It seems I haven’t knit Damian anything for quite some time, so for his birthday this year I decided to continue my tradition of gifting hand-knit socks.

Damian is quite fond of the humble bin chicken, so when I spotted the colourwork chart in the Pacific Knits Sydney Doodle Deck, I knew I had to knit him this pair.

The self-striping yarn and solid contrast colours are from my favourite local dyer, Halfbaked Hand-Dyed (aka Danni).

I presented the socks to Damian while they were still a little damp, and he very kindly tried them on for me anyway. They fit beautifully, although the first sock is a little snugger around the colourwork. As these are knit in DK weight, I used 3 mm needles with the magic loop method. By the time I started the second sock, I remembered that I actually owned a 3 mm short circular needle, which made it much easier to keep my colourwork relaxed. The difference is noticeable, with the second sock having a little more give.

I could always frankenstein the first sock and re-knit the colourwork section, but Damian doesn’t seem at all bothered by it – and, if I’m honest, I’m rather relieved. It means I can cast on a new garment for myself instead. Yippee!

January has been busy and focussed. I had some extra time off over the holiday period and most of the time was spent at home knitting(!) and socialising.

My first FO for the year were these ribbed socks by Summer Lee. Super simple, and great for Japanese BBQ knitting, which happened quite frequently over the break, much to Damian’s delight. The yarn is by my favourite local self-striping yarn dyer Danni of Halfbaked hand dyed. It might have been a one-of-a-kind colourway and I think it’s super cool. These socks are for me, but I think the next few pairs might be for others. The sock drawer is pretty packed.

I also dabbled in spinning and working on ‘the Queen’ in my break. I would have done more, but the Queen’s hair is going to take a while I think, so I put it aside to knit through my EXP sweater.

I finished knitting my EXP sweater and have sewn in the last ends this evening. It’s currently having a bath, I think it’s going to dry pretty quickly because it got to (or close to) 45 degrees in Melbourne today. I’ll tell you all about the EXP this weekend when hopefully it will be cool enough to take some photos of me wearing it, at least for 5 minutes.

Hip hip hooray! My Vintage Flannel sweater by Anna Johanna is finally finished… and I love it 🙂 It turned out just how I wanted it to, but I must admit, it was touch and go when it came to the end. Like ALL of those ends, that I had to sew in

The number of ends is all my own fault of course. When purchasing the yarn for this project, I wanted my contrast colour to be varigated. I couldn’t find any yarn at the Sheep Show that would do this in 5ply. So… I used 3 different colours to create the varigation, which meant I needed to change colours every 3 rounds or so.

But before all of that, the other hurdle I faced was, as I cast off my second sleeve, I realised I had knit my second sleeve on needles that were .25mm larger than the rest of the sweater. True story.

Luckily upon wearing, I can honestly not tell the difference in the sleeve length. So this is our little secret.

With the end of the year approaching, I’m now eyeing off all of my unfinished projects to see what is going to make it into this years completed projects. Spoiler alert, I have cast on a new sweater. There’s also 2 pairs of socks and a blanket to complete. Seems unlikely doesn’t it?!