The Month in Knitting (January 2025)
Oh hello.
How does one restart a Substack after taking…checks watch…6+ months off?
The long gap between when I last posted and now can be explained in this way: life happened. I’m a fairly private person for someone with a very modest public profile thanks to my novels, so all I will say is that my husband and I moved at the end of May and that kicked off a string of Very Important Admin events that has not stopped since then, although things are perhaps easing up a bit.
Surprisingly, that has not disrupted my knitting. If anything, it has exacerbated my desire to pick up the needles and knit even through the warmer summer months.1 In the time since I have been regularly posting, I have managed to finish:
a lace summer-weight top
two cardigans (one cabeled for me, one for lace Mum)
a replacement for a chunky jumper I felted
a colorwork Christmas jumper
a hat
two tea cozies
a fingering-weight scrappy shawl
four pairs of socks including a Christmas gift for my lovely mother-in-law
At the moment I have two jumpers of the needles, as well as a shawl made using the yarn from an advent calendar. More on those in the minute, but first…
2025’s yarn ban, explained
My sister and I are both knitters, and over Christmas we turned to one another and admitted that it was time to get serious about knitting down stash. I arrived at my home away from home with a relatively modest stash (with more in storage) that has since exploded, although see above about knitting up a storm. The yarn is currently contained and neat, but I am beginning to feel the weight of having all of this beautiful yarn that was being neglected. My sister is similarly at the beginning stages of a move, so she is facing some of the same dilemmas about stash and storage.
Enter the 2025 yarn ban. Here are the rules:
I am not buying new yarn until a) I move into a new house or b) Black Friday 2025, whichever comes first
I have assigned projects to yarn I currently own and am making an effort to knit from my Ravelry queue to keep myself on track
I am allowed to preorder one advent calendar in April
If I go on a trip, I am allowed to participate in yarn tourism to a modest degree. (i.e. a souvenir skein here or there but no sweater’s quantities of things)
I am allowed to receive gifts of yarn, but there is no instructing my sister on the sly to buy me yarn and then “gift” it to me and vice versa2
I am allowed, on rare occasions, to purchase yarn where it is necessary to complete a current WIP
Special exceptions may be considered by the Yarn Council (i.e. my family) who get a vote on what is allowable and what is not when it comes to breaking the rules
As an additional note, I am also making an effort to knit down post-project scraps and make them into Christmas presents well before the Christmas gifting season sneaks up on me and takes me by surprise as it always does.
My family will laugh when they read this, but I am actually enjoying the challenge of knitting down my stash. I’m usually a project buyer so I wouldn’t have bought the yarn if I didn’t have plans for it. I’m excited to actually produce some of those garments and get to wear them.
Finished Objects
None. It’s been all WIP all the time around here in January.
Current WIPS
Moby Sweater Men
Pattern Designer: PetiteKnit
Yarn: Knitting of Olive Heavy Merino in Brown Bear
Intended for: The Gentleman (my husband)
I began this jumper on December 30th, and I’m happy to say that I’m making serious headway on it. I have finished the cabled and textured body of the jumper as well as the collar, and now I am about halfway through the first sleeve. My goal is to have this done by mid-February (Valentine’s present, perhaps?), but I’m more interested in getting the project right than finishing it quickly.
Half Fisherman’s Rib Jumper
Pattern Designer: Adapted from a vintage Patons pattern that is simply listed as “Man’s Jumper” with no designer attribution
Yarn: Knitting for Olive Heavy Merino in Bourdeaux
Intended for: Dad
This is my first foray into converting a seamed pattern knitted flat into a pattern knitted in the round. I sat down with my sister to work out the basics of what I thought I had to do, and I decided on a bottom-up construction, splitting for sleeves when I reached the armholes and knitting the front and back flat. I have eliminated what would have been the selvedge stitches and I anticipate there will be more modifications to come. For now, however, I’m simply knitting away acres of bottom-up half fishermen’s rib, which I find a nice, soothing change from the Moby.
Vignette
Pattern Designer: Helen Stewart
Yarn: The Camel’s Yarn Standard Sock 2024 Beachcoming Advent Calendar
Intended for: Me
I was determined when I purchased a yarn advent calendar from The Camel’s Yarn, one of my favorite UK-based indie dyers, that I was not going to let it languish for years unmade. I turned to Helen Stewart’s brilliant annual pattern advent and picked out this large throw that alternates between garter stitch and simple lace waves. So far, it’s been the perfect traveling project, although I expect that to become more challenging as it grows. Either way, it’s a pick-up, put-down project that I will work on throughout the next few months.
Acquisitions
Despite the ban, I actually did acquire yarn this month because my sister went on a trip and exercised the yarn tourism clause to kindly gift me three skeins of sock yarn. They are:
1 skein of Zakami bamboo fingering in Galileo Galilei
1 skein of Garthenor Organic Snowdonia in Glaslyn
1 skein of Garthenor Organic Snowdonia sock in Derwen
Additionally it was my birthday in January. I received a DPN case and assorted Chiagoo DPNs to fill out my collection and Patti Lyon’s Knitting Bag of Tricks as presents.
Plans for next month
My main plan for February is to finish at least one of these WIP’ jumpers because I suspect I won’t feel right moving on until I’ve got them off my needles as they are gift knits. However, I don’t currently have a sock project on the go, so I am turning my mind to what this year’s edition of my anniversary socks for The Gentlemen will be. (Armais by Caoua Coffee is a strong contender…)
What are you working on for the month ahead?
In fairness, it was a rather cool, wet summer so perhaps that also contributed to the bumper crop of knitting last year.
I suspect my sister is the only one who would gift me yarn because everyone wants this stash to go down in volume, skeptics though they may be that it actually will…