twelve22

Knitting Recap 4/2026

May 3, 2026

It’s May! Somehow! Let’s take a look at what I was knitting in April.

Finished Objects

Most of April was taken up by a project that’s still a WIP, so I’ll share about that in just a second. I finished the first sock from the sock reel yarn, but I don’t consider a single sock a finished object! I figured I’d have nothing to show for April until my mom found some fancy yarns (more about that in a bit), and I made two hats in three days:

To be fair, the yarn is fairly heavy weight (I would say aran for the darker and super bulky for the lighter), so it’s not THAT impressive how quickly they knit up. The darker is Manos del Uruguay Maxima, Ultramarine colorway. It was gorgeous in the skein, but I feel pretty “meh” about it now that it’s been knitted. It reads as black and medium blue now, whereas it was all greens and blues when it was hanked up. BUT it’s so amazingly soft — perfect for a hat. I’d say 90% of the yarns from That Estate Sale are rustic/farmy yarns, which makes for amazingly warm sweaters, but you wouldn’t really want them touching your ears. This Maxima yarn is the opposite of that! I used the free Jason’s Cashmere Hat pattern.

The lighter hat is made from Quince & Co. Ibis (discontinued). It’s 50/50 merino/mohair. The yarn was white, but Kid 2 wanted a light blue hat, so it took a quick detour to the dye pot before I started knitting. It’s very luxurious, etc, and it took less than a day to make, but I don’t love the super bulky look. I used the folded brim version of the hat patterns Quince & Co. posted for this exact yarn. It was really handy to find a pattern that called for a single skein of that yarn! It only has 98yds/skein, which didn’t sound like enough for a hat, but I guess it was! My only change to the pattern was to the decrease section — I did eight evenly-spaced K2tog decreases instead of four double decreases. I think it just looks tidier.

My other FO is a little bit cheaty:

I knit the Schemer Slipover a few years ago now. But my gauge was off (too tight), so even when I blocked it for width (which made it too short), it wasn’t something I loved. It *fit*, just not the way I like my clothes to fit. The collar also rode up too much and was itchy on my neck. Since I never wore it, I decided I might as well experiment. I picked up stitches to knit button bands, reknit the collar, and then steeked it. I both needle felted and zig-zag stitched the steek, and I’m happy with it!

I had dyed this garment after knitting (didn’t have much leftover yarn, anyway), so I picked a yarn that coordinated with the tweed flecks. TBD whether I wind up wearing the vest now that I’ve done this. I’ve added one button to keep it closed the way I had it in this photo, but since I blocked for length, it’s even narrower than before. Mainly I did this as a trial for what I want to do with my Halibut pullover!

Works in Progress

Most of my knitting time last month was taken up by the Petites Fleurs top:

How cute! I’m making the short-sleeved version. I had four skeins of this sport-weight, hand-dyed wool from the estate sale, dyed by the woman who owned the shop. There’s a lot of variation between the skeins (bluer/redder, lighter/darker), so I’ve been alternating every two rows the whole time. There are still some areas where you can tell I switched skeins, but it is what it is.

The yoke flew by, and I was like, “Are we sure this is a sport-weight pattern?” and then I hit the in-the-round part of the body and realized it definitely was, lol. It’s lovely to work on (and Kid 2 sat on and broke my wooden US5 needles right after I started this project, so I replaced them (the needles, not the kid) with a ChiaoGoo red lace circular, which makes it extra nice to knit), but it’s slower going after a few worsted/aran garments!

I blocked my gauge swatch, and the yarn relaxes and blooms really well with blocking. The fabric of this top will look so much better than it currently does! The way the back collar is rolling is particularly annoying to me, but blocking should fix that, too. I’ve still got a few more inches before the bottom ribbing, and then I’ll add however much sleeve I can manage with the yarn that’s left.

Acquisitions/Plans

I cannot be blamed if people get yarn FOR me!

My mom found all of this at the Goodwill bins! For a few bucks! Can you believe it? Those are some nice yarns. There are a few grams missing from the Rowan Cocoon, but the rest of the skeins are unused, including the two Farmer’s Daughter Craggy Tweed ($30 a skein!) that have been balled up.

