Gemma 
Every year, I set up a knitting journal for my mum. She uses it to keep track of her projects, plan new ones and jot down any notes on yarns and gauge. She is a major knitter! I am not quite so hardcore when it comes to my knitting projects: I’m much less prolific than her, for one, but also a bit more scattered in my approach, so I never felt like a knitting journal would work so well for me.
However, I’ve been seeing loads of scrapbook-style bullet journal spreads around recently and it got me wanting to make my own. I suddenly thought: maybe I could tie the two things together and make a… Knitting Scrapbook. Imagine, if you will, a scrapbook-style, memory bank of knitting projects, from conception to cast-off. No rules, lots of paper and glue and fun patterns: just pure, creative, knitting-inspired scrapbooking.
Today, I’m setting up the first few pages of my new Knitting Scrapbook and talking you through all of my plans for this new journal!
Table of Contents
My Knitting Scrapbook Plans
My rough plan is to allocate approximately 3 double-page spreads to each project (and I’ll probably only use this journal for my bigger, more intricate undertakings).
The first spread will be a mood board for the project: colour palette, design, vibe— that kind of thing. One thing you should know about me is that I love to make moodboards. Truly: give me the briefest spark of an idea and I will spend hours turning it into a moodboard that absolutely nobody asked for. It brings me so much joy, so this feels like a good use of a spread!
The second spread will be a big, empty space (with some decoration, but not too much) for any notes, assorted project-making memories and possibly some figures/statistics? I want to make these spreads messy, but also kind of aesthetic in their messiness!
The third and final spread will be a collage of pictures of the finished project, kind like a retrospective mood board, if you will!
At least, all of that is the aim! I think it’s nice to have a vague structure like this in my head, because it means that I can make the mood board page for the next project before finishing the last (I’ll just count three spreads forward). I want this project to be really relaxed: a no-pressure, messy, creative outlet that ends up as a satisfying album of yarn-y memories and knitting accomplishments. I think that keeping everything as relaxed and easygoing as possible will really help me to maintain this project, rather than thinking of it as just another thing to fill out/keep up with.
The Notebook
For my Knitting Scrapbook, I used an empty journal that I already had: this A5 Dot Grid Journal from Tiefossi. Admittedly, my scrapbook vibes don’t quite match this moody, green, red and gold cover, but maybe some of my projects will tie in with that aesthetic in the future?
Nevertheless, this journal has super high quality, dot grid paper (and the pages are numbered, which is great for this project, because it means I can navigate through it more easily), gilded edges, two ribbon bookmarks, a back pocket, an elastic closure and a pen loop, which is quite literally everything I want in a journal!
Equipment
To make this setup, I used the following equipment:
- Patterned paper (I used this pack from The Works, but I think it’s out of stock now 🙁 … ).
- Brown sticky notes (I used the plain ones from this pack on Amazon, but you could also use regular kraft paper for this).
- Pastel lined paper (I used this pack from Filofax on Amazon).
- Sakura Gelly Roll: 10 Bold, white.
- Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen: 990 Light Sand.
- Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
- Assorted stickers (these pastel ones were from Søstrene Grene).
- Glue stick.
- Scissors.
The Initial Pages
I’ve kept the initial pages in this journal to an absolute minimum, because I didn’t want loads of different spreads and trackers that I’d need to keep up with, or an endless list of pages I needed to create. I admit, I’m not usually one for restraint (read: I’m almost never one for restraint), but, in the interest of preserving my creativity with this project, I thought it was an important approach to take!
I did, however, want these pages to be really colourful, cheery and, well, scrapbook-y, to set the right tone for the rest of the journal. I had great fun tearing up patterned paper, sticking in pastel stickers and trying desperately to think of lots of different fonts to create these spreads!
Cover Page
For the Cover Page, I went all out with the scrapbooking theme. I made the title (do scrapbooks have titles? They do, right?) by cutting the brown sticky notes into smaller pieces, then writing one letter on each with my white gel pen, trying my best to vary the fonts as much as possible! I was aiming for the whole magazine letters/ransom note vibe, but with a simpler colour palette (and less ransoming) to make sure that the heading really stood out against all the colours of the background. I also added a drop shadow to each piece of kraft paper that sat on the white background, using my Tombow brush pen.
Contents Page
Next up is the Contents Page. Because I wanted this scrapbook to be spontaneous and not follow too much of a strict order or layout, I thought a contents page would be a good thing to include, so that I can navigate between projects later on more easily. Helpfully, this journal has numbered pages, which is perfect for this!
I made the heading and decoration for this page in exactly the same way as the Cover Page, but I added one sheet of pastel lined paper on each page to write down the contents themselves. Not only does this add a little more colour and dimension to the spread, the lines on this Filofax paper are narrower than that of the journal pages’ dot grids, so it gives me a little more room!
Knitting & Crochet Timelines
Finally, we have my Knitting & Crochet Timelines. I went back and forth about including this spread, because I wasn’t sure if it was a necessary addition, but I ultimately decided that it would be nice to look back on and see what I was knitting and crocheting over this period, even if the projects weren’t intricate enough to warrant a full mood board setup in this scrapbook.
The setup for this spread was super similar to the Contents page, with the two pieces of lined paper to give me plenty of room to fill in all of my projects/dates. On the left-hand page, I’ll keep track of what I’m knitting (‘On My Needles’), while on the right-hand page, I’ll keep track of what I’m crocheting (‘On My Hook’).
Final Thoughts
I’m really excited about this new journal— I’ve been taking a little break from my usual bullet journalling and I do miss it, so this feels like a nice, creative outlet that scratches that itch without feeling too pressurised and time-dependent.
I’m also excited to see how my knitting projects develop from initial idea to finished works! I meant it when I said that I love a mood board and this scrapbook is basically just an excuse to mood board my little heart out, while simultaneously planning out and documenting my knits. What could be better?
I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about this new project! I’m super excited to get going with it.
Gemma
xxx
