2022 Wrap Up

Since I missed all of November and now almost all of December might as well just do a wrap-up of the whole year.

Spinning:

The first half of the year was much heavier on the spinning than the second half.  I spun 3 sweater quantities of  yarn as well as numerous single skeins.  I also spend a little bit of time this past summer trying out some "art yarn" techniques.  One of the things I was most pleased about is that I spun through my fiber stash and everything I have now (other than the blending stuff) has been added this year.  That definitely feels good!

I also added a third "wheel" when I purchased an Electric Eel Wheel 6 earlier this month.  I've only had it for a little over a week and haven't had a lot of time to spin on it yet, but it does make a nice addition and fills in some gaps for me.  I will probably blog about it at some point down the road.

Weaving:

In short, I really didn't weave this year.  At one point I started a couple things and they weren't working for me (color/fabric-wise) and I cut them off the loom and that was that.  I have some ideas, but weaving will come back when I feel like it.

Sewing:

Similar story here.  Sewing is also a "sometimes" sort of thing for me.  I have definitely thought about it, even started to collect a few beginner friendly patterns, but ultimately I don't think I did any sewing this year.  My daughter did though, so the sewing machine got a little bit of use.

Knitting:

I completed 32 projects this year.  It should have been 33, but the other night I realized the sweater that I was 90% done with was just not going to work at all and I ended up frogging the whole things.  

This year I knit 8 sweaters, 8 pairs of mittens, 7 pairs of socks, 5 hats, 2 cowls, 1 shawl, and 1 pair of fingerless mitts.  9 of those projects were entirely handspun yarn and one was a sweater that featured handspun in the yoke.

When I look back on my knitting goals for the year there are still a few things I didn't check off my list.  For example, I wanted to knit a brioche project.  I didn't complete one, but I started one and at least spend some time practicing brioche knitting before frogging the hat.  I think that is still something I would like to spend some more time on eventually.  Other things- like using my sock yarn stash or knitting up all the yarns that came in my 2021 Selection Box - I did to at least some extent.  I used 6/9 of those skeins in my selection box, and up until the end of the year all my sock knitting was from what I had in stash.  I don't think adding in a few new skeins that I've already knit up was a bad thing at all.

Actually that bring me to another success I had this year- I knit with almost all the yarn I purchased this year.  I did buy 3 sweater quantities of yarn, and they all became sweaters (or most of a sweater before it was frogged in the last case), the sock yarn I purchased became socks, the special fuzzy yarns I bought went into projects.  Other than the one leftover skein from one my black sweater, I only have one skein I purchased last month that I haven't knit with yet.

I did a lot of sweater knitting this year too, more than I've ever done in one year's time before.  It is one of those things where I think I'm as proud of some of my "failures" as I am of the successes.  My first "fail" was the sleeves of my New Leaf sweater.  They were at least a few inches too long and because of the shape of the sleeve and the colorwork, it had to be properly fixed.  I could have just ripped back, but I decided to cut off the cuff, rip back, reknit the sleeves to where the colorwork started and just graft the original cuffs back on.  I did  it and it worked!  

The other failure is the sweater I ripped out the other night.  It was a bottom-up design, so I had tried to try on the sweater shortly after attaching the sleeves and at that point I had some concerns about the size.  It was meant to have 4-6" positive ease, but it was feeling kind of big to me.  I kept going though.  I was most of the way through the section where I was rapidly decreasing on both the sleeves and the body when I decided to go down to a shorter needle cable.  About halfway through that transfer all the stitches were spread out and no longer bunched up on the needles and I decided to check the fit, because it was looking pretty big... Sure enough, it was so big that if I dropped it I could step out of it.  I checked my gauge again.  Recommended gauge was 16 stitches/4 inches.  I had knit the sleeves first and they fit well, their gauge was probably more like 17 sts/4" but it was fine.  I had checked the gauge near the bottom of the sweater and it was 16/4" but somehow, by the time I was in the yoke, my gauge was now 14 sts/4"  There are a couple possible factors (I had set it down for several weeks, I had switched type of needle cords, the purl columns had ended) as to why the gauge changed, but with that gauge I was now looking at a sweater with 10-11" positive ease.  Now I realize there were more decreases to go, but I could also just tell that I wasn't going to be happy with it or feel good in it.  So out it went.  I even got all the yarn re-skeined and washed by the next morning. 

That just cemented it for me though- I do not like a lot of positive ease in my sweaters.  I think 2-3" is the max for me, and honestly, if a sweater truly needs more, it probably isn't the right style for me.  I think I will be glad when we move past the boxy, cropped shape being trendy for sweaters.  I already knew cropped is absolutely not for me unless I am going to be wearing it with a dress, and even then, I wear dresses in the summer much more than winter so sweaters for dresses aren't very practical in my wardrobe.  

My biggest successes this year are probably the two handspun sweaters.  The Jacob sweater I took all the way from raw fleeces to garment and that is sort of exhilarating.  The other handspun sweater didn't start with raw wool, but it did involve a lot of blending and color planning and that was a ton of fun to do and really scratched a creative itch for me.  Similarly, knitting the nightshift shawl with my handspun was a very satisfying experience as well.

This isn't to say I don't enjoy commercial yarns, but I can see that spinning and then knitting with the yarn bring me a lot of joy.