2023 - end of year wrap up and reflections

Previous years here: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

Another year gone, with some changes and also lots of rhythm and routine. This year I quit powerlifting and started pole dancing, I did studio yoga regularly and then decided to do it virtually. we had three hiking holidays, including finishing the Grampians Peaks trail, tropical rainforest and four days in a desert. We had a lot of fun with family and friends.

In reading I continued to read sci-fi and fantasy as well as a general mix of books. I read 114 books, 65 of which were review books, which is quite a high percentage. The most surprising thing that happened in books is that I requested a book about making polymer clay earrings and now that is one of my hobbies.

In knitting I made 44 project and used 27,662 meters of yarn, which is slightly fewer projects and quite a lot more yarn than in previous years.

The group I was charity knitting for changed their submission methods in September, so I need a new charity knitting focus, but that can wait. I again went to three yarn festivals, and ended up with 21,090 meters of yarn. There has been a lot of movement from last year, everything I have is beautiful.

Now I'm off to bake some biscuits for this evenings New Year's eve celebrations, which i will spend with some of my favourite people. I'll be back on Tuesday to tell you about all the crafting I've done during my Christmas break.

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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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