2021 mid-year update

      4 Comments on 2021 mid-year update

Honestly, I don’t know where this year has gone to… One minute it is Christmas and then the next it is the summer solstice. The year has both dragged and flown by, due in a large part to not actually doing anything much to differentiate the days from one another, and falling into a bit of a slump in spring. After the rush of trying to get things sorted for Christmas, I haven’t actually touched my sewing machine for at least 6 months, and the only thing I have knitted has been a few pairs of socks, but I have been continuing doing a fair amount of mending.

Here are three of the pairs of socks that I have knit for myself this year, a) Regia Pairfect 4-ply Denim colourway. b) Drops Fabel Silver Fox long print – these were originally destined for my mother but ended up being too small for her so I knit the second one for me instead. c) Rico Superba Vintage 4-ply Turquoise Mix – these are the replacements for my summer traveling socks that I needed to rip back and re-knit at a tighter gauge.

These two pairs were gifted, the grey pair are also Drops Fabel Silver fox and have a much more rounded toe, to fit my mother’s feet better. The second pair is a combination of the scraps of the Silver Fox combined with West Yorkshire Spinners 4-ply, Phesant colourway that I found a part ball off in the local BHF charity shop for £1. I hadn’t realised that I had gone down a needle size from the “pattern” I was following so they turned out just a little bit small, so now Nikki owns these.

A lot of my crafting time in the early part of the year was spent mending jumpers, both for my grandmother and for me. This grey-blue cardigan needed a fair amount of duplicate stitches to reinforce worn patches and another blue cardigan needed a few small holes mending and the cuffs reinforcing. My lovely (inherited) green lambswool jumper needed repairing again! and these lovely over the knee wool socks that I also inherited from my grandmother needed a bit of love, here I decided to try visible mending since they are mostly going to be hidden under trousers, to see if I liked it.

I have been doing some sewing, honestly, just most of it has been hand sewing. I finally finished the last section of the first stripe on my Hexie quilt and have started on the second stripe. I have cut out all the hexies for the second stripe but only started folding them around the templates a quarter of a strip at a time and I have finished sewing the first lot together and am in the process of folding the hexies for the second section. Lo and behold a finished garment! The other day I finally got round to sewing up the Amari Pullover from Seamwork in a lovely royal blue boiled wool that I bought so long as I have forgotten where it was from!

It has been quite nice to go through my photos from the year so far and to see what it is that I have actually achieved, because before this if you asked me what I had made this year the answer would have been not much, but actually there have been a lot of hours of making and mending that have occurred. I have also cast on another pair of socks in West Yorkshire spinners 4-ply kingfisher colourway to knit whilst I got my first vaccine, but it was so efficient I only got about 5 rows in whilst waiting to ensure I didn’t react to the vaccine. I am also mending a sheet that I inherited (from the other grandmother) that was used a lot last year to keep the sun off, but had a few wear holes in it, this will be mended with visible patches and possibly sashiko style stitching to hold the patches in place.

I have also had a burst of knitting inspiration after getting rid of some of my clothing that I don’t wear anymore (to Nikki and my Mum) and being slightly jealous that Nikki now has my old lace knitted jumper as a lightweight summer jumper, so I am setting out to knit myself a replacement in cotton yarn. And I am also planning on casting on a Riddari in Icelandic wool for me (after giving two away), which sounds highly seasonally inapropriate but I have worn both of my other Lopi jumpers in the last few days so with British weather as it is I am sure it will get a load of use before winter proper.

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4 thoughts on “2021 mid-year update

  1. KIm

    After starting to suggest that you hadn’t done a great deal this past six months you’ve actually been quite productive! Hopefully we will all be set free soon and life will feel back to (a new?) normal

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  2. tialys

    It’s been such a weird time hasn’t it. If we hadn’t moved house (and country) I would feel as if there had been nothing at all going on. I admire your mending skills – and your seemingly endless supply of hand knitted socks,

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