year in knitting 2023 | Knitigating Circumstances

The end of the year approaches, which means it’s that time when I usually show you the projects which were completed during the year. I finished eight knitting projects this year – two cardigans, two tees, two hats, a shawl and a pair of mittens. (I will link to the relevant posts about each project at the bottom of the page, which contain information on the pattern and yarn.)

The cardigans were both knitted from the same pattern – Hirne by Kate Davies. I really enjoyed knitting this, as evidenced by the fact that I knitted it twice; I rarely knit a pattern more than once. I think I’ve worn one or the other of these for half the days of the year.

I also knitted two hats: one for Doug and one for Leah. I have been very remiss in my blogging this year, and did not get a modelled photo of Leah’s hat. I include a photo of it as a project-in-progress. Hopefully, we will get a sunny day soon, so I can snap a shot of her wearing it.

I knitted myself two tees using yarns with interesting blends. The white tee is made with a blend of linen and wool, and the red one with a yarn blended from lyocell (from wood), silk, and linen. They haven’t gotten much wear since I finished them both well into the fall, but I think they will be wardrobe staples in the summer.

And last but not least, a pair of mittens for Emma, and a striped woolen shawl for myself.

This was not a year in which knitting took a front row seat. I have spent the year dealing with the symptoms of Long Covid that resulted from my June 2022 bout of covid. These included fatigue, but also a curious lack of brain power for knitting; I found it very difficult to focus on pattern instructions and to execute complicated techniques. Blogging also takes effort and this year it has been hard to invest the time and focus into posting regularly. This is my 27th post of the year – half as many as I would normally write per year.

I would like to say that I am now back to normal and will be knitting and blogging up a storm in 2024, but I have managed to end the year by getting covid again! Doug and I flew out to Vancouver just over two weeks ago to spend the holidays with the girls. I got covid nearly as soon as I got here, and have been sick the whole time. We have been practicing an elaborate ballet of attempting to keep everyone else from catching it while all staying in a small apartment in Vancouver; isolating isn’t possible in this space so we’ve been relying on open windows, heavy duty masking, meticulous hand washing, and me sitting as far into the corners as possible. It seems to have worked, since I’m the only one to test positive, but this is not the holiday we were anticipating.

Please don’t think that the year has been a sad, long slog; lots of great things have happened, too. After a few years with very little travelling, Doug and I have had four holidays this year: we went to Sicily in May, Freiburg and Konstanz in July, Geneva in August, and Vancouver in December. We met up with many old friends, ate beautiful food, re-discovered favorite places, and explored some new ones. I have taken on a challenging project at work, which is exciting and engaging. We feel enormously lucky to have each other, and the girls, and good friends.