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.
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.
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