It’s been a fun creative challenge to find patterns for these — single skeins are hard to work with, and they’re not the types of yarns I’d usually choose. Kid 2 and I needed (“needed”) new hats for a trip we’re taking, so that was the Ibis and Maxima taken care of. I’ve got my eye on a shawlette pattern for the Cocoon. And I’m about a third of the way through knitting a market bag with the DK Cascade Pima.

Right now I’m focused on finished the Petites Fleurs and the market bag, but you never know what will pop up over the course of a month!

No comments on Knitting Recap 4/2026
Little bags

April 22, 2026

I’ve been working on some small sewing projects. Kid 2 had a pair of fish-print pants that had been not only outgrown but also thoroughly played in, to the point that there was no longer a knee on one side. The fabric was so cute, though! So now we have two bags:

The rectangular hip pack is mine, and the square-ish purse is for Kid 2. I used to sew purses and bags all the time. But it’s been a minute, and I got a little ambitious with the hip pack. I should have done a flat zipper pocket on the front instead of one with a small side panel. It’s all a bit wonky. Not my strongest sewing! The other purse turned out exactly as I imagined, but it’s basically just a zippered pouch on a string, and I can sew a zippered pouch in my sleep.

Aren’t the little zipper pulls cute, though? They’re the ends of the pants drawstring! I’ve also been making some simple drawstring bags/pouches out of old t-shirts that don’t fit the kids anymore. I’ll post photos when I’ve finished a few. I’m in my upcycling era?

1 comment on Little bags
Knitting Recap 3/2026

April 1, 2026

Watch out — I’m recapping March on the very first day of April! And up until recently, I didn’t think I was going to have any finished objects to share, but I became possessed during the last few days of the months and knocked out three sleeves!

Finished Objects

The first finish was my Zakkuri cardigan:

By looking at a calendar, I can see it only took a little over three weeks to knit this, but somehow I spent about a million years working on it. It’s quite oversized, so those loooong purl rows contributed to the endlessness, but also I blame the yarn. I’m very happy with this Briggs & Little Regal — it softened up a lot after blocking, and I think it will continue to soften as I wear and wash the cardigan. But it didn’t move easily along the needles. I usually use bamboo interchangeable circulars, but I went out and bought a stainless steel ChiaoGoo for this, which made it a little easier but not a ton.

Anyway, I’m very happy with the finished product! I wanted this to feel like a sweater version of a spring jacket, and that’s exactly what it is. It IS very oversized (at least 12″ positive ease), but the color and the ribbing stop it from feeling too slouchy. I really like the 3×1 ribbing! The button band is knit along with the body of the cardigan, and then you create button holes by stretching the stitches and overcasting around the opening, and that was a lot easier than I imagined. I’m not 100% sure I love the toggle buttons, but they’re what I was picturing as I was knitting it, and I’m happy enough with them for now.

I knit the Zakkuri sleeves in basically two days, which was WAY too much knitting all at once, but I had gotten the bit in my teeth and couldn’t stop. Instead of celebrating the finish with a long stretch of NOT knitting another sleeve, I dove right into that second sleeve on my Driftwood pullover:

Oh, wait, that photo looks almost EXACTLY like last month’s! I swear it has two sleeves now:

This yarn came from the thrift store; I knew it was all wool but not what brand or kind. After I finished the top, I whipped up a quick tube with all the colors (using a toy knitting machine) and threw it in the washing machine. This yarn is so soft compared to the rustic yarns I’ve been using lately that I couldn’t decide if it felt like superwash. Everything apart from the fuchsia did felt, however. I could tell the fuchsia was different as I was knitting — it was a slightly lighter weight, although you can’t tell now that the sweater has been blocked.

I mentioned last time that I realized I’d chosen too big a size once I separated for the sleeves. I sized up because I wanted more positive ease in the body, but I didn’t think about how that would affect the shoulders. It’s still a wearable top, but the shoulder/sleeve construction is really nice, and it’s wasted on a shirt that doesn’t fit well. This was a fairly quick and fun knit, though, so I think I’ll make it again in a smaller size, with more neutrally-colored yarn.

