Another year, gone

Absolutely no idea where 2015 went. I read more than I knit, whatever that means. Probably that I spent too much time sick and fatigued. I knit 52 hats, though, and have found heads for most of them. Need to send off a few to a friend who auctions off handknits to raise money for charity, but will probably keep a few around for friends. I met my variegated yarn goal, and the mileage goal of one mile a month, but not much more. The UFO bins stayed mostly untouched, sadly. 

That said, I am off to a good start with organizing the stash. Lots of pictures taken, and much of my collection is ready to be uploaded to Rav. I've destashed a bit, because I have SO many bins of yarn it's ridiculous. My 2016 knitting goals mostly aim towards reducing my collection of yarn.

Current goals:

• List as much stash as possible on Rav, including stuff for sale/trade.
• Empty the back bedroom closet so I can store yarn there, as that will make the office and craft room more usable.
• Empty some of the WIP bins, either by finishing or frogging.
• Knit current club projects as they arrive rather than letting them languish for years.
• Knit the bins!
• Concentrate on using more yarn than I acquire over the course of the year. I knit 16.5 lbs in 2015; will attempt to track yarn usage by weight and see if I can decrease or at least net zero.
• As festivals are my weakness, I need to limit my festival attendance and keep to a strict budget. 

Knit the bins plan involves seven bins and a cone:

• One bin for yarn with designated patterns.
• Two bins for Oooh, Shiny projects. one for sock and lace weight, the other for heavier yarns.
• Variegated bin: Knit 12 skeins (or more) of variegated yarn - After documenting my stash, I think I should probably aim for 24 skeins. I have a LOT of gorgeous handpainted yarn. 
• Sweater bin: Mostly I need to stick to one sweater at a time - no simultaneous sweaters! 
• UFOs bin: Again, need to attack some of the old WIPs. Finish or frog, whichever seems appropriate.
• Handspun bin: I need to spin some of my fiber! Will make a bin to spin, but handspun yarn may be used at any point. It's almost an Oooh, Shiny bin, but I'm not attempting to empty the handspun bin by the end of the year.
• Undyed cone: I have a 3lb cone of undyed sock yarn, purchased to use in two-color designs where I have a tough time figuring out color combinations. This yarn will count towards stash used weights, but if I manage to deplete it, I can replace it without guilt (and without it counting towards stash acquisition), as using it means that I have also used up other yarns that might otherwise be lingering in deep stash. 

Anyway, almost finished with the first book of 2016, so here's last year's list:

Books Read in 2015

001. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

002. How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran

003. When Books Went To War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II, Molly Guptill Manning

004. Little Failure, Gary Shteyngart

005. The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondo

006. Clear the Clutter, Find Happiness: One-Minute Tips for Decluttering and Refreshing Your Home and Your Life, Donna Smallin

007. Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories, Randy Bachman

008. The First Bad Man, Miranda July

009. The Dream of Water, Kyoko Mori

010. The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber

010. The Girls, Lori Lansens

011. Drivel: Deliciously Bad Writing by Your Favorite Authors, Julia Scott, ed.

012. What I Did While You Were Breeding: A Memoir, Kristin Newman

013. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester

014. The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Jill Lepore

015. In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje

016. Cherry, Mary Karr

017. Enslaved By Ducks: How one man went from head of the household to bottom of the pecking order, Bob Tarte

018. Dragons at Crumbling Castle, Terry Pratchett

019. Kitty Cornered: How Frannie and Five Other Incorrigible Cats Seized Control of Our House and Made It Their Home, Bob Tarte

020. Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life As a Ramone, Marky Ramone with Rich Herschlag

021. Thumbsucker, Walter Kirn

022. Mistborn: The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson

023. The Girls of Mischief Bay, Susan Mallery

024. The Rithmatist, Brandon Sanderson

025. The Clockwork Dagger, Beth Cato

026. Life Itself, Roger Ebert

027. Holy Cow, David Duchovny

028. Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson

029. Robogenesis, Daniel H. Wilson

030. Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries, Peter Sims

031. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Mary Roach

032: Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition, Peter Tate

033. Delicious!, Ruth Reichl

034. Afterworlds, Scott Westerfeld

035. Mr. Mac and Me, Esther Freud

036. The Farm, Tom Rob Smith

037. The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times, Jennifer Worth

038. A Letter to My Cat: Notes to Our Best Friends, Lisa Erspamer, creator

039. Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, Ann Hood, ed.

040. Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy, Melissa Milgrom

041. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett

042. Think Like a Cat: How to Raise a Well-Adjusted Cat - Not a Sour Puss, Pam Johnson-Bennett

043. Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy

044. The Public Library, Robert Dawson

045. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, Steven Johnson

046. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, Ann Patchett

047. The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson

048. The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries: The Most Complete Collection of Impossible Crime Stories Ever Assembled, ed.

049. Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine: 1880-1930, John Harley Warner and James M. Edmonson

050. Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers, Nick Offerman

051. My Kind of Place: Travel Stories From a Woman Who's Been Everywhere, Susan Orlean

052. Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds, Jim Sterba

053. The String Diaries, Stephen Lloyd Jones

054. Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy

055. Primates of Park Avenue, Wednesday Martin

056. Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World, Mark Miodownik

057. Hall of Small Mammals: Stories, Thomas Pierce

058. Where's My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived, Daniel H. Wilson

059. The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame: Muwahahahaha!, Daniel H. Wilson and Anna C. Long

060. The Gates, John Connolly

061. The Great Auk, Errol Fuller

062. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

063. The Natural History of Unicorns, Chris Lavers

064. Dodo: A Brief History, Errol Fuller

065. The Collector of Lost Things, Jeremy Page

066. The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, Charles de Lint

067. Amped, Daniel H. Wilson

068. Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression, Mildred Armstrong Kalish

069. Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, Kate DiCamillo

070. The Seven Good Years: A Memoir, Etgar Keret

071. Egg & Spoon, Gregory Maguire

072. Fifty Plants that Changed the Course of History, Bill Laws

073. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything, Col. Chris Hadfield

074. Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell

075. Every Day, David Levithan

076. My Life Next Door, Huntley Fitzpatrick

077. Destroy All Cars, Blake Nelson

078. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, James McBride

079. Between a Heart and a Rock Place, Pat Benatar with Patsi Bale Cox

080. The Boy Most Likely To, Huntley Fitzpatrick

081. Let's Get Lost, Adi Alsaid

082. Never Always Sometimes, Adi Alsaid

083. First Day On Earth, Cecil Castellucci

084. Skellig, David Almond

085. The Heartbreakers, Ali Novak

086. Not After Everything, Michelle Levy

087. Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons, George Pendle

088. You're Never Weird On the Internet (almost), Felicia Day

089. A History of Glitter and Blood, Hannah Moskowitz

090. How To Be Both, Ali Smith

091. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed

092. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson

093. Mycroft Holmes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

094. The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks

095. Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink, Elvis Costello

096. Geek Love, Katherine Dunn

097. Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce

098. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes with Joe Layden

099. The Scavengers, Michael Perry

100. The Winter People, Jennifer McMahon

101. The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje

102. Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace, Michael Perry

103. The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Authors Famous and Obscure, Larry Smith, ed.

104. Spoiled Brats, Simon Rich

105. So Anyway, John Cleese

106. Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology, Cory O'Brien

107. The Jesus Cow, Michael Perry

108. George Washington is Cash Money: A No-Bullshit Guide to the United Myths of America, Cory O'Brien

109. Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, stories selected by April Genevieve Tucholke

110. Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music, Blair Tindall