As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I’m doing a lot of planning for 2015. One of my favorite parts of this process is looking back on 2014 and taking inventory of what went right what went wrong. As I look back over the past 12 months, one goal that I failed spectacularly at was the 50 hats in 2015 Challenge.

50 hats in 2014—->FAIL

It all began in January. I was on a hat making binge and decided to challenge myself to do approximately one hat per week. The idea was to create a body of work while studying how my dye methods and yarn bases performed. It all went swimmingly of until about the sixth hat.

I hit a wall…big time…

As of today I have a total of five finished hats and four unfinished hats that I am threatening to rip out altogether. Now this lapsed catholic girl, can bring on some serious guilt about this complete FAIL. Yep, a part of me feels that I need to beat myself up. Instead, I’d rather pick myself up by the boot straps look at what happened, what went right, the takeaways and decide how I’m going to do it different next time. Basically this translates to four steps to making lemonade out of lemons.

Failing spectacularly and using that failure to catapult me to the next challenge.

Here’s how I am breaking it down in four easy steps.

#1 Just exactly what happened. Why did I give up?

I got burnout on hats pretty quick. Granted there are gazillion hat patterns out there, but the idea for me was to use my own yarn and exploring different ways of knitting handmade yarns to showcase them the best. Usually that does not include a pattern as much as freeform painting with yarn kind of knitting. I just was not going there. I made a bunch of meh hats with no creativity involved.

I picked hats because they were quick. I thought hats would be a quick path to lots of stuff. But in reality what I really like to make a sweaters. But, I let the idea of sweaters overwhelm me. I need to just get over that shit, because the hats… I was not feeling it…

I was also trying to reinvent new designs each time. A body of work is often a lot of the same thing with slight thoughtful changes.

#2 Look at what went right.

Of the half dozen hats I completed, not all of them were perfect. I can easily pick out what I would do different next time.

I did get a feel for the performance of some new dye methods, as well as how some yarns were not right for hat making.

#3 What were the take aways?

Don’t be afraid of doing the big projects I really want to work on.

Just make the sweaters already. I like hats. I wear hats sometimes. I likes sweaters more–they suit more of a design aesthetic I want to explore.

#4 How does this translates into doing it different the next time?

The spirit of my 2014 challenge was to create a body of work that I can really explore my visual language with fiber and yarn. And that goal still rings very true with me as I plan my 2015. A part of me thinks this mean sweaters, but it might mean weaving, or even mixed media. I am still in a big thick of brainstorming sessions and scheduling projects in 2015 that align with my big goals. So I am going to sit with my journal for the next  3 weeks and really think about some ideas.

I do however, invite you to join me in deciding where you want your knitting/crocheting/weaving to grow in 2015. Maybe it is learning a new technique, or making a bunch of items for charity. Or maybe you will join me in creating your next body of work. Leave me a comment below or on the Facebook page. I would love to hear about you aspirations for the next year.