Merry Christmas! I can’t believe Christmas is here already and probably well and truly gone by the time that you read this. Where has the year gone? Are you ready to head into the new year? Or are you still in denial that we’re here? If you’re in denial, then I am here to help you get prepared for the New Year and to throw in some crochet goals!

If you read last week’s blog about celebrating our wins, big and small and you felt that you fell short of your goals, then this post is definitely one for you to read. For me crochet is about finding the joy in as many stitches as possible. And it becomes so much easier to reach what ever (crochet) goals you set yourself when you focus more on how you feel than what it is that you’re achieving. I believe that this is true in all areas of life and not just crochet, but for today we’ll focus on crochet.

Let’s start with what crochet goals you like to set yourself. If you even set them! Do you focus on making a certain number of projects or meeting a deadline for a project? Or maybe you focus on making consistent time to crochet? Or maybe it’s a combination of both. Or maybe your goal is to make some improvements and you’re not yet ready to set anything more ambitious than that yet.

What I do know is that (for me at least) goals are much easier to achieve when I focus on the journey and not on the outcome. If I’m enjoying the project that I’m crocheting, then it is much easier for me to stick to making it. And much easier to want to pick my hook up. Whenever I have struggled to get something finished it’s because there is something that just doesn’t bring me joy when I am making it.

So when you’re setting a goal, it is important to include how you feel about it. If there is something that you have to make because you promised it to someone, but you’re not really wanting to make it, then you’ll find it easier to get through if you dedicate small, frequent blocks of time to it. If it is something that you love then you’ll find it easier to spend big chunks of time doing it.

For me, I know that if the project requires too many colour changes or lots of counting then I am not going to enjoy it so much. I have to do those projects in small chunks of time so that it doesn’t become too mentally draining. But if it is a calming pattern with no colour changes and an easy to remember pattern repeat then I can spend all day doing it!

That leads me to the question – do you know what you do and don’t enjoy with crochet yet? If the answer is no, then I encourage you to set some time to learning new things and trying different projects so that you can learn what you do and don’t like more. The more you experiment and practise – with different stitches, fibres, weights of yarn, techinques, projects – the more that you will uncover.

If you’ve gotten this far and are starting to feel overwhelmed with how to even go about this, then take a breath and stay with me. I’ve got you!

If you need help prioritising your projects then I encourage you to get my WIP Planner. It will help you to list out all of your projects and prioritise (or frog) them. Below is a sneak peak to some of what is inside.

If you need to make time exploring then I encourage you to do that within a community of people that will support you. I have set up the Hooked on Crochet Club to help you do exactly that and the WIP planner is one of the resources that you’ll get when you join! Below is the journey that I help you through with everything that is inside. I’ve now added levels for entry too so that you can start where your budget is at.

I like to think of crochet as an investment in myself that has added benefits of being able to gift to others too!

So what goals will you set yourself this year? How will you approach your crochet differently? If you’re not sure then add a comment and ask the question and I can help you to nut it out.

Seona x