easy projects and a great way to play with new skills. Pretty washcloths make cleaning a tiny bit more fun, and they’re great to have on hand as a quick addition to a store-bought gift.

The Daisy Delight Dishcloth from Yarnspirations is a fun one for using leftover bits of green in your cotton yarn stash. What looks like the bottom in the picture is actually the left side as you knit it, and each little color section is worked with its own ball of yarn, intarsia style.

That’s a little fiddly for a washcloth, but the effect is cute, and it’s a simple way to learn the basics of intarsia knitting (as well as reading a chart) if you don’t already have those skills.

One the knitting is done, you add the flowers with a bit of lazy daisy embroidery, which is really easy to do even if you’re not that into embroidery. You could also potentially add flowers in duplicate stitch if you’d rather.

This may be the most work you’ve put into a dishcloth, but isn’t it adorable? It would be fun to use as a hand towel through the spring and summer, and if you already have some leftover green yarn from other projects it should be pretty easy to do.

You could also take this same concept and make it different colors. All dark green stems with stars on top might be reminiscent of Christmas trees, or brown with daisy stitch on top in different colors could be trees in the fall.

However you stitch it, this looks like a fun little project for knitters who are comfortable with intarsia and reading charts or who are ready to try those skills.

You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

Book Review – Dishcloths for Special Days [Knitting]

Book Review – Holiday Knit Dishcloths

Next Pattern:

Have you read?