January 6th, 2013

31 Days to Get Organized: Keeping Notes about Your WIPs

Good evening everyone. It’s Day 5 of 31 Days to Get Organized and we’re onto our final WIPs task tonight. All of our works in progress are organized now (well mine aren’t quite yet, but will be by the end of the weekend). So today’s task is to make sure the notes we’re keeping on our projects are up to date.

I learned to knit before the days of Ravelry, and kept all my notes from projects in my Stitch ‘N Bitch Design Journal. Once I completed a project I would write about it on my blog. Knitting was the reason I started a blog. But now Ravelry is my notebook, and my blog is pretty silent these days. I add all of my projects to Ravelry and try to keep good notes, partially for my sake as a record of my work. It’s hard to remember all of the details like what yarn I used, who I made something for, what alterations to patterns I made. I’m glad it’s all there for me to come back to later. But I also know that some of this information is useful for others too wanting to make the same pattern. That’s the other reason I continue to keep my projects up to date on Ravelry.

Do you keep track of your projects on Ravelry too? Or do you prefer to write them down in a notebook?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2013 at 12:36 am and is filed under Tips & Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Jean Andrews

    Thank you very much for this series which I am enjoying very much. I can’t wait until you get to the…um…yarn stash organization. If there is room, it would also be nice to hear your ideas on organizing Ravelry Queues or Favorites. Ravelry’s Queue can be organized by Tags and Tags can be grouped together in Sets, which I have found more useful than simply using the Tags in Favorites. Perhaps other readers have suggestions. Again, thanks

  • pdxknitterati

    I had a project journal, but the information was pretty sketchy. Ravelry has been wonderful for keeping track of projects; I like being able to track yarn and needle size there. I still keep a blog, too, for more in depth information.

  • Sally

    I”m a huge fan of ravelry – no doubt about it. I’m an early adopter and early editor, and make full use of its resources. But it’s good to remember that businesses start, and businesses end – even popular businesses. (Twinkie, anyone?) As with critical data on your own computer, it’s a good idea to keep a back up in a separate location. But please keep using ravelry. Its usefulness grows with every new member.

  • Penny

    I actually do both. My project notebook holds a sample of the yarn and more exact information as to what I did on the pattern. I also log the info on my project page on Ravelry for others to look at if they feel the need.

  • chrisknitz

    I use my blog for a photo log of my work. I use Rav and Nimblestix to record the patterns and start/fin dates, yarn used, and sometimes I make notes about the knitting. I use an Excel spreadsheet for keeping track of my yarn and projects, which also lists the yarn and yardage I use. Loving the posts on this subject!

  • nanasbug

    Completely Ravelry. I appreciate using Ravelry so I don’t have something else to write down. I especially appreciate Ravelry because when I want to start a new pattern I can read everyone’s comments about any issues with the pattern, how sizing worked,etc. Once I was using a yarn that kept splitting–I thought I was doing something wrong. I went on Ravelry and found that every person commented on the same thing-so I threw it away.

  • Rebecca

    I’ve got a few of my projects listed on Ravelry, but I feel that I would like to have better photography techniques. I haven’t yet found a good way to photograph my work. I know there are good ways because I see that a lot of people have great pictures of their work. I would love to learn some tips and techniques to photograph my work.