2.8 Years to Go

Erin, from A Dress A Day (the reason I've worn only dresses & skirts to work since February) linked to an article which says that the difference between being amazing, good and mediocre is how much you practice: it takes 10,000 hours to be great, 8,000 to be good, and 4,000 to be mediocre. (I think I've read those numbers somewhere before, but where?)

So, let's do a little math... say I've knit an hour a day since college (I knit in college too, but the combined effects of less money and more studying meant I didn't knit anywhere as much), and way more on weekends, vacations, and long plane rides... say my extra weekend and vacation knitting averages to an extra 4 hours per weekend day (which seems reasonable, since weekend days I didn't knit are balanced by marathon knitting sessions when traveling. Also, I'm trying to be conservative in this estimate, hard as that may be to believe!).

Regular daily knitting: 365(days/year) x 1(hours/day) = 365(hours/year)

Binge knitting: 52(weeks/year) x 2(days/weekend) x 4(hours/day) = 416(hours/year)

365 + 416 = 781 knitting hours/year

That's 7,810 hours over 10 years, leaving 190 hours to go to 8,000, and 2,190 to 10,000.

At 781 hours per year, that will take 2.8 years.

And I will need to buy more yarn, since I "only" have about a 6-month supply at my current rate of knitting (in my measured stash, at least).

Speaking of which, it occurs to me that I should probably start counting handspun, now that I've spun yarn on purpose to make a pre-selected project (the Montana Tunic) even if I did have to change the gauge.

So that's another reason to get knitting!