That cover is two sheets of pearly scrapbook paper cut to size, with the diecuts in the top layer made with my Cricut machine. You can see a strip of elastic – my previous pen holder was a pocket that hung onto the front of the planner with two elastic loops. It’s been a while since I switched to the binder and I only just finished my new pen holder. Meanwhile I got used to taking out the current planner page and sliding it under the elastic on the outside of the binder, so when I replaced the pocket I turned one of its elastics into a separate loop.

Here’s the new pouch! It’s basically two flat pieces, each double-sided, one with a zipper and the other with a layer of heavy interfacing and some ribbon loops. It didn’t come out well enough to be worth sharing a pattern for, but I’m happy with it. The striped dividers are more scrapbook paper, cut to 8.5″x5.75″ so they stick out a bit.

And finally, here’s a highlights reel of my binder’s contents, so I can share the sources of my printables.

• year on 2 pages (Scattered Squirrel)
• One Little Word focus matrix (The Project Girl)
• monthly calendars: one month per page (Scattered Squirrel)
• weekly calendars: week on two facing pages (Scattered Squirrel)
• four sheets of address book (About.com)

Oh, and you may be thinking, “if her previous planner didn’t fit in her purse, there’s no way this one does!” You’re right. I got a little staple-bound two-year monthly planner to use for that. It is full of silly animal pictures.

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I have clues 1-4 of 8 in my possession and they will continue to come out every Friday through the middle of August. I’ve stitched the first two clues over the past ten days, eating up far more yarn than I normally would in that time. The first lesson I’ve had to learn is how to deal with 16 skeins of yarn, 9 of which are double-size and at least 4 of which are “active” at any given time (I’ve gotten up to 6: one dark purple tied up in a motif whose instructions are spread over multiple clues and two more so I could do a spiral that had two dark purple strands). I also have to do something with the motifs finished so far. I’ve decided that, after photographing, I’m going to close the motifs for each clue in a plastic bag and label it with the clue number. Everything “inactive” is getting stored in the box the yarn was shipped in, which currently is just sitting on the floor in my sewing room (note: that doesn’t make it in any way unique among my craft supplies).

There’s a complication to this afghan that isn’t present in my other long-term project, the blackwork embroidery map: the materials in use at any given time are bulky and in many pieces. Usually I have one project bag with materials for several projects in it simultaneously – the life of an amigurumi designer! For this project I got out a smallish bag for the multi-clue motif and its active yarn, another for small amounts of yarn left at the end of skeins (just in case), and a larger bag that holds those two as well as the full or mostly full skeins of yarn. I’m considering buying a large basket to put them in so all three bags are still together but I have space in the large one for finished motifs of a clue still in progress. If I do, I’ll also keep the embroidery project in the basket.

Such a system not only looks neater, it makes it easier to move the project around if it’s in the way, which is bound to happen multiple times over such a long stretch. The soonest I could finish the afghan is late August, simply because I won’t have all the clues until the 15th. However, this brings us to the other lesson of this project: pacing myself. Each clue so far has taken at least 8 hours of stitching, and I’m two clues behind. My other considerations are that I’d like to finish the blackwork by some time this fall, write every other week for the local fibercraft blog, and keep up with my monthly goals here. I also need a substantial amount of time (30+ hours per week) to dedicate to my web development job. That’s not to mention that I want to continue to have a social life, spend time online, and read books. Something’s got to give in that scenario, and it’s the afghan. I’ve decided to spread out the stitching to a third of a clue per week, plus two towns on the blackwork map. That gets the map finished in mid-October (just in time for making Halloween costumes) and the afghan done by Thanksgiving, unless joining and edging take a very long time (just in time for making Christmas presents). Afghan and map work should run 4-5 hours per week, dropping down to 3ish hours when the map is done — though by then I may have a new long term project.

Delayed gratification and responsible time management are the watchwords. It’s the right thing to do for my goals and priorities. It just feels so slow!

The post Lessons from large projects appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

The current notebook is a clearance Staples purchase, college ruled with a classy and non-flashy cover. It came into use in a fit of envy over Carrose Creation’s Filofaux project, but with the knowledge that in November a new calendar is either a waste of money or an exercise in extreme patience. I added some stickers and a ribbon bookmark (also pictured: my “reporter’s notebook” for the Upper Valley Fiber Crafts blog, prior to getting its own ribbon bookmark).

