12 Months; 12 Projects

Here at last in, August 2026, is my round-up post for my 2025 knitting projects. I had a reasonably productive knitting year in 2025, and got twelve projects done, but I did not get around to writing about them until recently, my writing time of late being very much taken up by writing a book which is to be published in September 2026. However, the post is ready at last, and let's take a walk down my 2025 knitting lane. 

 

 

My grandniece Cauliflower turned 16 in the summer of 2025. She's at the age where she's more or less full grown and may be wearing the sweaters I make her for some years to come instead of growing out of them in a year or two. She's also gotten to an age at which she wants to pick out her own clothes. However, I still want to make her sweaters for a few more years yet, so I play it safe by gravitating towards classic designs when picking out a pattern for her annual birthday gift. Even the pickiest people with the most specific tastes don't tend to object to a gift of classic knitwear.

When I searched Ravelry for a suitable pattern for Cauliflower's birthday present, I came across the Holly design you see pictured above, from Marie Amelie Designs. It's simple, wearable, and flattering, with a nice bit of texture to give it some distinction. 

As for the yarn, I visited Romni Wools during Boxing Week 2024 to see what they had. In 2024 Romni Wools was forced to close their main store on Queen Street where they'd been for decades because the rent had gotten too high to make the location financially viable, and now their only Toronto location is their Weston Road store. It's much smaller than the Queen Street store, so Romni Wools' selection is now far less than what it was. When I looked for a machine washable DK wool for this sweater, I only really had one brand to choose from -- Garnstudio Drops Karisma -- and not a lot of colour selection. I ruled out the blue yarns, because Cauliflower's 15th birthday present sweater was blue. I ruled out pink, as Cauliflower hasn't liked pink in years. I ruled out some other colours as being too drab or unflattering or unattractive, and that left me purchasing 450 grams in shade 39, "Dark Old Rose", which I think is more of a plum, and hoping Cauliflower would like it.

The completed sweater. I think it turned out quite well, though I'm afraid I might have gotten the sleeves a little long. I followed the pattern's directions exactly, and it seems I should not have. But it will otherwise look nice on Cauliflower -- I just hope she thinks it does!

This project added 14 grams of yarn to my stash. 

 

 

 

For some years prior to 2024, my father kept mentioning wanting to buy me some alpaca yarn from Alpaca Time, a little alpaca farm, mill, and yarn store located in Harriston, Ontario, where Dad's favourite cousin's son's wife worked until her retirement in August 2024. Dad is fascinated with knitting and takes an especial interest in different kinds of yarn, in much the same way as he likes using as many different kinds of wood for his woodworking projects as possible. When he and my mother travelled to the Yukon back in the early 2000s, he brought me back some Qiviut yarn. He wanted the two of us to go to Alpaca Time together, but we never got around to it on my occasional visits to my parents' place. Finally in August 2024 he and my sister went there together to carry out the mission.

 

Dad bought the three hanks of yarn you see above, then gave them to me for my 51st birthday the following week. (Along with five bags of sawdust, which you shall hear about in a later post.) There was no fibre content or gauge information on these hanks, but they're fingering weight, and judging from the yarn products listed on the Alpaca Time website, they could be 100% alpaca, or 85% alpaca and 15% bamboo, or 90% alpaca and 10% nylon. The skeins were 113 grams each, for a total of 339 grams. This was a little on the low side for me to make a sweater of (a fingering weight sweater in my size usually takes about 380 grams), and when I searched Ravelry for suitable patterns that evening, I had to rule out a number of patterns because they would take more yarn than I had. I toyed with the idea of adding a second yarn, but decided that I preferred this sweater to be a solid neutral tone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After some pattern browsing, I narrowed my choices down to three, and then selected the Aptenia pattern, designed by Coraline Kerisit, that you see depicted above. I didn't know the yardage of my skeins of yarn, but looked through the pattern pages of other site members who had made the Aptenia design, and it seemed to me I would have enough. I set happily to work on it in early September with the idea of getting the sweater done long before Christmas, so that my father would get to see me wear it during my holiday visit to my parents' place. 

I hardly ever have gauge problems, and as a rule I don't bother to swatch. But I had gauge problems with this one pattern. The yoke turned out huge, and I had to redo it several times, ripping it out, cutting down the number of repeats on the second take, finding the yoke still too big, and then ripping it back and cutting down more repeats. On my third attempt I found the yoke still a bit on the big side, but decided to leave it the way it was. Then I had problems with the gauge on the body. At one point I made a swatch, but my work didn't seem to knit to gauge even after that. Finally I finished the body, weighed the remaining yarn because I was concerned I was going to run short of yarn for the sleeves, knitted one sleeve and weighed the remaining yarn again... and found I was going to run 20 grams short for the second sleeve. I should have made sure that yoke was exactly the width it was supposed to be. I've done plenty of ripping out in my knitting life and have gotten quite hardened to the necessity of it, but I don't think I've ever found it harder to rip out a piece of work. I must have worked on that sweater for six weeks, and it was lovely. 

Back to Ravelry I went to pick out a second pattern. This time I looked at designs that involved two colours, with the idea that once I picked one out, I'd go shopping for a second coordinating yarn to piece out the fawn alpaca. (I did check my stash but didn't find anything suitable.) I didn't so much pick out another pattern as get a concept for another design. I got the idea of making a sweater that would have a flat collar, buttoned placket, cuffs, and waistband that was striped in the fawn and a coordinating colour, which I intended to design myself. I went to Michaels to see what kind of contrast yarn they might have, and purchased a skein of Patons Kroy Socks FX in Clover Colors, which is a variegated fingering. I thought the extra 50 grams plus the alpaca would surely be sufficient yarn for that sweater, and if not, I could buy a second skein of the Patons Kroy and make longer cuffs or something. I also bought some buttons for the placket.

