Knitting & Motivation | Stay motivated & finish your WIPs!

Sometimes, it's hard to stay motivated while knitting! In this video, I share 4 knitting tips for staying motivated while chipping away at your knitting projects.

As someone who knits almost every day, I find it really easy to stay motivated to knit when I'm working on some knitting projects. But there are other projects that take that little bit of extra effort. So, I though about what I do when my motivation is in short supply while knitting and put together this list of 4 knitting tips for staying motivated. I hope you find this useful!

Be sure to head over to Fiberchats to watch the interview that inspired this video!

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Find Me Online ------------------------------------------------------------

Patterns ------------------------------------------------------------

Yarn ------------------------------------------------------------
- My Otte is knit in Tones by Brooklyn Tweed which is coming Aug 2021

Some of my favorite stitch markers have been made by Boutique Les Garcons and Whitney Marie Anderson. You can find their shops at:

#knittingtips #knit #knitting

[KJF]

I have multiple projects in the works. That helps. When I get “bored” with the progress I place a stitch marker where I’m starting for the day, and as my creative time ends I look to see how many rows/inches I’ve completed. Keeps me motivated.

[pitouvonpitou]

It's interesting because I have never felt a lack of motivation due to the complexity of a pattern (maybe because I've never knitted anything really challenging?) One the other hand, "mindless knits" *are* a challenge to me, socks especially because I feel I can't see them grow.
Otherwise, I gravitate more towards color work, which makes progress much more noticeable. Also, being able to try my knits keeps me motivated to finish them, so for a first sweater, I'd advise to choose a top-down pattern because as soon as the sleeves are separated and I can try it on, I already feel halfway there.

[joysvegandiner]

To stay motivated, I first make sure that my tools make me feel special. I use Addi and Signature Arts needles and I have hand made stitch markers. Also, I have one large complicated project, one medium project and and small simple project going at the same time. So far this works for me. I love your podcast. Keep up the good work!

[joansummerside]

I am with you on "checking off the rows"! Whenever the patterns says, "repeat rows x through y, z times", I print off a sheet of graph paper, or make a grid with a ruler & my favorite pen. Nothing like checking the boxes off to see progress! So satisfying!! I often write stitch amounts I should have, at the end of a repeat, to double check that I am on track. I also like to have other projects going that might be better suited to a different situation: TV watching, social knitting, etc. As you say, then progress is being made on SOMETHING. Don't have second sock syndrome but sleeve island: can be a problem. Also, I sometime check my queue on Ravelry. I might see something I REALLY want to cast on, but say to myself, "You need to finish ____ before you can start that." It helps! Cheers!

[JeffHartman]

I just found your channel. Glad to see another man that likes to knit. I have trouble keeping motivated. I have only knitted a couple of scarves and half a hat. I tend to get side tracked and lay it down and forget about it for awhile. The entire reason I started knitting was to make my own socks. Maybe one day I will give it a try. Thanks for the tips.

[MormonJesus]

Very good set of advices. My personal advice is to use lifelines in bigger or more complex projects. Put a lifeline at regular intervals or after a big pattern repeat, so that when you make a mistake you can easily rip up and restart the project.
I remember the times where i didn't do it and needed to rip a chunk of my work and then struggle with picking up the stitches, which is super hard in cabled or brioche fabrics. Nothing kills my motivation more than this.
Knitting with knowledge that I can easily fix my mistakes helps a lot with my motivation.

[Heyitskatiekindred]

The thing that keeps me motivated the most is having multiple WIPs. I have maybe around 5 and that helps with some of the monotony of it all. I tend to get really bored with doing the knit stitch over and over so being able to switch it up or do stranded colorwork is a great change. I always have at least 1 sock on the needles for TV time, but I’m really loving working on my very first sweater.

[mimiknitswithlove]

With a complex pattern, I use spreadsheets to define each row! Similar to you writing the row numbers. Each check next to a row motivates me to keep going and see how many check marks I can do in a day.