Works in Progress

I’ve been working on socks here and there (mostly the one from the sock reel that I posted in last month’s recap), but I was very focused on finishing the Zakkuri in March. At one point I cast on for a very boring shawl, though:

Well, boring to knit! It’s just a triangular, garter-stitch shawl. The mohair came from That Estate Sale, and the photo is not doing the color justice at all. There is a lot of variation in the color, from purple to teal-green. The solid gray yarn is an angora/wool mix that came from a thrift store. I originally wanted to make a shawl with some detail — an eyelet lace pattern. But when I caked up the mohair, I realized it was much “wilder” than your typical, commercial mohair yarn, so any detail in a project would be lost. Hence the boring garter stitch. This will be such a lovely finished object, though, extremely squishy and fuzzy and soft.

Plans

I’m not sure what to cast on next! Even though we have ANOTHER snowstorm on its way, my brain has moved on from winter knits. My two top contenders for next cast on are either the Forest Keys vest (finally!) or, like, a shortsleeved Ranunculus, since I’ve already made that pattern more than once, and it knits up sooo quickly.

No comments on Knitting Recap 3/2026
Knitting Recap 2/2026

March 9, 2026

Well, this month’s recap post should be blessedly short because I didn’t manage to finish ANYthing in February! Honestly, that’s much more of a standard month of knitting for me. Or maybe the fluctuation is. Sometimes I can’t stop knitting, and other times I’m distracted by other things. Getting obsessed with Animal Crossing in 2026 hasn’t been a distraction lately, I’ll tell you that.

Works in Progress

I’ve cleverly cropped this photo to make it look like I finished my Driftwood pullover! But it’s currently sporting just one sleeve. When I finished the body, I was a bit disappointed by how big it was. I did size up because I wanted more ease than the pattern calls for, and silly me didn’t think about how that would affect the shoulders. It’s a shame, because the sleeve/shoulder construction is really nice, but they don’t sit quite how they should. After finishing the first sleeve, though, I’m liking it a bit more. Knitting sleeves just isn’t much fun, so I’ve been putting off starting the second one.

Acquisitions/Plans

A friend recently asked if I’ve kept to my vow not to buy any new yarn, and I was like, “Well…”

BUT they’re sock yarns! BUT they came from the thrift store! We’re all in agreement that these don’t count. The Mary Maxim Footloose yarn was hard to pass up because you know I love a self-striping sock yarn! And I was intrigued by the sock reel. I’ve seen sock blanks, which are usually large rectangles of machine-knitting sock yarn that you can dye (or buy dyed), unravel, and then knit up. This is the same idea, but it’s been knitted into a very narrow tube/tape instead.

I… kinda feel like perhaps the dye job was meant to look cool in reel form vs. looking cool when knitted into a sock. I found some sock projects that had used it on Ravelry and didn’t love them. The black-gray-teal stripes are so short compared to the large sections of neon green and aqua. With a combo of luck (where the pattern started on the reel) and planning (breaking the yarn to start with neon green when picking up stitches on the heel flap), I’m decently happy with the layout of the stripes so far. TBD whether there will be enough left after the first sock to match the pattern on the second! I wouldn’t have chosen this color scheme, but the yarn itself is nice enough, and I’m not that fussy when it comes to socks.

I also started (in March) a Zakkuri cardigan.

I have a big bag of this Briggs & Little Regal 2-ply wool in Midnight Blue (9 skeins — something like 2400yds!), and it’s also not a color I would usually pick, but it came from That Estate Sale. I’m actually really loving it. I think it’s going to look smart in this cardigan, which I’d like to finish soonish, so it can be my spring “jacket”. But we’ll see!

No comments on Knitting Recap 2/2026
Paper Planner.

February 28, 2026

Quick! One more post before February is over!

My YT algorithm started feeding me a lot of videos about journals and planners a little while back. I kept a daily “journal” for years, not to write about my thoughts and feelings but as a sort of to-do/have-done list. That used to be a big part of my morning routine, but I’ve never been able to consistently find a place for it since having kids.

But I’m very easily persuaded by YT content, so I started thinking about what kind of notebook or journal would be right for me. I had a journal back in college that I made with binder ring clips, and I’ve always liked how eclectic and creative that was, but the thought of making something from scratch was daunting now that I’m… *flops feebly*

But apparently Filofax planners are all the rage these days? (On my narrow slice of the internet, anyway.) It’s all Filofax this and analog that! As many folks have pointed out, the analog “trend” smells a lot like overconsumption, with people buying special bags and supplies to distract themselves from their phones. (One knitter said in a video that the rest of the world has suddenly discovered project bags — yes!) Anyway, I didn’t want to buy a fancy planner because 1) SIGH and 2) will I even stick with it? Enter good thrift vibes:

It’s not Filofax but a Dayrunner Looney Tunes planner from the mid-90s. But basically the exact same thing and less than a buck. A crow sticker nicely covered the Tweety Bird on the front cover. I took out the remaining planner pages and made my own tabbed dividers, cut paper to size (I like plain graph paper best), and printed out some calendars. Clearly my personal aesthetic for this sort of thing settled on “cute” at some point and won’t budge.