I began again, and made the body of the sweater, knitted in the placket and the flat collar, then began knitting the first sleeve... and discovered that I was, again, going to run short of the fawn yarn. I think the problem was that I knitted the body in too small a gauge, and it consequently soaked up more yarn than necessary. Oh, these misguided misadventures in knitting! It is to laugh! It is to stab oneself in the eye with a knitting needle!

 

But there was nothing for it but to go back to Ravelry again, and pick out another design. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time I zeroed in on Lea, by Marzena Kolaczek, as pictured above. It was one of the three original patterns I had been considering the evening of my birthday celebration. The amount of fawn alpaca yarn I had should have been more than enough to make this sweater, but by this time I was so paranoid about running short again that I decided I'd use the Kroy sock yarn to do the yoke in order to be absolutely certain I could finish this third take.

And here's take three, finally finished. I had to go back to Michaels and buy another skein of the Patons Kroy Socks FX to have enough for the yoke. Ultimately, I used an extra 90 grams of the contrast variegated fingering, and then had 88 grams of the fawn alpaca left... which means I could probably have done this entire sweater in the alpaca, as I made the sleeves slightly longer than necessary. Again, this sweater was one of the three patterns I picked out originally, so if I'd just decided on this pattern in the first place, I could spared myself a lot of extra work and frustration, not to mention the expense of two extra skeins of yarn, an extra pattern, and buttons I now have no use for.

But I mustn't dwell on that, as it leaves me feeling stabby. I do like the result, and while that first all-fawn sweater would have been lovely, this version is probably more flattering on me, as that fawn colour isn't so great next to my face. I'm very pale, and look better in a rich, warm colour than I do in light neutrals. This skirt doesn't quite go with the tartan wool skirt you see here, but it will go with jeans and olive khakis. I just had to have something to pair the sweater with that would go on my dress form. 

I have 88 grams of the fawn left, and 10 grams of the Patons Kroy variegated. I'm thinking socks... but at some indefinite point down the road, as my experience with the alpaca yarn has left me a little too battle-scarred to work with it again for the time being. 

 

 

 

 

In 2018, I knitted myself a cardigan from some dusty rose worsted I had on hand in what was supposed to be a size 40 but was actually much smaller than that. I never wore it because it was just too snug on me to be wearable. The gauge wasn't what it should have been, and the front was smaller than the back, sigh. I toyed with the idea of fixing the cardigan for some years, and ultimately decided to take it apart and knit a completely different sweater, as I've realized that I don't like cardigans that much. I had not only the yarn from the cardigan but also 98 grams of the old rose yarn left in my stash, so I had no worries about running out of yarn. I searched Ravelry for a suitable pullover pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

The pattern I settled on was Mrs. Grimmet's Pullover, designed by Carol Sunday. It looked to me like a very satisfyingly comfortable and good-looking sweater, the kind of thing one can throw on for either downtime at home, for running errands, or for a trip to the park. 

 

 

 

 

 

The finished pullover, which I knitted in a size 39 in March 2025. It turned out smaller than I would have liked (I notice that other Ravelry users who have made this sweater complained about it turning out to be smaller than what they were aiming for), but while it's not the relaxed fit I had wanted, it's still a good fit. 

The most memorable thing about this project for me is that it introduced (and immediately converted) me to the sewn bind-off technique. For some years, I'd been using the "yarn over" stretchy bind-off technique, in which one wraps the yarn around the knitting needle before each stitch. The resulting bind off did create a very stretchy edge, but I was never really happy with it because it looked so untidy. For this project I tried out the sewn bind-off technique, and was immediately sold on it. It's just as stretchy as the yarn over method, and it looks so nice and neat. I've used it on nearly every knitting project I've done since. 

This project used all the yarn I was able to salvage when I took apart the cardigan (there were some ragged scraps of yarn that had to go in the garbage), and also 22 grams of my stash old rose worsted, so that's a net stash decrease of 22 grams for this project.  

 

 

 

 

My sister Alanna loves the TV show Supernatural. In 2023, I came up with the idea of making a Supernatural fan girl kit for Alanna for Christmas, which would consist of the official cookbook for the show, and some crafts that I would make for her: a painted box, a painted mug, and some bottle cap fridge magnets. I didn't get it done that year. In 2024, when I again intended to get the fan girl project done for Christmas of that year, I discovered that there was a Supernatural knitting pattern in the Ravelry database that I wanted to make: the Winchester Plaid Anti-Possession Mittens, designed by Kathy Lewinski. I thought it was just as well that the gift was delayed as it would be better to include the mittens with the other four items. I had some gray and black fingering yarn that would be perfect for them, and they would go quite well with the black capelet I had already made for Alanna for Christmas 2024.  

 

I began working on the mittens in October 2024 with the idea of having them done by Christmas. Then it turned out I had the hardest time getting gauge that I've ever had. Usually I don't have issues with that at all, my gauge being exactly what the pattern and/or the yarn skein band says it should be. Alanna has large hands for a woman, so initially I thought I'd knit them on larger needles than the pattern called for, aiming to make them a men's small instead of a women's medium. I began work, and three inches in found the pattern was way too large. I switched down a needle size, and knitted another three inches. Still too big. I began again with the pattern recommended size of 2.25 mm. Again too big, and again I ripped out what I'd done and began again with 2 mm DPNS, the smallest size I own. Guess what? Still quite a bit bigger than the pattern gauge. And this isn't a pattern I could adjust for width, as the anti-possession symbol takes up the entire width of the mitten. 

