2022 - End of year wrap up and reflections

Previous years here: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

That was quite a year! I started powerlifting and competed twice. My boss died and I've been doing her job. I lost a cat and gained a cat. We went on an epic multi-day hike and loved it. And throughout it all, I read and knitted.

At the end of last year I said I wanted to read more sci-fi and fantasy, and I feel like I did that. This year I joined Kindle Unlimited and got quite a lot of value from it. Other than that, it was the usual mix of fiction, a little bit of non-fiction, romance and some review books, although my reviewing seems to have slowed to a trickle.

In knitting I completed 50 projects, for a total of 20,386 meters. I went to three year festivals and had a very good time with my knitting friends. I also, finally learnt to crotchet properly and had a lot of fun (especially when I had Covid) making squares. Maybe in 2023 I'll put the squares together into a blanket.

This year I discovered Aussies knitting for War Affected Kids (AWWAK) an organisation that sends packages to kids in Syrian refugee camps. I knit 15 things for them. I have an informal goal to knit at least 12 charity items each year.

I kept the sock knitting under control, with 7 pairs, three of which were given away as gifts. next year I am planning 6 pairs of two colour slip stitch socks, as well as refreshing my sneaker liners.

The stash is a little large, sitting at 25,669 meters over 34 entries. I'm not quite sure how it got that high, I haven't been stress shopping. i guess the yarn festivals, and Dani keeps dying amazing yarn, which I've been buying in doubles. I love pretty much all of it, and my oldest yarn is from March 2021, so nothing has been sitting around too long. That number includes two and a half kilometers of left over sock yarn (LOSY) which I plan to reduce by knitting for charity.

Wishing you joy and peace in your crafting and non-crafting endeavours.

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Unravelled wednesday and WAYRN - the one where I prepare

We are heading off for some camping and hiking and general R&R on Friday, so I'm currently in planning and preparing mode. Of course that mainly means deciding what to knit - I'm going to make the Old Romance cardigan by Joji Locatelli. The yarn is wound and I'm ready to go. I completed Leon's Winter Set (2023) just in time, and it's currently blocking. I'm reading Georgette Hayer's Fredrica , which I am enjoying very much. Regency romance is so sweet and, unlike current romance offerings, I know it won't suddenly tumble into gynaecological territory! For unexplained reasons, NetGalley is offering some Georgette Heyer books at the moment - (maybe it's re-release?) and I'm taking this opportunity to read a few more of them And that's my week in knitting and reading. To read my all my book reviews, and to see everything I knit, you can find me on Ravelry as Sharondoublekni t and on GoodReads as Sharondblk . I'm joining in with Kat ...

Yarnalong - the one with the final bit of transport

Remember how I took every form of transport known to man a fortnight ago? Well, I was missing just one thing, suburban trains. But today I got to remedy that, knitting my way to Dandenong for work. Yay? My Char jumper has been knitting up ridiculously fast. It's easy, pleasant and a well written pattern. I'm reading Rachael Herron's latest book The Ones Who Matter Most . It's a good read so far, family centered fiction, easy to read but still emotionally challenging. I'm listening to Evelyn Waugh's Men At Arms . I'm enjoying it, I didn't really know what to expect, but some of it reminds me of Catch 22, in that it catalogues the absurdities of war and bureaucracy. The narrator has the perfect upper crust English accent and I'm very pleased it's the first of a trilogy. And that's another week of reading, knitting and catching trains everywhere for me. Do pop along to Ginny's blog to see what she and the rest of the yarnalong ...

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat. The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

What I made, by Sharon

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