[jscorpio]

Socks are my favorite thing to knit. They’re fun to make, useful, and you can never have too many. I always have a sock that I’m working on for when I need a break from my bigger projects.

[Sangouiche]

I love to finish my project before casting an other, but i discovered that having a big and a small (a sock acutally) project cast on at the same time is great for me. The big project at home, the tiny on the go :) Also I keep my ends to wave for the moment I don't want to knit but I want to finish something !

[HB-huzz]

I’m a new knitter (only know how to do socks) but I like to keep around three WIPs I do daily of one knit socks, a Tunisian crochet project, and a crochet project. Gives me a break between the specific movements of each :)

[marbelz]

I am waking on a towel using the linen stitch, it is time consuming and i have felt there is no progress. Yesterday placed a stitch marker, and I can see progress is happening. Thank You so much !!

[beckyjohnson]

I found the humor in how you keep track of your progress- I also put down the number of rows and cross them out as I go. I laughed out loud when you said some knitting projects can feel like they go on forever I am actually knitting right now a scarf for my son and I also started putting progress keepers in the repeats so I can see how far I’ve come as I do each repeat. Sometimes you can feel all alone in knitting projects that take sometime- you have inspired me and I will think of you each time I’m on one of those projects that take forever🤣

[SuzanneCrawford-xyeg]

Well I'm not really very experienced knitter, and I tackled a project that turned out to be really huge. I cast on too many stitches as I didn't use a pattern and the sweater is now huge more so because i chose to use mock cable stitch ... so it consumes vast amounts of yarn and doesn't really grow very quickly at all. One thing I began to do was to look forward to using a new ball of yarn, as sort of a guage that I must be progressing. But the sweater has been going for over a year .... lol!! OUr winter in South Africa starts around April / May - and I really want to finish it in time for my daughter to be able to wear in this winter (2024).

[Fiberchats]

I loved having you on Fiberchats! Felt like I’ve known you for ages. Thank you for reminding me that knitting is about sparking joy

[culinarygurly]

The finding ways to track your progress to make yourself feel like you're having more success I totally understand I started knitting my first sweater with the flax sweater and I need it for my son who's a 2T. well I'm almost done with it but I found out where I was stalling was when I was trying to do sleeves two at a time I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere and it wasn't working out right like something was wrong cuz I'm not a slow knitter. But when I transferred all the stitches to dpns and started working in the round that way I noticed I was getting it done a lot faster and now I'm to the end I'm almost to the ribbing of the second cuff and then weaving in ends and everything and honestly for a first sweater it is An awesome pattern

[rachelraye]

This was a helpful video! I am doing the final portion of a raglan sweater and have lost my mojo to finish it. Watching this has this process into prospect. Thank you for your tips!

[ChelleC]

I listen to awesome podcasts while I knit, and then I don’t get bored. My biggest enemy to progress is the ‘too hard basket’ where I am actually afraid to progress. I have two dog jumpers sitting there at the moment :/

[knittingsophie]

I have more than just one projekt, last week I finished 1 Glove With fingers, it had a very good patern but I wasn't that motivated on the first one which i knitted the weekend before the week I knitted that. I Said to me you don't have to finish it in a day, so I knitted the Hand in 2 days and said to me every Others day you can knit a Finger and I finished it 3 days later because I was so motivated I knitted 2 fingers a day. And in this time I worked every afternoon at a shawl so it gets finished too, so I was working at 2 Projekts and I think that was a motivation too.

[jennegatron]

I love tip 4. I keep an easy project near my workspace so that when I'm stuck in a conference call I can can pick it up and keep my hands moving while I listen.
My favorite benchmarks are a color change when I do big blocks or when I complete a skein and start the next.
When I feel like I'm getting bogged down in a project where I'm not making project I will try to switch to a different kind of project. Maybe I'll move from a thin baby blanket to a chunkier throw where I can see the length build faster because of the bigger yarn.
If I'm really suffering from motivation I'll sometimes switch it up altogether and do a little crochet or cross stitch. Eventually the motivation comes back, especially if I have an event (a loved one expecting a baby or a birthday) to make something in service of.