I hope you all had a lovely Christmas time, however you spend it. Mine was pretty good, we actually had some snow at the end of the week making it all the more magical. Now it’s time for something different thought. There are only a couple of days left in 2014, so it is time to wrap up the year here on the blog. the next couple of days I’ll go through some different aspects of my year. Initially I wanted to make it one post, but it was getting slightly out of hand length-wise and I wanted to spare you such a long sit. Let’s go through some high, lows, new things, traditions and ambitions for the new year shall we?
★☆ Knitting ☆★
2014 was a good year for knitting. I’m very happy with the amount of knitting and the things I’ve knitted this year. I tried out some new yarns and designers/pattern companies. Last year I was in a bit of a knitting funk and not exceptionally happy with what I had made that year. This year is a very different story. I made several sweaters and hats that now rank firmly among my favourites.
It was actually really hard to pick a favourite make this year, which is the best problem to have.
Favourite make of this year:
Garments:
1. Hairst Cardigan
2. Puffin Sweater
3. Porridge and Honey
Accessories:
1. Tantallon
2. Yggdrassil
3.Tea Jenny
Favourite knitting books this year:
1. Yokes – Kate Davies
2. KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook – Felicity Ford
3. The Shetland Trader book II – Gudrun Johnston
Bonus: Poems of Color (bonus because while I read it this year, it was definitely not published this year).
Knitting Ebooks of this year:
1. Celtic Cable Shawls – Lucy Hague
2. Knitbot Yoked – Hannah Fettig
3. Knitworthy – Ysolda Teague ( I especially like the idea behind this collection. A subscription based collection, with small projects designed by Ysolda, perfect to knit as gifts for those you deem knitworthy.)
Most popular designer/design company:
End of the year is always the time to make lists and count. I counted how many projects I made per designer. Thought it be fun to look whether what I’ve made this year actually matched my internal list of favourite designers. I expected Kate Davies to rank high upon that list, so that was no surprise. However, I never expected Brooklyn Tweed to stand out. Don’t get me wrong I like most of their designs, but they do a lot of cable work which I do less of.
1. Kate Davies – knitted five projects
2. Brooklyn Tweed – Knitted three projects
3. Undecided, as I only knitted one design per designer, thus making it a tie between everything else I knitted this year.
End of the year is always the time to make lists and count. I counted how many projects I made per designer. Thought it be fun to look whether what I’ve made this year actually matched my internal list of favourite designers. I expected Kate Davies to rank high upon that list, so that was no surprise. However, I never expected Brooklyn Tweed to stand out. Don’t get me wrong I like most of their designs, but they do a lot of cable work which I do less of.
1. Kate Davies – knitted five projects
2. Brooklyn Tweed – Knitted three projects
3. Undecided, as I only knitted one design per designer, thus making it a tie between everything else I knitted this year.
★☆ Sewing ☆★
For sewing, it wasn’t as good a year as last year. I believe this was for a couple of reasons. First and foremost while I’m a patient knitter, I’m not a patient seamstress. When I start a sewing project I want to have it done after a few days: a few frantic days in which I do nothing but sew until the project is done. 2014, unfortunately hasn’t granted me a weekend free enough for that. In that regard 2015 is not looking much better for sewing, but I’ll try to pace my sewing time a bit more.
Another reason why sewing has been on the low side this year, is because I tried my hand at some tricky fabrics and new techniques this year. Rushing is no good at all, and I learned this the hard way, ruining some pretty fabrics in the process.
One of my goals for 2014 was sewing tricot. I ordered some tricot at the end of spring, but thanks to mysterious mishaps at border control, it didn’t arrive until after summer, in literally my first week back at university. Still, sewing tricot is something I really want to do and learn, so I’m determined to make it happen next year.
Another reason why sewing has been on the low side this year, is because I tried my hand at some tricky fabrics and new techniques this year. Rushing is no good at all, and I learned this the hard way, ruining some pretty fabrics in the process.
One of my goals for 2014 was sewing tricot. I ordered some tricot at the end of spring, but thanks to mysterious mishaps at border control, it didn’t arrive until after summer, in literally my first week back at university. Still, sewing tricot is something I really want to do and learn, so I’m determined to make it happen next year.
Sewing is still something I’m very fond of and enjoy doing, so I want to make it a 2015 goal to sew more.
★☆ Ambitions for 2014 ☆★
Even though I did not fulfil all my craft goals, I’m still very happy with what I did craft wise in 2014. Most importantly, I got out of my knit funk. While the passion never went away, I didn’t enjoy it in 2013 like I used to. In 2014 that joy came back, perhaps even more than it used to be. I had a couple of projects in 2013 that I was disappointed with, which didn’t help to drive my funk away.
I’m bad with sticking to goals precisely, I mostly make them to draw out a plan of what I want to do roughly. I think it worked for this year.
Knitting:
♥ Shetland cardigan/jumper – Success!
♥ Icelandic Cardigan/jumper – Success! I made two Icelandic jumpers!
♥ Fishermen Sweater – Failed, but by choice. I wanted to make one for my boyfriend, but then he lost something I knitted for him earlier, which made me loose all motivation and interest. He’ll be in the ‘no-knits-for-you-zone’ for a while longer.
♥ Vintage Cardigan/jumper – Does Hairst count? Otherwise, I failed. I did do sweater surgery on my Christmas cardigan, making it al lot more wearable.
♥ A colourwork cardigan – Success! Moreover, I just realised I’ve only made colourwork sweaters this year! I made several yoke sweaters and I made Porridge and Honey, which was the cardigan I had in mind when I set this goal for myself.
♥ Make a shawl by Lucy Hague – Strictly I failed this, however I’m working on one and it is almost done…which makes this half a fail?
Other craft ambitions for 2014:
Learn to embroider – Success!
I would like to knit and sew more projects next year than I did this year – Success!
xxx
Let me know how your creative year was, and if you blogged about it feel free to let me know.
I always like reading these year review posts.
Tomorrow I’ll be back with the second instalment of the Treehouse year wrap up.
Until then!
xxx
Hey,
Weer een mooi jaaroverzicht, je hebt weer veel mooie truien, vesten, mutsen en projecten gemaakt! 2014 is/ was een inspirerend jaar! Leuk stuk! Groeten Margot
Bedankt! Hopelijk wordt 2015 minstens net zo goed! 😉