I wanted to showcase a few of the things that I knitted by giving you a 2022 knitting update. I haven’t been knitting as much lately because I spend most of my free time writing or weaving. But knitting is the perfect accessory for football season and so I managed to get some projects done.
I started off the year by knitting some socks for John. Although I have made several pairs of socks for Jackie, I had never made any for John, so I decided to finish them for his birthday. He sent me this picture of the socks. They are my basic sock pattern with Berroco Comfort Sock yarn in the Dunedin colorway. I like the Berroco sock yarns because they are washable, make interesting patterns, and hold up well.
When Steve and Amy Winstead told me they were expecting, I immediately bought yarn to make them a baby blanket. I made it extra large and extra soft and squishy. The pattern is the Plymouth Encore 8-Hour Baby Afghan E8809. I used six balls of Plymouth Encore Worsted instead of the four balls called for in the pattern. Like I said, I wanted it to be extra large and squishy. I gave them the blanket for a shower present.
Of course, I couldn’t stop there with knitting things for baby Emma. I discovered Hayfield Baby Blossom yarn and absolutely fell in love with it. It comes in chunky or dk weights and is washable. There is a base color that fades into a “blossom” pattern as you knit. I made a poncho with a lavender chunky yarn and a dress with a yellow dk yarn. I love how the flowers pop up as I knit along.
I made a bunch of hats in 2022. I had intended to make enough to give to my family for Christmas, but 20 hats turned out to be more than I could produce. Instead, I gave them to friends and then had some left over for the People In Need ministry that the Lewis Center United Methodist Church supports. I gave a Breast Cancer hat to my friend Deborah who is battling breast cancer right now. I gave an ombre hat to my friend Chris who says she can never get a hat to fit right. I knitted a hat for Tom to wear in the winter under his bicycle helmet. I even kept one of my knitted hats because my old one was too big.
My friend Chris gave me the book “Knitting the National Parks” by Nancy Bates for my 2022 birthday. I had to start one of the beautiful hats as soon as I saw the book. I knit the Congaree Hat. I don’t know why I started with that one but it was fun to knit. Hats are great to knit because they don’t take a lot of time or a lot of yarn. I knitted the hat and then discovered that I had not switched to larger needles when I was supposed to. The hat ended up child-sized. So I immediately started another identical, but right-sized, hat. I will be working my way through the book and trying other hats.
My sister’s dog, Milo, ended up eating one of the fingerless mitts I made for my mom years ago. Mom needed a new mitt so I knitted one from the same pattern using some of the leftover National Park hat yarn. Mom said it was perfect, although I forgot to get a picture of it.
I finished off the year by finishing a prayer shawl. It was the only prayer shawl I knitted this year and it turned out – well – long. The pattern is designed to use up leftover yarn and I knit one whenever I have a couple of bags of leftovers. I usually cast on 250 stitches on size 11 needles and then knit each row in a different worsted weight yarn until I have a shawl that is 24 inches.
For some reason, I decided to cast on 300 stitches with this shawl. Then I knit until I had the 24 inches. When I took it off the needles, it was enormous. It is longer than our couch. If I had kept knitting, I would have a king-sized blanket. I sent it on to Wedgewood UMC’s prayer shawl ministry anyway. Maybe a family needs a prayer shawl where they can all snuggle together.
That is my 2022 knitting update. Right now I have yarn in the queue for another National Park hat, a sweater, and a prayer shawl. Next year we will see how many of those projects I completed.