Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Organized - Home & Online

Today is a dreary day with flurries here and there and a mix of icy wind. My husband is overseas again for work with a 7 hour time difference between us. I'm trying to get work done and putter around the house at the same time. It's very hard to stay motivated.

I made a list. I have lots of lists actually and they're super helpful when I'm overwhelmed. Today's list is stuff I'd like to get done before he comes home. My favorite list is all of the projects that I already own the yarn for. Years and years of happiness right there my friend!

All this puttering made me realize that I'm not using Ravelry to it's fullest potential. Their queue is good for storing patterns but did you know that you can print a shopping list based on your queue? Man - that made my day when I found that little button. Next time my LYS is having a sale I can just print my list and go. I will be completely prepared with my customized list!

In order to have this handy dandy list you have to enter in the yarn that you already own with the corresponding project. That took some time. I've got a little stash of lace weights started and I wasn't sure if I had enough patterns to match (I do). I also have several patterns in mind for some special yarn that I'm saving - I was able to group those together so when I'm ready to make a decision I can quickly have all of my choices in one place.

The last thing I did was enter useful information in the notes section. Things like "sweater possibility for Dad" or "3 color choices for this pattern" will be helpful in the future. I made a discovery while doing this part - I have several cabled sweaters saved for myself and I have yet to knit myself a sweater. That's something I'll have to remedy!

This is just one tiny section of Ravelry (if you're in Ravelry already check you can see what I was talking about in my queue). I can't tell you how many times I've used the pattern browser or how many times I've looked at other peoples projects to see what they made with a particular yarn that's been sitting in my stash. Such a good website to have as a resource . . .

If you haven't discovered it yet go ahead and take the leap to put your name on the waiting list right now. I've heard that the invites are just flying now. This is still a beta site but I can't imagine how cool it's going to be once they open it up fully.

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