2022 Round up: Knits

It hasn't been the year of the knitting. I was working on the same jumper for the whole year - I finished it in the first week of December. I don't even know why it took me so long. I love the jumper, it's a pattern I've wanted to knit for years (Milou), the yarn the lovely...meh. I thought I had lost my knitting mojo but then, in the part of the year left when I'd finished the jumper, I managed to knit some mittens, a toddler jumper, a baby cardigan, my first attempt at brioche in the form of a hat and one hexagon (2021 me is very disappointed with 2022 me, who was meant to continue the streak and get it all finished). 

I don't even have a picture of me wearing the finished Milou, although I have been wearing it a lot. Here's an old picture of it, from May, when I finished the body and started the sleeves. Seriously, how did it take me 6 months to knit a pair of sleeves?!

In the middle of the year I took a brief pause to knit a hat and a headband from a ball of yarn that the textiles teacher at work gave me as a gift for swapping car parking spaces with her (car parking is extremely tightly controlled at school, I'm not just anal about my space, promise). She also gave me a bottle of wine but it was the yarn that I was most pleased with and I didn't want it disappearing into stash, so I whipped up a hat for a friend who'd had a particularly nasty lost pregnancy and needed something bright, and then a headband with the rest. 

Then the December binge. I've made a montage of these because I can't get the pictures aligned to my satisfaction using the Blogger editor. 

The jumpers are in my favourite workhorse yarn, Rico Aran; Lara's has some of the ladybird buttons on the shoulder that I bought at Wonderwool this year. The hat was knitted from Adriafil Pascal, a chunky yarn I found in the wool shop in Bath, I just loved the colours; the pink strand is Coopknits and wow, that pink is amazing. I love the contrast. I knitted most of the hat in the recommended needle size, then ripped it back and started again one size up as it was a little bit tight. This has gone to Mother Hand for Christmas. The mittens are from a luscious skein of Triskelion baby alpaca, purchased at Wonderwool in 2015. And the single hexagon, though pleasingly, I have done another 3 and a half today whilst watching the first series of Happy Valley. 

So, I guess I finished strong. I am going to knit a couple more fronts for the Presto Chango before my new nephew grows out of it, then I fancy the shawl I wound the wool for 1+ years ago, and after that I might make a start on the ripple blanket. It's about 2,800m out and a bit more than double that in, sigh. But I guess I am just stashing for retirement, right?

At least that total should be easy to beat in 2023 (famous last words).