2018: A (knitting) year in review

Each year, I enjoy writing up a little summary of completed projects. It's fun for me to notice trends in my creativity from year-to-year, considering life events etc. And I do enjoy looking at year-long collection of work, so to speak.

So here, listed by type and in order of completion date, are the knitting projects I finished this year. Each one is linked to either my Ravelry project page or to a blog post about that project. Either will include more photos and details about each project.

Handwear:

• Align mitts

Adult sweaters:

• Mae sweater
• Ninilchik swoncho
• Weekender sweater

Baby sweaters:

• Mavis baby sweater
• Tiny heart colorwork sweater

Hats (baby and adult):

• Fleesensee hat
• Mavis baby hat
• More honey hat

Socks:

• Scrappy socks
• Cyril socks
• Cabled DK-weight socks
• Baby mitten socks (five pairs for friends with new babies, not all photographed)

Neckwear (shawls and cowls):

• Bandera shawl
• Milena shawl
• Two-color brioche cowl

And then, there are the secret Christmas knits that I worked on, from August to late November, and mostly haven't mentioned here on the blog:

Galiano socks for my mom, in the softest, cashmere-blend sock yarn. I loved this pattern and yarn combination.

A Glacier Park Cowl for Nicholas, which wasn't a surprise, because it's a lot of knitting and I happen to be rather cozy with the recipient. But since I worked on it months ago, he kind of forgot, and was so excited to open it on Christmas! It's snuggly and in subtle colors that he's happy with. One of these days, I'll sneak a photo of my reluctant model wearing it.

A Hoarfrost shawl for my mother-in-law. The texture took some getting-used-to, but then it became a super soothing knit! And I knit the lace section rather quickly. This project reminded me, again, about the importance of using the right material of needles coupled with a specified yarn. It was painfully slow to knit this with wooden circulars, and rather fun to knit with metal needles, once I made the switch. Sometimes a needle change is all that's needed!

An Antares hat for my dad. For the last 4 Christmasas, I've knit my dad a hat. Typically, I knit a classic 2x2 ribbed hat, but this year, I made him a colorwork hat. It was a quick and enjoyable knit, although I admit to being rather stressed about the fit/that my floats might be too tight, and I cast on a few extra stitches to account for that and for other knitters' comments that the finished hats turned our rather small.

Yorkville socks for my sister-in-law. I loved the texture of this knit, and it was my first time doing a German short row heel in garter.  I typically follow a heel and gusset construction, if I'm knitting socks for myself or my mom, since we both have high arches. But these were so fun to knit, and it was nice to use a different construction method!

A pair of Selbu mittens for my Grandma Donna. We have a lot of Norwegian heritage on my mom's side of the family, so it was neat to knit a pair of traditional mittens, even if the process is a bit tedious. I don't enjoy magic loop in any application, and I also struggle with small circumference colorwork. All that said, I am so glad I made them and I love how they turned out!

A ribbed hat for my father-in-law. Another rather tedious knit, but such a wearable and professional-looking pattern. EVen if it is miles of 2x2 rib on US 1 or 0 needles, I could see making more of these in the future for the men in my life. This was the last of the 2018 Christmas knits!

So altogether, I'm counting 27 projects with the following totals: 2 handwear, 3 adult sweaters, 2 baby sweaters, 5 hats, 10 pairs of socks (including 5 adult pairs and 5 pair of baby socks), 3 shawls, and 2 cowls.

My knitting plans from August to November were mostly filled with Christmas knitting and some baby-related gift knitting. In all those months, I approached projects differently, always knowing what the next project would be/needed to be. As I finished up each project, I had a more difficult time switching creative modes back to my more relaxed/typical type of creativity. That, and a few other life things made knitting not incredibly appealing at the end of the year. Although there's no need to be worried, my "knitting mojo" is back with full force now!

I'll share a post in the next week or two about my current projects, what's on my needles, and my preliminary creative plans for 2019, including sewing, knitting, and other creative goodness.