I realized I really liked the ring-binder system because it’s so easy to add or lose things or start all over, if I want to. Kid 2 is a little jealous and looking to start her own. My “setup” (as it’s called in the Filofax-girlie world) is not particularly interesting, but if you need to lose one to seven days looking at interesting, stationery-related things, Pinterest can help you out with a little “Filofax setup” search. Then hit the thrift stores!

No comments on Paper Planner.
Knitting Recap 1/2026

February 9, 2026

Hardly over a week late with my recap of January’s knits!

Finished Objects

As expected, I finished my two December WIPs pretty quickly. It looks like I had the cardigan blocked by 1/6 and the pullover by 1/13.

I powered through this Good Grandpa cardigan in, I think, ten days? I just really wanted to wear it! I remember I knit the first pocket while the kids were at Girl Scouts and told my friend that I would NOT be knitting the second, sewing them on, and blocking it that night. So of course I sent her a photo of it blocking a few hours later.

This has immediately become one of my most frequently worn knits — I knew it would because I had been wearing my brown version a ton since winter hit. The yarn came from That Estate Sale, and I wasn’t sure about the color for a long time, but as soon as I started working with it, I fell in love! It’s Black Watch from Christopher Sheep Farm.

My second finish in January was my Easy V pullover:

You might remember that last month I was debating whether to shorten the first sleeve I’d knitted. I did! I put circular needles through the rows above and below the section I wanted to remove and then cut and unraveled that section. I grafted the two pieces of sleeve together the same way you graft closed the toe of a sock. I’m able to find the graft line if I really look, but it’s just about invisible. So I’m pleased with that!

I want to love this, but I think it might be my least favorite thing to wear… ever? I have some grievances. The pattern calls for worsted-weight yarn, though the yarn used in the sample is considered light-worsted/dk. If I were the boss of knitting patterns, I’d say this is a dk pattern that should be knitted in cotton or linen, not wool. The very wide neckline says “warm weather top” to me, and worsted-weight wool is not that. I don’t want to wear a tank top under a wool sweater, but it looks goofy with anything that has a winter-appropriate neckline.

I also have issues with the shaping of the garment. Instead of short rows to shape the “neckline”, there are a few short rows AFTER the yoke colorwork — short rows that end on the sleeves, which makes the shaping awkwardly visible even after blocking. And that shaping does nothing to stop the sweater from constantly wanting to shift backward as you wear it. This pattern maker is very popular in the knitting world, but after this and the Halibut pullover (also hers), I think I’m done. It’s probably not fair to generalize from two patterns, but if I were gonna, I’d say she’s got a great eye for colorwork design and perhaps not so much for garment construction. I’ve knit a lot of tops, and those two are the only ones where, when I put them on in the end, I thought, “This just doesn’t work.” Bummer!

My last FO for January was this pair of Biscuit socks. I mentioned last time that I made these from some very soft synthetic yarn I thrifted. They have been a pleasure to wear! I did more standard toe decreases instead of the circular decreases called for in the pattern — circular just didn’t sound comfortable to me. Otherwise, they were knitted as-is, and I still love that eye-of-the-partridge heel flap!

Works in Progress

I continued working on my self-striping socks but haven’t made much progress since my first post about them:

Sometimes knitting is just really boring, guys. I will be very happy to wear these when I finish them, but no part of me feels like working on the foot of that sock — and then I have to knit ANOTHER ONE??

Speaking of boring…

I discovered that some yarn I thought was worsted was actually sport weight (clearly I didn’t look at it too closely!), which sent me down a delightful rabbit hole of pattern searching (my TRUE hobby). I settled on the free Parnell pattern, which I think will look really nice with red-on-red stripes. It’s worked bottom up, which means you start with the garter panels that make up the split bottom hem. And my brain just does! not! wanna! I was looking forward to a slower knit with lighter-weight yarn, but garter stitch is a minor PITA, and it grows soooo slowly. The front panel needs to be 3″, which is what I have so far, and the back panel will be 5″ — oof!

