I am very close to finishing one project and then I have a couple more to get out and then, I think, I am going to do some Christmas crafting. Because I am a glutton for punishment. Or something.Anyway, in the meantime, I am collecting patterns like a madwoman. I don't know what's wrong with me, it seems like an addiction. The problem is that I am just collecting them, taking them home, stuffing them in one of 17 crochet bags and walking away. Which means, I think things like, "Hmm... Didn't I have a really nice pattern for a big floppy beret that would be so lovely in this soft grey colour? (Because in my mind I don't bother correcting my spelling grey and colour the "wrong" way.) And then I search around for a while, come up with nothing and start over from scratch.
I am talking mostly free patterns from the Internet. And yeah, a lot of them are from places where I can have project lists and save them as mine, like Ravelry (of course) and Lion Brand (whose pattern finder is downright addictive). But some don't and I can't really figure out what to do with those.
I have a big empty three-ring notebook at home. The idea was that I would hole punch them and file them in there. I would get tabs and sort them by project type. And maybe, when I'm really, really good and obviously lonely and bored, I would cross reference them all by yarn type. Possibly there would be color coding.
But I've not done anything like that. So, right now, I have a bunch of random patterns and an empty notebook.
It's not that I think my plan wouldn't work if I actually worked on it, it's just that I'm not really working on it right now. So, what do you do, internet? How do you keep all those patterns straight?
Do you only use stuff on certain sites so you don't have to kill trees and waste ink with printing? Or do you have a highly organized print system? Or do you only print and keep patterns you've actually used in the past and have worked out well? Let me know. My empty notebook is developing a complex and my patterns are threatening to overthrow the current regime. That's me!
2 comments:
I have several notebooks, actually, of printed patterns.It is the only aspect of my life in which I am a hoarder. I guess it's a waste of paper since i'll never knit them all but I like to flip through for ideas and inspiration. I have one of things like socks and scarves and hats and another for sweaters and yet another for kids' stuff. No organization beyond that general sorting, though.
Notaknitter but i have a three ring notebook for recipes. Daniel finds most of our recipes online and prints them for me and then I use them and then file them. I have a hole punch on the same shelf as my cookbooks. I even photocopy some of my favorite cookbook pages and put them in my binder. For dividers, I use old file folders cut in half. They have that tab already, and all. I'm all about reusing things for free. :-) I recommend you give yourself two minutes and file what you can in that amount of time, and then if you have more time to spare, keep going, but if not, then do some more later. You'd be amazed at what you can get done in two minutes, I think. (And write on your tabs in pencil so you can change your mind later if you want.)
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