 

In retrospect I should have bought a set of 1.75 mm or even 1.5 mm DPNS, but instead I just adjusted the design as much as I could, shortening them considerably by doing only two repeats of the fair isle pattern before the thumb instead of four as the pattern calls for, and narrowing them by a stitch or two on each side. They weren't much too wide for me when I tried them on, and Alanna has larger hands than me, so I thought they wouldn't be such a bad fit. Another complication was that I ran short of black yarn and could not get more of the same brand, though that at least wasn't a big deal as I was able to get a skein of nearly identical black fingering, and in a project like this the switch would not be discernible at all. 

 

But, between all my futzing around with different needle sizes and the fact that a chart-intensive, fine-gauge project like this is slow-going work at the best of times, Christmas 2024 found the mittens unfinished (though to be honest, so were the other three items I planned to make for the kit). I had the capelet I'd knitted for her and a number of awesome stocking stuffers all ready to give Alanna, so she was not deprived, and I again kicked the can down the road to Christmas 2025. 

 

I finally finished these mittens in June 2025 (and ultimately finished the other items in the fangirl kit in time for Christmas 2025). They're not so bad. I do wish I'd thought of sizing down the thumbs by narrowing the hole for them, but by the time I realized they were too big both the mittens were all done but the thumbs, and after all the ripping out I'd already done, I was not ripping two-thirds of the mittens out. Perhaps if Alanna wears these out I'll make her a better-fitting replacement pair. 

 

This project used up 34 grams of gray and 22 grams of black stash fingering, and I had 43 grams of newly purchased black fingering left when I was done, so that's a net stash decrease of -13 grams.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the time came to plan my grandnephew Bug's 12th birthday present, I began as always by searching Ravelry for a suitable pattern.

 

 

 

 

For the first time in Bug's life, I found myself having to search the men's patterns for a suitable sweater for him. While this gave me some of those "how is he this big already" qualms, it did open up my options (there just aren't that many patterns for older boys), and the design I chose was 208-3 Reykjavik from Drops. It's a free pattern. As to the yarn, I went to Romni Wools here in Toronto and bought 400 grams of Drops Karisma yarn in Blue Turquoise, and 150 grams of Off White. 

 

 

 

 

As best as I can recall given that I'm writing these words about fifteen months after finishing the sweater, this project knitted up with no problems. This was definitely not my favourite project ever, but it's okay. It's serviceable and wearable enough, and blue is Bug's colour.  

 

 

 

 

I did rather enjoy that this design is nearly reversible. 

 

I had 30 grams of the blue yarn and 14 grams of the ivory yarn left over, which was a net stash increase of 44 grams for this project. 

 

 

 

 

When I was planning my honorary niece Olivia's Christmas 2025 present, the plan began with a sweater.

 

 

 

 

I searched Ravelry for a good pattern, and ended up deciding on one I had made before: s34-7 Daisy Delight, by Drops. My first go at this pattern was in 2021, when I made the sweater and cap for my grandniece Cauliflower. I'd been really pleased with the design at the time and it seemed like the best possible pick for Olivia's 2025 Christmas sweater. This time, I envisioned the sweater in red rather than in the old rose I used the first time. I purchased 400 grams of Drops Karisma in Weinrot (or what I would call a burgundy red) at Romni Wools, and found some small amounts of cream and green DK yarn in my stash for the daisies and their centres. 

 

 

 

 

Here's the sweater in a size 9/10. As I remember, it knitted up quickly with no problems, and I liked the red, which was both pretty in itself and would flatter Olivia, who has brown hair, hazel eyes, and pale, slightly olive-tinged colouring. 

 

 

 

 

I made the hat as well, and it was a quick easy project. As for the rest of the gift, I bought a thrift shop copy of Bernice Thurman Hunter's Booky trilogy (which I enjoyed reading as a kid), and then bought a bracelet weaving kit, set of temporary tattoo markers, and a tri-pack of flavoured lip balms at Dollarama, and shipped them all off to Olivia before Christmas. According to her mother, Olivia was very pleased with everything and began balming, tattooing, and weaving at once.  

Once I was finished this sweater and hat, I had just 7 grams left of the newly purchased red yarn, and I used 20 grams of the cream and 3 grams of the green stash yarn, so that was a net stash decrease of 16 grams for this project. 

 

 

 

 

 

For my grandnephew Sawyer's Christmas 2025 project, I didn't have to look too far for a sweater pattern.

 

 

 

 

I quickly decided to go with the Sverrigsgade pattern, designed by Sanne Bjerregaard. I'd used this pattern before, when knitting my honorary niece Olivia's Christmas 2022 sweater. It is quite a nice design, but the real selling point was that I'd been able to make it entirely out of stash yarn. For Sawyer's version, I didn't have enough of any colour yarn to use for the background colour of this sweater, but I had some DK yarns that would work for almost all the contrast colours. I made a sampler of wine, sage green, heather green, dark green, and cream yarn scraps and took it with me when I went to Romni Wools to look for a coordinating main colour and one of the contrast colours. I purchased 200 grams of Wendy With Wool DK in Biscuit and 100 grams of Drops Karisma in Orange (or what I would describe as a rust). 

 

 

 

 

The completed pullover in a size 4. It's not bad. I had to get creative with the contrast colours and use more of them than the pattern called for in order to be able to finish the sweater with the yarn I had, which affected the cohesion of the total look more than I liked.

 

 

 

I bought a toy truck from Dollarama to complete the gift, figuring that a boy who was two months shy of four was not going to be too interested in a new sweater, and Sawyer has been obsessed with vehicles and tools since before he could walk. All the interactions I had with Sawyer on Christmas Day 2025 were vehicle-themed, because Sawyer ignores everything else as irrelevant. When he was playing with the train set my sister-in-law had set up to run around the Christmas tree, I said to him, "The train is going to run over your toes and cut them off, Sawyer," and nudged his foot off the track with one of mine. He took that as his cue to repeatedly and joyously kick me in the leg, which as I told him, was not a nice way to treat his aged and decrepit great-aunt. 

