Category: Uncategorized

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!

In the future, I’d like to make monthly posts about what I’m knitting — FOs and WIPs. For now, I’ll recap my finished objects for 2025. After digging through my photos, I’m realizing I need to do a better job of taking GOOD photos of knitting. I usually just take a quick snap to share with my crafty friends.

Anyway, the first finish of the year was Teti Lutsak’s Mama Bear Pullover:

This is one that I really wish I had a more flattering photo of! It took a while to knit, as it’s quite oversized and knit with DK yarn. I cast on the last day of August 2024 and had finished the yoke in time to bring it with on our Scotland trip in September. I started this immediately after finishing another of Teti’s patterns (Javelin pullover), and I would happily knit any of her patterns!

My next finish was a Good Grandpa cardigan that I had started AGES before and set aside:

This yarn has had quite a life! It’s from Quince & Co., and I don’t remember which yarn it is specifically and won’t look it up because I wouldn’t use it again. It’s not terrible, just not lovely. It was originally a very flat gray, and I knit a cabled cardigan with it when Kid 1 was a baby (she’s twelve now). I didn’t really like it, so I frogged it to reclaim the yarn and dyed it a variegated purple. Then I knit this cardigan and decided I didn’t want it to be purple, so I gave it a yellow dye bath to turn it brown.

I was very “meh” on the whole thing when I finished it (though I do like the color). I’m not sure why I made the body so short! But it’s wound up being one my most frequently-worn items this cold season. It’s bulky-weight wool and very warm, so if the temperature is right around freezing outside, I don’t need anything more than this. So I guess that’s a lesson to always keep everything forever — because You Never Know.

Next up was a Flora vest:

This was a fast little project that I made with thrifted DK yarn (I want to say some sort of Rowan wool and another brand’s BFL). I’m in love with vests and think they look… fairly terrible on me? I’ve hardly worn this, but I like looking at it, lol.

The next project was super silly:

Kid 2 had a “creepy crawlies” theme for her ninth birthday. We have a cheap (toy) knitting machine, and I don’t know why I had pulled it out to play with it, but I realized one could make a very long worm if they just… didn’t stop. This was an entire skein of cheap acrylic yarn and is known as Party Worm. He was hung up as a decoration for the party and had his own little party hat. I don’t have a good photo of the finished object, but I used DPNs to taper and close up his tail.

I seem to have then entered sock mode:

This was yarn from my local yarn store, and I wear these all the time, BUT they’re a bit too big. I like to use TinCanKnit’s Rye pattern (omitting the garter panel on the top of the foot), but I’m somewhere between their adult small and medium. Small winds up being too tight around the start of the gusset, but medium is too big overall. I did knit a pair of socks (that will be in my Part 2 post) where I made medium but forgot to switch from my ribbing needles after the ribbing, and those fit almost perfectly. So mediums on small needles is the way, I guess.

And the last FO for this post is this:

I swear there are two of them, but I wound up making them for Kid 1 and never took a photo when I finished! This is the same pattern as the other pair but in worsted-weight yarn. I made small, and they were a little tight for me. This was the start of knitting with the estate sale yarn. This stuff (which was wool and a little bit of nylon — perfect for socks) looked so pretty and interesting in the ball and so… ugly? when knitted up. I don’t NOT like it, but it’s very scrappy and random looking!

Part 2 coming soon!