Month: December 2023

A Race to the Finish

| Sonia Knits

With just two days to the New Year, my Amina sweater is FINALLY finished. This would have to be the longest time it’s taken me to knit a single jumper, having cast on for it in June. So for someone who likes completing things on a regular basis, this was torture. Am I happy with it? Why yes, yes I am. Did I learn a lot? Yes, yes I did, would I knit it again? Definitely not!

Every single end has been woven in

Earlier this week, we celebrated Christmas in our usual way; both families on the one day, lots of fun with the kids and lots of food. On Christmas eve, we had a pre-Christmas celebration with some friends, and we had a Kit-Kat constructing competition (not my idea of fun!). Whilst I am a designer, I’ve never been great at constructing things, and one of the competing adult kids is studying architecture! Somehow, the train, Tim and I had built scored first place.

The yarn advents are over and I can’t wait to cast-on some new colour work projects in the new year. First of all I’ll be casting-on for the Paul Klee sweater with Kate Davies’ advent yarns. I spent a delightful morning on Boxing day arrranging and re-arranging colours for this. If all goes to plan, I’ll be casting on for another sweater in February with the My Creative Garage advent, but more on that another time.

My little/big hedgehog decoration is almost complete, I’m just waiting on a delivery of 6mm black beads for it’s eyes, then just a few facial embroidery details and it’s done. I’m pretty novice when it comes to Amigurumi, the arms and feet are different sizes, so don’t look too closely. It will have just a few days on the tree, before it all gets boxed up again for next year. Christmas is over too quickly.

Taking stock

| Sonia Knits

It’s been a busy time since we’ve gotten back from our trip to Japan. I’m really looking forward to taking pause over the Christmas and New Year break, catching up with life and reseting for the new year.

Last weekend, the Richmond Knitters had their Christmas Dinner Party. One of the highlights of the evening is the ornament exchange. I set out to make an amigurumi hedgehog, the pattern is super cute! It claims to only take 4 hours to make, but by the 6 hour mark and not being half done, I decided to cast on for my second ornament option: The Furry Fairies pattern by Alan Dart. It was fiddly, but well worth the effort. I appreciated other knitters’ comments on Ravelry about converting the pattern into knitting in the round, rather than flat, and knitting i-cord for the mouse’s limbs. It’s very sweet 🙂 Damian is still hoping I’ll finish the hedgehog for our tree.

It is the season for advents. After last year’s advent calendar extravaganza, I swore I would give this year a miss… but as time went on, I succumbed to temptation and ordered 2 yarny advent calendars. I’m so glad I did, both the My Creative Garage and Kate Davies’ calendars are just beautiful. The Kate Davies calendar features her Milarrochy Tweed with 6 exclusive colours (and patterns to arrive on Dec 24th!) I’ve earmarked this yarn to become a Paul Klee Sweater, and I’m hoping to cast on for this on January 1. Which brings me to my knitting goals for 2024…

I want to cast on for a new jumper every month in 2024… or at least until I become overwhelmed! I did this in 2020 and I completed 5 sweaters that year, and a further 3 were finished off in 2021. I really enjoyed casting on for something new each month, it gave me a clear goal for what I wanted to achieve and rather than my knitting plans languishing in my queue it was a thrill to bring each sweater to life.

For the remainder of this year, I’m focussing on getting all of my WIPs completed, including the Amina Sweater. All the pieces have been knit, now it’s just a case of sewing in all of the ends, blocking, sewing-up, and knitting the neck band. I also want to get cracking/finish my Shelley Husband, Nimue crochet blanket. That’s all achievable right?