Final totals for 2016’s Stashdown effort. I failed. Again. Go figure.

So here it is: the final numbers for 2016.

I managed to just squeak by on my fiber Stashdown goal for the quarter; I spun and destashed just over 18oz out of stash when I was hoping for a minimum of 16oz. (I had an unofficial and unvoiced goal of getting down to 500 oz even before the year was over, but after Spinzilla, my spinning mojo deserted me. It can be a fickle thing.) I had high hopes to end the quarter stash-neutral–by my definition, +/- 200 yards of 0–but that didn’t happen with my yarn stash. I brought in two last-minute Lamby acquisitions and I wasn’t able to complete a pair of socks or the sweater I currently have in progress; the two together would have just about zeroed me out for the quarter, even with the extra yarn.  As you can see, for the year I’m in the red for both categories. *WHOMP WHOMP*

As usual, I’m not discouraged by this. Every time I fail to meet a goal, I view it as having learned a new way something didn’t work for me. I actually think this current method, but with some tweaks, is working out just fine. I really find the paper tracking useful and when added with a paper-tracked knitting goal every month, I found it easier to resist most yarny and fibery temptations. My ratio to yardage out to yardage in actually improved a bit in 2016 vs. 2015, and I’m still trying to figure out how I want to combat Lamby acquisitions and handspun coming into stash. A healthy portion of that number this year was those two things. 4,115 yards of the 24,010 was yarns from my own shop (17.1% of the total), and 4,427 yards were from my own handspun (18.4%). Over 1/3 of 2016’s acquired yarns were self-produced. The other just-under 2/3 were mostly to complete projects: I bought a large amount of yardage to finish my daughter’s blanket, I purchased odd skeins to pair with others in multi-colored shawls I plan to knit this year, but a good amount of the rest was Hedgehog Fibres and Must Stash self-striping yarns. I will never apologize for collecting either of those.

So for 2017, I think I’m going to stay the course, but have small, attainable monthly goals for both my yarn and fiber Stashdown efforts. I hope to knit 750 yards out of stash every month this year, and I’m hoping to spin out 8 ounces every month. This is the equivalent of 2 heavier fingering weight skeins of yarn and two braids of fiber, respectively, so I think they’re manageable. Of course, if I do better than that, I will not complain. I’m also dropping the idea of The Bins. They were a bit too restrictive, and I need more freedom in my crafting.

Very shortly here, I will be putting up a podcast episode and blog post detailing all of 2017’s plans. Talk to you shortly, kittens!