At any rate, I could be sure the truck would be well-received. And it was. When Sawyer unwrapped his gift, he wasn't able to open the box the truck came in by himself, and so took the two items over to his father, my nephew Luke. So far as I can recall, the conversation went as follows. 

Luke: Oh, you got a crane truck. And a nice warm sweater. Here, put on the sweater.

Sawyer: Can you open the box?

Luke: Put on the sweater!

Sawyer: No!

Luke: Put on the sweater and I'll open the box for you.

Sawyer: [put on the sweater] 

Sawyer didn't wear his pullover for more than five or six minutes, but he was not to blame for that. The house was warm and he was running around so much that he must have found it too hot. I did get to see him wear the sweater for those few minutes, and it fit well and really suited his colouring of brown hair, greenish-brown eyes, and fair skin. 

I'll have to be sure to select a vehicle-themed design for Sawyer's Christmas 2026 gift. He might be able to open his own toy boxes by next year, and then what leverage will his father have for getting Sawyer to wear his sweater? 

When I finished this sweater, I had 23 grams of the biscuit and 6 grams of the rust yarns left. I used up 31 grams of the wine yarn, 21 grams of sage, 16 grams of dark green, 12 grams of heather, and 10 grams of cream. That's a net stash decrease of 61 grams for this project.  

 

 

 

 

In late 2024, when I was planning my knitting projects for 2025, I searched the Ravelry database for a pattern that would suitable for my grandniece Holly's Christmas 2025 dress. 

 

 

 

 

I soon decided to go with the Seamless Flower Dress, designed by Ewelina Murach. Back in 2016, I used this design to make a dress for my grandniece Cauliflower, and I had really liked the pattern. As for the yarn, I purchased 300 grams of Garnstudio Drops Karisma in Rose. I would have gone with a red this time, but Romni Wools didn't have a nice red DK in stock at the time. No matter, as this is definitely a dress that looks pretty in pink. And it turns out that Holly really likes pink. 

 

 

 

 

The dress, which I made in a size 2, knitted up without any issues. (That is, none that I can recall well over a year after finishing it.) I did remember that I didn't like the lacy effect of the lines leading to the floral design on the front when I made Cauliflower's dress, so this time around I knitted those stitches in a way that didn't leave holes. 

 

 

 

 

I didn't have a pink button that was the right shade to work on the back neckline of the dress, so I used this odd white one. It's actually one I found in my backyard garden years ago, where it must have been lying among the soil for decades. It wasn't at all damaged or worn, so I brought it into the house, scrubbed it up, and tossed into my button tin, figuring it would come in handy at some point. It has a slightly iridescent cast to it that made it work pretty well with the pink of this dress. 

 

 

 

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know that my rule is that when I make a little girl's dress, there must also be a purse made to match. For this one, I used the Squircle purse pattern that I have used many times before. The purse looked a little plain, so I made a little rosette and tacked it on. I should have looked harder for a nice rosette pattern, because this one looks too rough and ready.  

 

 

 

When I make a Squircle purse, I always cut a round piece of stiff interfacing to fit into the bottom, then knit a second bottom piece and stitch it in place over the interfacing. The purse will then sit upright on its bottom instead of just flopping over. I ran a little short of the rose-coloured yarn I had bought for this dress, so when it came time to knit the bottom insert, I knitted it in some cream yarn I had on hand. 

I had so little of the rose-coloured yarn left when I finished this project that the small amount of cream stash yarn I used for the purse bottom insert and centre of the rosette more than offset it, leaving me with a net stash decrease of -10 grams for this project.  

 

 

 

 

Of late years, I've been trying to avoid making myself any new knitted tams, given that I have seven of them. But in 2025, I began thinking about how I didn't have a hat that worked with a certain scarf that I have. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The scarf, which you see depicted above, is one I bought from a Salvation Army thrift shop here in Toronto in 2002 for $2. It's made of a floral print copper-coloured velvet on one side with a dark red velvet and three brass buttons on the other side. Velvet scarves like this one were a trend in the late nineties. They don't seem to be in style now but I don't care. As far as I am concerned, a beautiful, useful item like this is always in style. I've gotten many compliments on this scarf, and after all these years it's still in nearly perfect condition.  

 

But none of my hats looked quite right with this scarf. I decided I wanted a hat that would coordinate with it, and also work with my quilted velvet olive jacket and olive wool overcoat (which were also purchased at Toronto thrift shops in the early 2000s, for $17 and $8 respectively) that I usually pair with this scarf. So, I let myself make just one more hat. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I searched Ravelry for a suitable pattern and came up with the Lacy Swirls Hat, by Ann Regis. Then I shopped around for yarn that would work with the scarf. That was a longer and more time-consuming search, which I had to conduct in person, taking the scarf along with me for comparison. I should have been sensible and selected a superwash DK, but when I saw some gorgeous skeins of  Sandnes Garn Tynn Silk Mohair in a rich copper colour in Toronto's Eweknit yarn store, my raging mohair fetish got the better of me and I bought two skeins of it. 

  

 

 

 

The finished hat. I made some modifications to the pattern. The pattern called for two colours and I just used one. It called for a DK, and I had bought a lace weight. I used two strands of the Tynn and 4.5 mm needles to knit this hat, which got me close to the gauge the design called for. The pattern also called for a plain ribbed brim. My vision for this hat involved putting three decorative brass buttons on it. I won't usually put non-functional closures on an item because that tends to cheapen the look, but in this case I had some crested brass buttons in my button tin that would look so nice on this particular hat, and I also thought they would make the hat and scarf look more in accord. I consulted my knitting library to find a suitable cable pattern, with the idea that the buttons would look more integrated into the design if I could sew them the cables. 

