Every year I do one of these posts looking back to see how I did on this years goals and setting up some new ones for the following year! Let's see how I did.
2021 Goals:
1) Dye more yarn. I have absolutely fallen in love with yarn dying and would love to do more of it and be able to sell it in small batches. Will I become a full time yarn dyer, heck no, but I would love to release small batch,ooak and/or small collections throughout the year.
I DID this goal. I dyed a lot of yarn this year and even had some for sale in a local artisan shop here in Toronto. I have not released any collections BUT maybe we will expand on that in my 2022 goals haha
2)do some designing: I have toyed in the past with designing, but I think I tried to do too much. I just want to release the occasional pattern if a design peaks my interest.
I did this as well. I released a few paid patterns & a few free patterns as well here on the blog. Mostly socks, but that is what I have fallen in love with making.
3)This might seem counterintuitive but I want to be less concerned with social media. I am over trying to have a curated matching feed and post on certain days/times. I want to post what I want when I want (algorithm be damned lol)
I definitely think in a way I fell off the wagon with this one haha, but not to hard. I think personally I have stepped up my photo game and have been trying at times to post consistently. HOWEVER I am posting what I want and what makes me happy and not trying to make my account look like any others.
4)support other yarn dyers when feasible. I have also fallen in love this year with hand-dyed yarns and would like to support more indie-dyers whenever I am financially able to do so.
I did this 110% lol. I have bought so much yarn this year.....oops.
5)Make stitch markers, I would like to try and start making and selling more stitch markers. Id love to try and get into polymer charm making. I have come to accept that my target audience is makers and not the average person looking to buy a knit hat so I would like to cater my shop a bit more towards makers.
I did this as well! not with polymer clay though. I had some stitch marker sets available in the same local artisan shop as my yarn! I would love to move to selling these online at some point as well.
All in all I think I did pretty good this past year! Now what do I want to accomplish this year:
1)Grow Youtube channel : incase you didn't know I started a youtube channel and I would LOVE to grow it. I am an avid youtube watcher and hope that my videos can bring others the same joy I feel when I watch other makers!
2)Consistently write blog posts: I have gotten into a good groove towards the end of 2021 with writing about a blog post a week. I would love to try and keep up that momentum! Anything in particular you wanna see?
3)Practice new dye techniques: I would love to start to dye some small collections or pre-orders! I love dying yarn and I cannot keep it all for myself haha One other thought I had was a small subscription box, maybe not monthly but bi-monthly? Thoughts?
4)be more intentional with yarn purchases: I have learned that my taste in yarn has changed greatly over the last year or so, pertly because what I enjoy making has changed. So I am trying to be more intentional and buying larger quantities of yarns I think would make nice sweaters or having a garment in mind when I do buy single skeins (ie a colorwork shawl or socks). I have also been trying to buy yarns that coordinate more, unless I know for sure I want it for socks then it can be as wild and crazy as I want haha.
5)write more sock patterns and/or have a sock KAL: My favorite thing to make has become socks, followed by shawls which is weird to me as I was always against knitting socks and never really liked shawls. BUT as I said my making and yarn tastes have changed. I would love to design more socks and maybe even a shawl. I have come to accept that I have no desire to write larger garment patterns like sweaters, they are a lot of work and I get more joy from making other maker's sweater patterns who have already worked out all the kinks haha.
What about you? What are your 2022 maker goals?