Obviously this picture was taken a while ago, before tomorrow’s page filled with tasks.

I wanted something prettier for my next one, although time will tell whether that’s what I really want. So I went through my paper collection and asked my sister and mother for any contributions they might have, of paper lightweight and light-colored enough to use in a notebook, at least 6″x8″ in size. I ended with 17 distinct papers and a cover cut from a textbook advertising flyer, and bought 4 more so that I’d have 21*4 = 84 pages, an even 12 weeks. I used stamps on the plain backs that most of the pages had. I’ve been busy so I wasn’t as thoughtful with it as I had hoped, but if I like it I’ll make the next starting more in advance. This notebook got a ribbon bookmark too, added before assembly, and I pasted striped tissue paper over it and the text on the inside of the cover.

After folding each page in half and aligning them, I stapled them with my husband’s booklet stapler and then trimmed the edges, more carefully than with my blog planner. Then I discovered it was really too much for the stapler, so I added two more staples outside in and one inside out. Hopefully it will stay together; otherwise I’ll have to sew it. I made my own washi tape with masking tape and Sharpies as described on DIYSara (whose blog I found while searching out handmade planner resources, fittingly enough) to cover the short edges of the cover, to give it a little protection and also to keep the tissue paper from getting scraped off.

My scissors make an appearance because it doesn’t lie flat very well and I didn’t want to manhandle it too much. I’m hoping it breaks in easily.

This isn’t really an FYDP because I deliberately waited until after Christmas, but I did leave it late – I prefer being able to write tasks into the next week’s lists. Now to date all the pages and put in the tasks and dates I already know. Onward!

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Since we’re in Finish Yer Dang Projects mode, I thought a good topic for this month would be getting more crafting done. It works well since I had found a MAKE magazine article by Pam Harris on this very topic back when I was researching December’s First Friday post. In fact, it appears to be an expansion of a post linked to in the December First Friday, also by Pam. The article is mostly about making sure you keep and can find all of the ideas you have or run across, and then schedule time to actually work on your favorites.

There are a few aspects to getting more done, of course. You can make more time, make better use of the time you have, or simply work faster. I won’t repeat all the general productivity advice out there, but here are some more craft-specific pieces of advice:

• Progress is progress, no matter how small – although there is often time needed to get started and stopped in each work session, even 15 minutes usually allows you to make progress. Set a timer so you’re not late to your next obligation, and then you won’t be distracted by clock-watching.
• Reduce your sense of obligation – projects you don’t want to do but have begun (or even just purchased materials for) can often sit in your mental space, blocking other work. If there is something you don’t want to do and there is no genuine obligation to do it (e.g. commission or promise), dump it. Reclaim what materials can be reclaimed and pitch the rest.
• Figure out better and worse spots to leave off – and make a lot of notes and labels to increase the number of better spots. Determining what the heck you were doing when you left off can eat up time.
• Leave yourself presents – I don’t like cutting patterns out of fabric. If I get in a mood to do it, I cut as much as possible. Between cutting and sewing is an excellent spot to leave off, and later on I get the boost of being able to sew immediately.
• Work to reduce errors – the extra time to stitch a gauge swatch is less than the time to re-knit or re-crochet a sweater that is far enough along to reveal incorrect sizing. The extra time to start and stop when using 2-foot lengths of embroidery floss is less than the time (and aggravation) to repeatedly untangle longer strands (not to mention that all the trips through the fabric wear the thread a bit thinner).
• Assembly line whenever it makes sense – I find it easier to separate the strands of embroidery floss standing up, so I try to do it in batches. Of course you can only sew at the sewing machine and iron at the ironing board, so try to consolidate those as well.
• Get things finished – when I have a lot of works in progress, I find a decent amount of time is eaten up simply deciding which to do next. Prioritizing bulkier projects increases how much you feel like you’ve gotten done, too, by freeing up a lot of space at once.

The tips above are what I think getting more done is all about – they don’t try to speed up or take away the enjoyable parts of crafting, just fit more of them in and reduce the less-fun parts. However, I also tried to find advice online for simply working faster in specific crafts (aside from practice, practice, practice). I avoided advice to simply choose simpler projects in easier materials – that’s definitely not what this is about.