I consulted all the knitting stitch books in my knitting library, and ultimately selected edging no. 222 (p. 118) from the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible, by Hitomi Shida. I just had to cast on 96 stitches instead of the 90 the pattern called for to make the brim cable repeats work out evenly, and then increase to 99 stitches for the body of the hat. 

 

 

 

 

 

The hat is beautiful, and goes quite well with my treasured velvet scarf, but... it's not very warm at all. And now I'm planning another, much warmer, sewn hat in a butterscotch colour (which I hope to make out of a thrifted, felted sweater) that I can wear with my olive green coats and the velvet scarf. I'll just have to try to take enough pleasure in my lovely new hats that I can forget that my hat moratorium is in tatters.  

There was just 16 grams of the newly purchased yarn when I finished this project, so that's a stash increase of 16 grams. 

 

 

  

For my honorary niece Olivia's seventh birthday in 2023, I made her a knitted doll and a wardrobe of seven outfits. Since then, I have been giving Olivia one doll outfit per birthday to freshen her baby's wardrobe. I decided I would stop doing this after Olivia turned ten. Ten outfits is a good array of clothing for a doll, and Olivia will soon be too old for dolls anyway. The choice for final outfit, which Olivia would receive for her tenth birthday in May 2026, was easy. The Raincoat outfit by Sarah Gasson, which you see above, is adorable, and how could I not make a rainy day outfit for a doll named Rainbow Sparkle Unicorn-Animals?  

I decided to make the outfit in just yellow and red, as I thought I'd prefer the look and it also cut down the expense a little. I purchased four skeins of Patons Astra for this project: three in Maize Yellow and one in Cardinal. I also had a little left of each of these two yarns in my stash: 9 grams of the yellow and 17 grams of the red.  

 

 

The completed rainy day outfit. I had some trouble finding wooden toggles for the raincoat. Eventually I settled for these, which are slightly smaller than they are supposed to be, and not quite the same style as those used in the sample photo. I adjusted the design a little to make them work. And I never did get around to looking for one of the cute doll-size toy umbrellas that are in the design's sample photo, but I suspect I wouldn't be able to find one anyway. 

When I finished this project, I was left with 15 grams of yellow and 18 grams of red yarn, or a +7 stash increase. And now that Rainbow is fully furnished with clothes and Olivia is on the verge of outgrowing dolls, that does it for my knitting of doll outfits, right? Well, no, because since I planned Olivia's doll and wardrobe for her, another little girl has shown up in my life. I think my grandniece Holly should have a knitted doll that looks like her with a ten-outfit wardrobe too. So here we go again!

 

 

 

   

 

 

I'm going to be using almost all the same patterns for Holly's doll that I did for Olivia's. I think there will be just two substitutions, though there *might* be more if Sarah Gasson comes out with any irresistible new designs. I came up with a four-year plan to get this project done: to knit two outfits in 2025, to knit the doll and two more outfits in 2026, and to knit three outfits a year in 2027 and 2028. Who knows if I'll actually be able to stick to this plan, but at least the 2025 component of it went well. 

The first two outfits I made for this second doll (I'm going to give her the provisional name of Ivy, although of course Holly will be naming her own doll when she gets it) were the Flower Pinafore and Ballerina outfits you see above, both designed by Sarah Gasson. 

When I looked through my stash to see what I had that might work for these two outfits, I found 68 grams of Loops & Threads Luxe Merino in Bridal Pink (it was actually yarn I had left over from the baby blanket and booties I made for Holly when she was born), and 149 grams of Loops & Threads Meandering in Dark Salmon that I thought would work for the pinafore and ballerina outfits respectively. Then I purchased a 150 gram skein of Loops & Threads Luxe Merino in Avocado and a second skein of the same yarn in White.  

 

 

 

 

The completed pinafore outfit. I didn't modify the pattern in any way as it's so cute exactly as it is. I even knitted it in similar colours to those used in the sample because I like the combination of pink and green. 

 

 

 

 

The ballerina outfit, which again is knitted in a pink and green colour scheme. Holly will be able to mix and match the pieces from these two outfits. I made just one change to this pattern. 

 

 

 

When I made this ballerina outfit for Olivia, I really wasn't happy with the look of the flower on the headband, and then as I said above, I wasn't happy with the little rosette pattern I used on Holly's Christmas 2025 purse. For this project, I hunted for a nice rosette pattern to use instead, eventually selecting the Rose flower design by Sammy Bristow. When I got the rosette made and wasn't satisfied with the way it looked on the headband by itself, I found a leaf pattern (designed by Linda Cyr) so I could put a leaf on each side of the rosette. I was very satisfied with this rosette pattern and will definitely keep it in mind for future projects.  

When I finished these two projects, I had so little of the 68 grams of Bridal Rose yarn left that it didn't register on the scale, and I'd used up 96 grams of the Dark Salmon. As for the newly purchased yarns, I had 51 grams of the Avocado and 115 grams of the White left. This left me with a net stash increase of +2 grams.   

Now that we've had a look at all twelve of my 2025 projects, it's time to do the math and see whether I added to or whittled down my stash this year. Here are the numbers in a convenient list form:

 

Cauliflower's sweater: +14 grams

alpaca sweater: +98 grams 

old rose pullover: -22 grams

Supernatural mittens: -13 grams

Bug's sweater: + 44 grams

Olivia's sweater: -16 grams

Sawyer's sweater: -61 grams

Holly's dress & purse: -10 grams

butterscotch tam: +16 grams 

Rainbow's outfit: +7 grams

Ivy's two outfits: +2 grams

 

And the net result is....  a +59 gram increase. Crap. In the years since I've been keeping track, I have had a net stash decrease most years. In my defense, I will say that the main culprit of 2025 seems to be the alpaca pullover, and the yarn for that was given to me, with my having to buy a second contrast yarn for it. 

