Next up is a goal that I’ve just reached the target on.
why I do it: I have a loooong history of starting craft projects… and a lot of them don’t get finished. I have a general craft beeminder that makes me do stuff regularly, but that’s more for the mental health benefits of doing something than to finish things. So I also like to make individual goals that are focused on actually finishing what I start, especially for big projects. This goal was to knit a blanket composed of 49 knitted squares.
how it works: Manual entry of how much of a square I’ve knitted. Each square was about 50 rows so it was easy to enter a decimal value of how much I’d done that day. As a bonus it also tracks what row I’m on which has got me out of trouble with the patterns a few times.
settings: Initially I set the slope to 20 squares/year, and needed 49 squares to make a blanket.
I really like the story the graph tells. I knit about ten squares and put the project down for few weeks. In pre-Beeminder days this would have been where the project got put in a cupboard and forgotten about. You can see how in August I get to the “pick it up again or pay” point and decide to pick it up again (even though the commitment is for $0). Then I get all enthusiastic about it - it’s like starting a new project but someone has already done some of it! - and I get ahead of the line, ratchet away the safety buffer and increase the slope. Enthusiasm wanes and I skate on the edge of the line for a while at the end of the year but keep going. And then at the beginning of 2022 I can see the end in sight and race for the finish line. I have a new major knitting project scheduled to start at the beginning of March so that’s why I moved the last segment of the line to make sure I’d have finished knitting this before then.
I also think this one looks nice like this (graph generation info is in this thread)
current state: Finished…
changes: but what I have now is a pile of 49 knitted squares, which is not a blanket. The squares need all the ends sewing in, sewing together, and a border needs knitting round the edge. So I need another goal to actually finish this. I’ve got no idea how long it’ll take me to do all that (back of an envelope calculation: “yonks”) and I want to be free to concentrate on the incoming major project so I’m just going to commit to spending 2 hours/week on working on this blanket until it’s done.
New goal: blanket2021finishing which is going to be a manual entry time graph. I’ve already added the 2 hours I spent sewing in ends yesterday evening and I’m hoping to build up some safety buffer during the rest of the month so I can dive into my new project on March 1st without feeling guilty about abandoning this one a little.