There was an abundance for sewing, but only a Crochetville forum thread for crochet. Here’s a video of Lisa Gentry crocheting ridiculously fast in case you want to time yourself. Materials make a difference, of course. I crochet fastest with hooks that have points at the tip and end of the hook (Boye style), but others crochet fastest with inline hooks that are blunter at the end and have a broad end to the hook (Bates style). Style matters too: as far as I can tell, the current record holder for speed knitting knits continental style, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be faster in a different style – at least in producing the items you care about. Small motions are faster than large ones, and any posture that is awkward or cramped will slow you down in the long run by reducing the number of hours per week you can work. Even how you hold the yarn can make a difference, and I continually forget that strong light can help even when I already have enough light to see by.

For sewing, I’m going to defer to the aforementioned links. Historical recreation is the place to look for hand-sewing tips, such as The Dreamstress and Extreme Costuming. For machine sewing, especially garments, my favorites of the pages I found were from Lladybird, Boppingbeth, and The Coletterie. Lladybird’s is more about high-level process and organization, whereas the other two are about techniques for the actual sewing. There’s a lot of overlap between the two but they’re written differently enough that it’s worth reading both if you’re looking to sew faster.

Let’s see how much we can do in three months – my bet is, it’s a lot!

The post First Friday appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I started with Getting Things Done, the system in David Allen’s book of the same name. I actually haven’t read the book; there’s enough material online to get you started (in addition to the summary above, try zenhabits and 43 Folders). My initial goals were Inbox Zero and emptying my brain. I started by purging my email inbox of everything that could have been archived or trashed long ago, clearing space for a physical inbox in my work area at home, and writing down everything I could think of that I wanted or needed to do, regardless of deadline or level of detail.

Next was processing my lists into a more organized form (which took multiple drafts) and dealing with the items left in my email and physical inboxes. Inbox Zero actually refers to the state of having decided what to do with each item, not having necessarily done any of it, which didn’t seem that helpful to me because it is too easy. My initial goal was Inbox Zero meaning everything has actually been dealt with, but early on I realized that’s a moving target. I settled on having nothing more than three weeks old to deal with. I’ve already fallen off that wagon once, but five or six week old email is far less anxiety provoking than eight or nine month old email, so getting back in shape is easier.

In order to actually do my projects, I tried out a few to-do list schemes. Possibly the main point of Getting Things Done is allowing you to work without worrying there is something more important you ought to be doing instead, because you’re on top of your project list and know everything important is on track to being done on time. I did not have this experience. I was drowning in a huge unsorted list of projects.

One of the traits of academic life I disliked was the feeling of never having done “enough” work. If there was more time, there could be more work, and should be more work. In addition to not being sure how to prioritize my projects, I was in danger of having no (reasonable) definition of “enough” in my new career either.

Enter David Seah and the Printable CEO. A Sew-op friend tipped me off to his site, where he wrote about the same problem I was having: how do I make sure the work I’m doing every day is actually moving me forward? His answer was a point system and bubble sheet. I had to change the contents of each point value, since it was aimed at graphic design and programming, but the idea transferred. I’m still tweaking my point system, having begun just a couple of weeks ago; for now suffice to say it seems to be working well.

I realized this would also help me keep track of hours worked, if I adapted the record keeping. I made my “bubble sheet” a set of 4×4 grids, each square corresponding to 15 minutes of work at the grid’s point level. I had previously tried to keep track of time hour by hour, with a list on which I would write how I spent the hour, a check box (so I could plan ahead as well as record), and a space to write which day of the week I did it. It was cumbersome and I abandoned it in a month. This is working much better. Four categories with check boxes make for easy recording, and combined with the point accrual I enjoy doing it. However, it’s still enough division to keep me on track.

Dave also has a nifty Creative Cootie Catcher that I couldn’t resist, even though like his original Printable CEO it isn’t quite adapted to my work. And in case you’re looking for other productivity inspiration, here’s a long list of productivity tips, in which you are bound to find something that strikes your fancy.

Images in this post from a lovely site I just learned about called Pixabay.

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