I'll just have to hope that the 2026 numbers will shake down a bit better than this. And to bear in mind that while I would like to whittle down my stash somewhat, I do have a relatively modest stash as it is, and the main point of my tracking my yarn stash decreases and increases for each project and annually is to keep myself mindful of how much yarn I buy and whether I use it.  

12 Months; 7 Projects

 

This knitting project, my first of 2024, began when I stumbled across a pattern I thought I really ought to make for my sister. 

One several years ago I got the idea to search the Ravelry database for Celtic-themed or inspired patterns that would be nice to make for my mother or sister, since they both like Irish things. I soon came across the pattern you see above, which is the Portree Poncho, designed by Bridget Pupillo, and surprised myself by taking the time to consider it carefully. I'm generally no fan of the poncho and would probably never have even thought of making my sister one unless I had stumbled across this particular one. Those of you who have read my knitting pattern reviews may remember that I could be quite scathing about poncho designs in my critiques, with my most common criticism probably being that they looked as though they belonged on a couch rather than on a person. But I liked this one. The stitchwork is excellent, and it has such a polished shape and sits so well on the model -- and this isn't a case of it just looking good in one sample shot, due to professional modelling and artful photography. When I clicked through to the Ravelry user project pages for this poncho, I found it looked really good on every single person who had made it. 

Though I'd never seen Alanna wear a poncho or capelet or anything of that kind, the Portree Poncho struck me as a piece that might be perfect for her. She likes Celtic designs and contemporary-style clothing, and if I made this poncho in her favourite colour (black), it would be an item that would tick all those boxes. And it would be very practical, as it is guaranteed to always fit, and she could wear it over almost anything and nearly anywhere: over a dress when on her way to church, over a blouse and trousers to the office, over jeans and a t-shirt when grocery shopping, or over her beloved thrift shop snowman print onesie while sitting on the couch watching TV. I put this pattern on my knitting project list for 2024 with the idea that it would be her Christmas present for that year. 

The completed poncho, made in size Large. For this project I wanted a good quality, hard-wearing, easy care black worsted wool. I purchased nine skeins of black Estelle Yarns Worsted, which is 40% wool, 10% nylon, and 50% acrylic, an ideal blend for my purpose, as wool makes for warmth, feel, and quality, nylon makes for durability, and acrylic makes for ease of care. I used just 751 grams of this newly purchased yarn to make the poncho, and returned the unused skein to Romni Wools for store credit, which left me with a 49 gram stash increase. 

The project itself went pretty smoothly. It was very slow going at first as textured pieces such as this tend to be, but once I had the pattern repeats memorized and didn't have to refer to the charts every three or four stitches, the work moved along much more quickly. The assembly was a snap -- just two straight seams to sew, for which I used a black fingering yarn from my stash, in order to make the seams less bulky. I was pleased with the result, and when Alanna opened her present on Christmas morning, she seemed to be too.

And do I categorically like the poncho better now now that I have actually made one for the first time ever? Maybe a bit. I still dislike most of the poncho patterns I see, but there certainly are those occasional ones that I must admit look quite attractive, and even stylish. I have even found one poncho pattern that I am very tempted to make for myself, though I'm holding off on that for the time being, as I don't think I need it, given that I have plenty of jackets, so many sweaters, and a knitted coat. 

In 2023, I knitted myself a striped cotton dress for summer, an idea of mine that had been in the works for several years. This year I scratched another longish-term knitting goal off my list: knitting myself a dress for winter.

Perhaps five or six years ago, I happened to come across a cute worsted knitted dress pattern and decided I wanted to make it, but somehow I was never able to find the right yarn for it. As several years passed, I began to consider whether I wanted to make that particular dress after all. It was one of those designs that looked very cute in its designer's sample shots, and not so good on the Ravelry members who had made it. And I don't really like wearing worsted weight knits. I found I still wanted a knitted dress for winter, but was that one really my best option? Once I asked myself that question, the obvious next step was to search the Ravelry database for knitted dresses in DK to see what other options I had. It didn't take long before I settled on the one you see above, which is the Little Red Dress, designed by Cathy Carron. It has good texture, a nice body skimming shape, cowl necks really suit me, and it was a design that looked really good on pretty much every Ravelry member who had made it, a sure sign of a winner.   

I still had trouble finding yarn for this project. I thought about how I would wear this dress, and soon concluded it was something I would want to wear with dark brown tights, my dark brown leather riding boots, and probably also a dark brown belt. (Most of the Ravelry members who had made the dress styled theirs with belts, and the dress looked better belted than not.) So I needed a colour that would work with dark brown. The "knitted wool dress" sat on my project list for a few more years while I looked for just the right DK. Plum would have been my first colour choice for this project, but I couldn't find yarn in the shade I wanted. I didn't want a neutral colour as that would have looked too drab, and I wasn't sure I wanted to wear a whole dress in some of the other colours I like, such as turquoise, spring green, or orange. In the end, I bought 1500 grams of red yarn, or more specifically, Sandnes Garn Alpakka in Red. I like red, it suits me, and a classic red is definitely a wearable, practical choice, but I even with the dress a done deal, I can't help wishing I'd been able to get the plum yarn I wanted.    

A not-great photo of the completed dress, made in size 39.25. I don't have anyone to take photos of me and therefore couldn't model it myself, so I had to put it on my dress form, on which the dress looks as though it were designed to fit a Lego person. I assure you it does not look that way on me, as I have legs. (Not to mention arms, and a head, and quite a lot of other things my dress form lacks.)  

I modified the pattern by extending the moss stitch panels. I'm very well-endowed, and while on the model the moss stitch detailing ends below the bustline, on me it would have ended mid-bust or even above that. Lengthening the moss stitch panels enough to fall below my bustline would have meant ending them a few inches above my waistline, which I thought would look awkward, so I just went the distance and had the bodice detailing end at the waist. The dress would also have been too short on me, so I lengthened it to 41" in length, which reaches to just above my knees. My modifications don't seem to have detracted from the overall style, and I was pleased with the results. 