Anyway, TBD as to when I pick that up again because I indulged in a dopamine cast on:

This will be a Driftwood pullover, another free pattern on Ravelry. I’ve made progress since I took this photo, but this one shows the sleeve construction nicely (as well as my pretty t’toos). The stripe colors are what happens when you let the thrift store choose your colorway! I got a bunch of balls of unlabeled wool yarn last spring/summer, and hopefully it’ll be enough! It’s giving 90s Gap striped sweater, no? I really hope this turns out well because it’s been a lot of fun to knit, and a colorfully-striped henley pullover is definitely something I don’t already have!

Plans

Folks with amazing memories may have realized I didn’t start the Forest Keys vest that was in my plans for January. That’s still on my to-do list, but I don’t know that it’ll get cast on in February, either. I’d like to finish up / keep working on my current WIPs, and other projects keep jumping the queue.

One of those projects miiiight be the Mini Maine Motif socks that I came across a little while ago. I found them on Ravelry, but the pattern is in a magazine that I managed to track down on Libby! I would make them with purple, fuchsia, and very pale gray sock yarns that I already have. On the one hand, SUPER cute, on the other… all-over colorwork socks? No thank you very much. But maybe yes.

No comments on Knitting Recap 1/2026
Pure spring.

February 1, 2026

Thanks, Aldi, for making my kitchen smell like spring even though I can’t remember the last time it got above freezing outside!

No comments on Pure spring.
Making stuff.

January 25, 2026

Here are a couple of random things we’ve made recently.

The discount food store we like surprised us with a few jars of mincemeat (with veggie suet), so Kid 1 helped me make mince pies. She wants to learn to bake lots of different things, and pie crust is a good one to learn! We all liked the pies, but the kids really want to try the crust recipe with various fruit pie fillings — they love a mini pie!

And a few days ago, I gave needle punch a try. Kid 1 had gotten a kit a while back, and it looked like a lot of fun! I made this with leftover yarn from a knitting project. I was annoyed I wasn’t *immediately* a pro, lol, but it’s cute, and it was great to try something new.

No comments on Making stuff.
Corvid progress.

January 14, 2026

A post for the non-knitters!

My training is going well. The ravens have me putting out food every morning, though usually not until they’ve been by once (to shout at me). They’re usually out and about before the sun is over the horizon! And you’ll notice in the clip above that we have crows now, too. They’re much more suspicious about the food pile than the ravens are, but they come by usually in a group of four and seem a little braver when they’re all together. I call them my “baby crows” because they look so small and delicate compared to the cat-sized ravens.

And a blue jay quickly dips into frame — triple corvids!

No comments on Corvid progress.
Self-striping

January 14, 2026

I swear I didn’t intend for this to be a knitting-only blog, but I’ve been living a(n almost) knitting-only life lately, so that’s what you get. I’ve been wanting to try making some self-striping sock yarn, and I finally gave it a try:

I started by knitting a few 64st rows (since I tend to make 64st socks) with the original yarn — Lana Grossa Meilenweit in pale gray — and then unraveled it and measured the length of yarn needed to make 4-5rows. That length was roughly twelve feet, so I wound a forty-eight foot hank and tied off twelve-foot sections. It was very unwieldy! I dyed each section a different color, and I can’t believe I didn’t tangle the yarn any more than I did. The cake above kinda just looks like variegated yarn, but when you start knitting:

Stripes! I’m doing a basic sock with heel flap and gusset, though I did eye-of-the-partridge stitch on the heel flap because I think it looks so cool. I also did a longer flap (I think forty rows instead of thirty-two?) and gusset. I’m knitting the entire sock on US1 needles, which gives me the fit I like on the leg and foot, but if I make the flap the standard length, the sock winds up too tight over my arches. But I think these ones will be perfect! I’ve finished the gusset decreases and knit maybe an inch of the body of the foot since I took the photo, so I’m past the fun part.

It’s also worth noting (I mean, only to other knitting peeps) that I got a US1 ChiaoGoo cable needle for these socks — I like using DPNs, but they start to hurt my hands if I’m doing too much knitting. I prefer bamboo needles, but the cable on these is NICE!

No comments on Self-striping