While I rely on Ravelry to record quite a bit about my knitting projects, I keep track of even more in my notebooks. Beyond tracking the contents of my various project bags in my current log book, I also keep a volume for what I’m making.
In my daily logbooks I record just about everything I’m working on from consulting work to cooking to what I’m making, but those aren’t always complete notes. I keep additional books for the details of what I’m making: what works, what doesn’t, and what changed along the way. Mistakes sometimes turn into design elements! I write down everything from stitch patterns I’ve rejected, to reference notes, to how long it took me to work a pattern repeat. I often reiterate the tips-I-should-know-by-now… how long have I been pinning fabric and I still want to pin parallel to the hem?
The photo gallery at the end of this post is primarily of older knitting notebooks. I also maintain books for sewing and weaving. In gathering the photos for this post, I discovered to my surprise that I don’t have books for spinning or woodworking. I’ll need to address that (any excuse for more notebooks is a good excuse)! The majority of my notebooks are all a similar size and I keep the current ones corralled into one cover so they are easily available for me to use when I need them as I often migrate throughout the house during my workday. The sewing and weaving books live on my desk as I don’t use them every day.
Once upon a time I affixed by sewing/pinning/binderclipping my swatches into the notebook, that very quickly became unwieldy. My swatches now live in a box and are (mostly) labeled for later identification. If it’s really important for me to have the swatch with me at all times, I photocopy it and either paste it in or include the page in the back pocket of the book. I also take many photos of my swatches and projects along the way. If the ME Journal came with a grid layout, I’d probably use that though the evernote journals are also tempting.
A change I made a few years ago is that I no longer use a hardcover notebook as my primary knitting log book. I ended up having that one at home and a second cahier in my bag, and I never seemed to have the notes I needed in the book I had with me. I miss the hardcover, but the cahiers are lighter so I don’t mind loosing the writing surface as much. Really my only requirement for any of my notebooks are primarily size (A5 or moleskine large) and either square or dot grid (though my morning pages are written on rule). Yes, there are knitting grid notebooks exist, but as I don’t often chart colourwork, I prefer my boxes to be symmetrical.
Do you keep a knitting notebook? Is it paper-based? There are template-based notebooks if the blank page overwhelms you, such as Knit Notes Explore * Design * Create. Or do you enter all of your notes into Ravelry, Craftsy, or software such as Evernote?
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