After I'd taken the requisite detail and full-length shots of this dress, I spent some time playing with the various belts from my closet to see how they'd look. I like the medium brown belt the best, as the other two look a little Santa Claus-y, but again, I intend to wear this dress with brown tights and riding boots, or maybe my brown high-heeled lace ups, and the dark brown belt would look best with those. Therefore I'll probably go with one of the dark brown belts, and if anyone yells "HO HO HO" at me when I'm wearing the ensemble, I will... try to bear in mind that there are a few ways in which they might have meant it. 

I had two untouched skeins and a short length of the newly purchased yarn left when I finished this project. As I returned the two skeins for store credit, that means this project neither added to nor detracted from my stash. 

My grandniece Cauliflower turned 15 in August 2024, and as always, her birthday was marked by a sweater made by yours truly.  

Cauliflower is probably physically full-grown now, and wears a women's size small in sweaters and tops. Surreal as I find it to be the great-aunt of a grandniece just three years away from becoming an adult, it does open up the sweater pattern options, there being far more patterns for women than there are for children or tweens. But I didn't spend long browsing. I decided that since her sweater from last year was a solid colour and a worsted, that this sweater would be patterned and either DK or fingering, I looked through the knitting patterns I have saved to my Pinterest board, and I soon came across the one you see above, which is the Gardengate pattern, designed by Jennifer Steingass. 

For yarn, I purchased 450 grams of Sandnes Garn Sisu in Blue for the main colour, and 100 gram skein of Lang Yarns Super Soxx Silk for the contrast colour. These colours look good on Cauliflower, who has light brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. 

The finished sweater, which I knitted up exactly as specified by the pattern in a size 36. The colours and the pattern are pretty, but I'm not too thrilled with the proportions of this sweater. The yoke is very deep and the sleeves look too long. I hoped it wouldn't sit too poorly on Cauliflower. 

I returned two skeins of the blue yarn, and had just 13 grams of the blue and 57 grams of the variegated contrast colour left, for a stash increase of 70 grams. 

 

 

 

My little grandnephew Sawyer is obsessed with vehicles and tools, or, as my family and I say to each other either sagely or resignedly, "He's a Swan man." I met Sawyer for the first time on Christmas Day 2023 when he was 22 months old, and he had very little interest in interacting with all the family around him. He spent the entire time playing with the toy racetrack in the basement rec room, and when upstairs, with the decorative toy train that ran on a track around the Christmas tree. He would not even take time away from his toy trucks to open his Christmas presents. His father opened Sawyer's gifts for him, and if the present was a vehicle of some kind, it would be handed over to Sawyer and he would be delighted and play with it, but otherwise he wouldn't so much as look at it. My gift to him was a dinosaur sweater and a toy stuffed dinosaur, and Sawyer never even glanced at them. My takeaway from that day (besides the one big smile that I got from him when I spoke to him about the train set), was that going forward my gifts to Sawyer needed to be vehicle-themed if I wanted him to give them the time of day.

For his second birthday in February, I sent Sawyer a storybook about trucks and one of those matching card games with pictures of trucks on the back. And though I'd chosen a striped sweater pattern for his Christmas 2024 sweater in the fall of 2023, some months later I decided to have a look through the Ravelry database to see what kind of vehicle-themed patterns it offered.

I very soon zeroed in on the cute little number above, which is the s34-15 Tiny Trucker pattern, by Drops Design. It's a free pattern. 

For the yarn, I purchased 100 grams of Sandnes Garn Double Sunday in 8082 Forest Green, and 100 grams of Sandnes Garn Double Sunday in 1015 Putty. Sawyer has blond hair and hazel eyes, and green and cream are colours that suit him well.

The completed sweater. I knitted the body as far as the armholes, then when making the first sleeve, realized I would not have enough green to do both the sleeves. 

Rather than buy another skein of green and only use a bit of it, I looked through my stash to see what I had that could be used to piece out the other two new yarns. I found a partial skein of olive green DK that seemed to work, so I knitted the two sleeves insofar as I could with the rest of the forest green yarn, using it all up, then knitted in a block of the olive green on each sleeve. I was worried I would run short of the putty too, so I knitted somewhat beyond where the putty colour was supposed to start. (I think I made the right call on that -- I had just 9 grams of the putty left when I finished the sweater.) Then, when the sweater was finished, I used the olive green to embroider on the truck. 

I think my frugal "make do with the yarn I had" version looks just as good as the designer sample, though I do wish I'd ripped out a little of the forest green on the body, knitted in a stripe of olive, and used the dark green to do the truck duplicate stitch. But it looks nice the way it is too, and I saved myself the price of two skeins of new yarn by working in a third colour from my stash.  

I bought a colouring book with lots of cars in it, and a box of crayons to go with the sweater, and it's my hope the truck sweater and the car colouring book will at least warrant a look from Sawyer. 

When I finished this project, I had used all the new forest green yarn, all but 9 grams of the putty, and 18 grams of the stash olive green, so that is a net stash decrease of 9 grams.  

My grandnephew Bug turned 11 in the summer of 2024, and of course a sweater must be knitted for the occasion. 

 

 

 At least fifteen years ago, a woman who worked at the company where I then worked gave me three bags of Bouquet Sock & Sweater fingering yarn in burgundy, blue, and gray, saying she would never use it. In the years since, I had made two boys' sweaters and three pairs of socks from that yarn. When I happened to catch sight of it in my box of fingering yarn late in 2023, I realized the colours of that nice quality yarn were just right for Curtis, and decided to browse Ravelry for a pattern that would use up the last of it. I soon zeroed in on the handsome pattern depicted above, which is 50-06 Fana genser, by Sandnes Design. 

