At the beginning of 2015 I had 6 knitting WIPs and an aim to reduce this significantly during the year. Several of the WIPs had been on the needles for some time, the oldest being from 2010. I wanted to spend more time on knitting I wanted to do, rather than being limited to what I felt I ought to be knitting.
Here’s the parade of finished objects for the year.
My target for the year was one finished project per month, which I exceeded over the course of the year, although some months did not contain a finished item. May was a particularly strong month with four completed items and September was also strong.
This year included my first real foray into knitting for other people’s babies. The Millamia blanket kit was a really good buy – I just love to knit that yarn and the miles of garter stitch was an exceedingly pleasant way to pass the time.The whimsy of including a one sixteenth scale replica of the blanket for the enclosed cuddly toy kept me entertained for ages.
The final completed project of the year: a Baby Surprise Jacket was a joy to knit as well. You can see the yarn in my post-Yarndale post, but I never got round to blogging progress. It is just such a clever design and intuitive to knit once you get into it. I chose the yarn knowing that the baby in question has a Mum (Hi Daisy) who understands about handwash items. Definitely not a practical choice, but very soft. I had a good time picking colours that were gender-neutral but leaning towards probably being a girl. Tip for next time: put a buttonhole in the swatch so you don’t have to wait until it is finished to buy the buttons.
Of the WIPs from the beginning of 2015 I passed on one unfinished to Mum for her to finish (the crochet amigurumi). I finished four projects and have one remaining. This is the one I predicted would still be a WIP at the end of the year – the cotton square blanket, begun in 2011. I really ought to bring that to a close one way or another this year.
This year I have also finished some spinning projects, although I don’t appear to have photos of them all.
I kicked off 2016 in style by finishing my first knitting project on New Year’s Day.
I was particularly chuffed that the pooling of colours matched so well between the pair. This is an intriguing construction, beginning with the ribbing on the cuff, then casting on for the hand, knitting it onto the cuff as you go, then short-rowing for the thumb section.
At the beginning of the year, I once again had 6 WIPs, briefly reduced to five before starting the crochet modular scarf seen in the previous post.
Targets for 2016:
- Continue with the aim of one finished object per month
- Knit a usable item from my handspun
- Watch more of the Craftsy classes I have bought (so tempting when they are on sale to buy them all)
- Learn a new skill (perhaps Brioche stitch)
- Spin more
Needles at the ready: onwards.