This was a slow year in knitting for me.  I only completed 7 projects in 2017: 2 sweaters, a shawl, two cowls, a pair of mitts, and a baby cardigan:

Clockwise from the top: my Acer cardigan, the Madita cowl, a wee baby cardigan, a SnowFlower for Leah’s birthday, a chunky cowl, my Cool Boots shawl, and a pair of rainbow mitts.

While I enjoyed knitting each of these, the absolute standout for me this year was my Cool Boots shawl.  I have worn it nearly every day for months.  I made it to match a favorite pair of funky boots in red and pink, and later bought a fabulous handbag to match.  All I need to do to brighten my mood this winter is to throw on this shawl.  It is lots of mindless knitting – garter stitch with light fingering weight yarn on tiny needles – but well worth it.

Despite having only seven finished projects, I spent a lot of time knitting on two items that didn’t make it on this list.  The first was a linen T-shirt which I half-finished before deciding that the fit was all wrong; I have since thought about ripping and re-doing it, but for the moment it sits in the bottom of a bag.  Despite it being resigned to the frog pile, it led to one of my favorite photographs of the year, which is me knitting it while sailing a schooner off the coat of British Columbia:

The other project is one which is just not finished yet, and which will end up being on next year’s round-up.  This is Sofi, a cute mosaic stitch jacket designed by Hanne Falkenberg.  It is a lot of work, but will be fantastic when finished.  Here is the latest progress shot:

This is my 48th post of the year and finished up my sixth full year of blogging (I started in October 2011).  According to the stats provided to me by WordPress, these are my top posts this year:

1. A pattern to celebrate my 300th post
2. Business Class Cowl  (written in 2016)
3. To gusset or not to gusset (written in 2016)
4. How to make your knitting habit appear cost-effective
5. Pretty much perfect in every way
6. Vintage knitting patterns: the men’s edition
7. I am the Switzerland of sweater construction

I have listed the seven most-viewed posts, in order to give you the top five of 2017, as two of the seven were written last year.  It is gratifying that the top two posts are for my designs, the Cool Boots Shawl and the Business Class Cowl.

Which were my favorite posts?  When I drew up a list, they included the five listed above (with Pretty much perfect in every way topping the list).  But here are five of my other favorites this year:

1. The opposite of startitis
2. Failure, resilience, and knitting
3. Kathy Bear says: “Knit another one for the baby!”
4. The power of quiet
5. I KNIT TWELVE SWEATERS IN TWO WEEKS!!  (This one can only be fully appreciated in the light of its context: written shortly after Trump’s inauguration in response to his comments regarding the size of the crowd – note the use of all-caps and exclamation points.)

This year saw a marked decline in my knitting productivity.  Why?  First, a demanding new role at work means less time to knit.  Second, the unrelentingly depressing political news this year seriously interfered with my knitting mojo.

I’ll end with my favorite photo of the year, one which hasn’t made an appearance on the blog before now.  I was sitting and knitting and enjoying the view, on the roots of a giant toppled tree, on the beach of a small island off the coast of Vancouver Island.  Emma decided to sneak up on me:

I remain optimistic for the next year, at least with respect to knitting. What’s up next chez Knitigating Circumstances?  Stay tuned for a look-ahead to the next year.  I thank everyone who reads and enjoys these posts.  It makes me happy to jot down my thoughts and it’s nice that people like to read them.  Best wishes to all for a healthy and happy New Year!