The finished sweater. I didn't have the right quantities of the three colours to make the sweater as it was designed, so I had to tweak the colour scheme a little, but I was quite satisfied with the result. I think I like it even better than the sample photo. But I did not use up all of that sock yarn as I hoped. I used 104 grams of the blue, 61 grams of the burgundy, and 50 grams of the gray yarn, for a net stash decrease of 215 grams. After making three boys' sweaters and three pairs of socks out of that freebie yarn, I still have 180 grams of the blue, 136 grams of the burgundy, and 105 grams of the gray left. Oh well, it will keep.   

 

 

 

When it came time to pick out a pattern for my grandniece Holly's present for Christmas 2024 (that is, in the early fall of 2023), I browsed Ravelry with the words "cute dress for a toddler" on my mind. 

I soon found the pattern you see depicted above, which is no. 33 Robe Jacquard M0717 by Bergère de France, and thought it qualified, with its simple picture knit that a toddler could identify and understand. 

I went through my stash to see what I had that would be suitable for such a project. I found some black and off-white DK very quickly. I had no yellow, and I was also skeptical that penguin feet are actually of a shade remotely resembling the sickly greenish yellow used in the sample. I googled for images of real penguins to see what colour their feet were exactly, and found their feet to be typically more of a yellowish orange, which was fortuitous, as I had a small amount of some nice orange DK on hand. I didn't have enough of the orange to do the ribbed edges in it, or anything that was suitable for the ribbing in my DK box, so I looked through my fingering box, and found the leftover variegated I'd previously used for my grandniece Cauliflower's sweater earlier this year and that I could use double strand to make it the right weight. I had nothing for the main colour, so I made a sampler by knotting together some short strands of the other colours, and took it to Romni Wools, where I chose some Drops Karisma in pale blue that went well with my contrast colours. I also thought the dress looked too short, and decided to lengthen it by two inches, and I bought an extra skein of Drops Karisma for the purpose.

The completed dress in a size 18 months. Holly turns two in May, so she was able to go right into it at Christmas and it should continue to fit until spring. I think it would look sharper and more pulled-together if I had been able to knit the ribbed edges in orange, but it's not bad as is. The variegated has a little rust-like orange in it and goes well enough with the other colours. 

I used 1 gram of the orange, 6 grams of the off-white, 44 grams of the variegated, and 10 grams of the black to make this dress, or -61 grams of stash yarn total, and I had 35 grams of the pale blue left, which works out to a net stash decrease of -26 grams for this project. 

In my experience, toddlers don't tend to care very much about their clothes, or for that matter even to want to wear clothes at all, so I bought something to go with the dress to make the gift more fun. This plush penguin toy came from Dollarama, and it amuses me that it's leaning into the dress like it's photobombing it. 

I think Holly will like playing with a penguin toy that matches her dress, and she may even learn to say the word "penguin" for the first time because of this present. 

 

My honorary niece Olivia loves animals and wants to be a vet when she grows up. When I was looking for a pattern for her 2024 Christmas present sweater, I looked for one with an animal theme.

I soon found the one you see depicted above, which is 59 Sweater with Cat's Head, by Bergère de France. I liked the idea of making Olivia a hat in the same colour yarn as the cat's muffler, but not the hat shown here, which makes the child model look like one of the Snorks. I searched for a suitable basic child-sized tam pattern in a DK weight, and soon found this one.

As for the yarn, I was able to pull some pink and dark brown DK yarn from my stash, and I bought some oatmeal-coloured Drops Karisma from Romni Wools for the main colour. I looked in Fabricland for heart-shaped buttons for this project, and found some in a dark pink instead of a red as in the sample sweater, but the pink yarn and the pink buttons worked together shade-wise and that was good enough for me. 

The completed sweater in a size 10. It turned out to be quite cute. I'm actually not a fan of making picture knits (so slow and fiddly!), and this was my third one this year, but it was worth it for the pleasure it will give the three children they went to. I did hit a snag when I ran short of the oatmeal yarn by *two* skeins. I had to order more, and it took months for the order to come in, and then the dye lots weren't the same. The new dye lot proved to be not an exact match but fairly close, and I was able to work the two extra skeins in without the difference showing.

Making the tam was quite straightforward. It should work well with this sweater. 

When making this sweater and tam, I used 47 grams of the pink and 3 grams of the brown from my stash, and had 21 grams of the newly purchased oatmeal left over, so that's a net stash decrease of -29 grams for this project.

I had finished all these seven projects by early September 2024, and at that point, I hoped to complete three or four more projects by the end of the year. But luck was not with me. I spent the remainder of the year switching back and forth between two projects and finished neither. One was a sweater that I was making for myself out of some alpaca yarn my father gave me for my birthday. I knitted most of a lovely solid cover pullover with it, only to discover when I was just part of one sleeve away from finishing it, that I was 20 grams short of yarn. I ravelled it out and began again, this time with a contrast colour yarn... and again I ran short of yarn. With the other project, a pair of mittens, I had gauge problems to an extent I had never before experienced, and had to keep restarting the project. If I sound sanguine about this... WELL I'M NOT. Spending nearly four months accomplishing jack squat in terms of my knitting project was a Sisyphean exercise that exhausted not only my never plentiful supply of patience by also my far more extensive repertoire of foul language, but there I was at the end of the year, with one project I needed to restart for the third time and another small project only three-quarters finished. 

But such things happen, and as with non-knitting matters that spiral out beyond our control, we can only carry on and hope to do better in future. So I added those two unfinished projects to my list of projects for 2025, which I am doing my best to get through. And when I look at the seven satisfactory projects I did complete in 2024, and calculate that I reduced my yarn stash by a net total of 163 grams in 2024, I don't feel too bad.