Socks continued to be the theme in the middle part of the year, although I did cast on my Halibut pullover in August.
These socks were from estate sale yarn, and they’re the ones that I forgot to switch away from the US1 ribbing needles when I got to the stockinette part. I really like how these fit! This isn’t a colorway I’d normally choose, but I love a stripe-y yarn, and I feel like anything goes, color-wise, with socks.
The last pair of socks I finished this year were something a little different:
They’re Stardew Valley socks, one autumn and one spring. Not blocked in the photo, so don’t judge my colorwork! These were fun but also super tedious to knit, not to mention weaving in all those different ends! Yuck. Kid 1 wanted to see the Stardew Valley Symphony of Seasons concert for her birthday, so I made these for her to wear to it. I’m going to say that someday I’ll make the matching sock to the two seasons — I’d like the autumn ones for myself — but I really don’t know if that true. I’ve been doing a lot of colorwork lately and can’t quite stomach the thought of another of these!
This next one was a joy to knit:
The yarn makes such a difference to the experience of knitting any given project! This was done with a strand of lace-weight baby alpaca held with silk-mohair. Both were from the estate sale, and I only had the one skein of the baby alpaca.
The pattern is the Fancy Camp Bandana, and there are some issues with the pattern. The pattern doesn’t match the photos of the bandana the creator used. Instead of there being 1/5/9 of the little eyelet flowers in each row, there are 3/7/11. I wanted to use more of my skein of baby alpaca and figured out how many stitches to cast on to add an extra row to the wide end, as well. So mine is more of a mini scarf, and it’s so soft and delicate.
And I guess the last FO of the year will be my Halibut:
Now. I have issues with this sweater, and I’ll own up to my part by saying that the issues could have been mitigated if I’d gone for a size with more positive ease (ie, made it bigger). It’s not actually as narrow as it looks in the photo — that’s just because I had my hand on my hip. I think my finished sweater has about 6″ positive ease, which should be plenty! I’ll also say that I love how the colorwork looks, even though I hated working on it.
The biggest issue is the yoke depth, which is a known problem with this pattern. The top of the sweater is just too long (to accommodate the colorwork), meaning the armpit of the garment falls much lower than one’s actual armpit. With a very oversized top, this mostly just makes it difficult to wear anything over it. With the one I made, it’s annoying to lift my arms up — not hard, but it feels like the entire sweater shifts around and rides up when I move. You can also see in the photo how unnaturally it sits around the collar and top of the yoke. It feels like there’s too much fabric in that area. I think that’s again from the riding up — the top can’t settle down to where it would actually fit.
I’ve still been wearing the sweater but nowhere near as much as I would if I loved the fit of it. It’s a shame, given how long the yoke took me. The yarn is from the estate sale, but I know nothing about it except that it’s DK weight and wool and very NOT next-to-skin soft. It’s really warm, though!
I’ll be back in a few days with a shorter post to talk about what I’ve been working on in December. But I don’t think I’ll be finishing anything else before 2025 wraps up!
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