2024 Round Up

 

It’s not quite the end of the day but any knitting I do is not going to produce another finished object so I need to knuckle down and just write about my year.

I started the year with five projects, two of which I finished, (a dress and a hat), one I frogged and the other two are blankets. During the year I started 28 projects and frogged only two of them. Of the remaining 26, five were crocheted and the rest knitted. I made six hats, 10 pairs of socks, plus one unfinished, one bag, one toy, one pair of mittens and another pair unfinished, one finished blanket and two unfinished, one adult garment and one baby garment.

The number of items I finished was slightly more than last year but the total yardage was less.

The amount of yarn in was still low. I bought one skein of yarn as souvenir shopping and I purchased yarn to finish the mitred square blanket in 2025. I was given a decent amount of yarn to knit the year long blanket and I received a few skeins as gifts. Otherwise the yarn in was again low which I am happy about.

I finished or frogged the projects from 2023and two blankets are my only projects more than a year old.

I am happy that I am not adding to my stash and not starting all the things before finishing all the other things.

 Just a quick edit. I noticed my plans for 2024 were:- use old yarn (I did), knit a blanket square each month in the knit along (not each month but I came through at the end of the year), finish all the mitred squares (achieved), use the minis I got in December (achieved - 3 projects). There was also a statement about knitting socks and using patterns I own. (Mostly, I did knit the mystery one month.) So pretty pleased with myself that I set achievable goals.

Happy 2025 to you all.

Being Negative About Negativity

 

I have noticed a growing trend in the Ravelry group in which I participate that is making me sad. It is becoming a place for mostly negative and feel-sorry-for-myself postings. I don’t think these posters have changed it’s just that the normal postings are happening less. So instead of there being plenty of normal/positive posts with a few negative ones now there are mostly negative posts and it is a continuing downward spiral because people respond to the downer post and so on. It makes the group not such a fun place to interact anymore. In fact someone even made a comment back in October about the content not being what they enjoy and I agreed and unfortunately it hasn’t got better.

But as this is my blog and my own thoughts and work, I can say what I want here without making direct comments on Ravelry and making the situation worse.

Here are my thoughts for you posters.

Does dumping your feelings achieve anything? Would you get the same result if you wrote it out and burnt it. Or would you get the result you want if you actually talked to your spouse/children.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself/fishing for compliments because someone else is not reacting in exactly the way you want them to react especially over handmade gifts.

You don’t need to be the school ma’am. I find this an interesting phenomenon. There always has to be someone responding to posts with unsolicited and usually obvious advice and if this person stops posting then someone else miraculously steps up to take over the role. Here I would like to point out that we are all adults and the role is not needed and often adds to the negativity.

If you recognize yourself as one or more of these posters then step back and think before you post and maybe post something different to bring the group up.

And before you all pile on me, I have been guilty in the past of posting negatively and unsolicited advice but have stopped because it does nothing to add to the conversation.

Working From Both Ends of The Ball One At a Time

 

In my last post I said that I did not want to cut yarn so I just cast on the second mitt form the other end of the yarn. Let’s fast forward a few days to a problem with knitting my socks two at a time. I really wanted to use a certain yarn for the socks that I cast on this month as I thought it would work so well with the pattern but it is yarn leftover from a different project. To ensure I did not run out of yarn before finishing two socks, I decided to work the socks toe up two at a time on one circular needle. This was fine for the foot as the pattern was worked on half the sock but problems arose once I was on the leg as the pattern is a traveling pattern that moves around the leg. This means that there are rows where stitches need to be rearranged but the stitches are on the other side of the needle and cannot be moved on that round. There are ways of dealing with this but they are fiddly. My solution was to put one sock on double points and work on one sock at a time. But I have a limited amount of yarn - I work a number of rows on one sock and then change the other sock to double points and work the same number of rows plus some. It’s working fine, especially as my preferred method of knitting socks is with double points.  

I find it interesting that I have two active projects needing the same solution. In neither case is the resting project in the way.

Current status if the mitts showing both attached to one ball of yarn.

 

And the socks - which are inside out as that is how I tend to knit in the round.

First Mitten (Almost)

 

I am halfway through the clues and have completed one mitten as far as possible. I decided to work the flip top version and the top of the mitten and the thumb are not completed until the last day. The annoying part of this is that I do not want to cut my yarn and then rejoin in the same place so now I am working the second mitten using the other end of the yarn.

I also have to confess to being behind. I did not complete Day 10 as I wanted to see how the flap was worked before proceeding. Day 11 turned out to be a busy day and I did not have time to finish Day 10 let alone start Day 11. I have been trying to catch up and am halfway through Day 13. A little extra knitting each day and I will soon catch up.