janestarz | 2024 Knitting Year in Review

Well, it's been yet another quiet year on the knitting front. Netflix still doesn't have that many interesting series to watch and with Eisirt's schedule settling in a steady rythm there aren't that many evenings alone anymore (yay!). Also, we play Deep Rock Galactic a lot, which eats into my knitting time.

In 2023 I finished only three projects - "an all time low" as I reported last KYIR and 2024 didn't yield much more in the way of finished projects. If I had really pressed on in between Christmas and the New Year I might have finished the Green Sprig Project, but I would have had a rubbish time of it and I don't look for that kind of stress in my knitting projects.

In order of Finished Object-ness, these are the knitting projects I finished in 2024:

RickRack Socks - These were on the needles when 2024 started and I finished them in February. They were a gift for Plan-B neighbour Paul.
Storingssokken - An inspired project. More on that below.
Musselburgh - A double-layered hat. My mother was inspired by Dutch Wool Diva knitting this at the Handwerkbeurs in Houten, bought the pattern on Ravelry and set to work. I figured I might as well cast one on myself, and the glittery sock yarn from Schaap & Draak was a fun choice!
Revamping Soxx no.3 - When I had initially finished these they were only size EU35. When we went on holiday in September I took them along to frog the toe and knit the foot longer. They were gifted to fellow LARPer Yvon.
Zauberball Magic Stripe Socks for Bram. It involved cutting a Zauberball into two 50 gram skeins, switching the working thread every 5 rows and ending up with perfect stripes despite the increases for the instep. With a self-striping yarn the stripes get narrower as you gain stitches, so this sock recipe really fixed that problem. A fun knit that was finished just in time for Bram's birthday!

The story behind the Storingssokken:
Back in 2017 I entered into the Sock Madness sock knitting competition. The Twisted Madness socks were the socks for the qualifying round and I picked a self-striping yarn that had a...funny little colour scheme.
The red and white really didn't combine well with the pastel colours of the rest of the skein, I figured I'd be better off combining the red and white with another project. After I had finished that years Madness I happily frogged the finished pair of socks (!!) because already reports were coming in that the twisted stitches were forcing the socks to also twist on the foot of the wearer, making them unsuited for wear.

So I cut the yarn up: the pastel purple, pink and lime were combined with a dark green solid for the Slip Stripe Spiral socks for Marloes and made for a very pretty project to work on. Yes, it provided extra ends to weave in, but the result was lovely.
(Love that pattern, so striking, so much fun to knit. DO recommend!)

The rest of the yarn, the red-white combination, was set aside to be combined with a similar yarn in black and white. I figured that with the contrast heel, toe and cuff I like to knit it would be nice to do those in red-white while the rest of the sock was in black and white.
It was a winning combination, an inspired knit. Even if it was just a plain vanilla sock it made for a fun project. And it reminded me of when the TV was malfunctioning back in the day and it was just showing static.

Sometimes I get inspired by the weirdest things, but I do believe that being inspired by the materials themselves make for the best projects.

Knitting plans for 2025
As always, a little future planning. I will try to make time for knitting more often because it is very relaxing and I shouldn't be gaming all the time. Also, my Green Sprig is very nearly done and I have some re-vamping projects lying around.

Finish the Green Sprig - at the time of blogging, 12 cm to add to both sleeves and some to the hem and then it's weaving-in-ends-time.
Re-write the Sprig pattern with all the adjustments I have made to make it fit me better. The Green Sprig has a better neckline than the blue one and I've added short rows to both to add extra height in the back. I'll never be making these with the elbow-length sleeves, so I might as well rewrite the sleeve decreases so they're more gradual over the entire length of the sleeve.
Re-vamp the sleeves on the Snowflake jumper. The cuffs need frogging and from that point they both need 12 cm of sleeve length added. I figured I'd add 5 cm of stockinette sleeve before adding a 7 cm of moss stitch cuff. The current cuff is rather narrow so it can tackle both problems. If I just add a longer cuff I think it will look too bulky.
Also: it seems like 12 cm is my sleeve's bane.
Darn the heel in Eisirt's Envy socks. Of the three pairs I made with this MC yarn, this one is the first to have a hole in the heel and the only one knit with Onion Nettle as CC. Not sure whether this is because the Onion Nettle is just not sturdy enough, but I seem to have had problems with it before.
Finish knitting the next pair of socks for Bram. I think the ones I have on the needles right now will be nice for him but not sure if they will fit.
Knit one pair of socks from a book, probably Soxx no.4 (except that it's boring in a single colour so not sure whether this tickles my fancy).
Knit another pair of Treads mittens. I found these back in my Windsong costume bin and wore them over the Emphebion Winterlive but the wool content of 50% made them itch a lot. They are very pretty though, so I hope to be making these again with a merino wool.
And one big project to get me through the summer break or holiday. I have yet to decide which of the projects on my queue it will be, but I am tempted to go for the grey Fyberspates fingering yarn or the Dragonfly Dyes fingering I picked up in Norwich two and a half years ago.