Well, it has been an amount of time (is this what I write every time I get around to writing a new blog post? Probably). I was thinking this morning about how, once I’ve missed a month of blogging, it’s so much easier to miss the next month, and then the next, and so on. In my defense, we had an election, some extra weird holidays, an insurrection, and a new president between now and the last time I posted. Also, I don’t write blog posts for you! (no offense. I write them for me.) I do enjoy a vaguely time-bound summary of activities that’s worded in ways other people might understand, though, and this helps me do that, so I’m going to catch up — probably in stages.

October

I enjoyed knitting the Sharon Show so much that I went straight into knitting the Secret Handshake. Have I blocked it since finishing it, now four months later? No. Did I still enjoy knitting this one? Absolutely.

A close up image of a pair of purple hand-knit socks with a waffled texture on the instep.

October’s socks were the Asali Socks, by Dawn Landix, a pattern I knew I would love. I missed up one (1) row, but no one will notice but me so it doesn’t matter, and they’re so waffly and comfortable.

A small cross-stitch of a red cabin with a circular walnut frame around it.

I also cross-stitched a mini Vintage Cabin by Junebug and Darlin. Did it take me another 4-6 weeks to do the backstitching? You bet it did. Did I put it in a frame and hang it on my wall immediately after finishing the backstitching? Yes I did.

November

I knit a Bandit sweater by Jacqueline Cieslak! I blocked it pretty much immediately, and then it waited for buttons for three months. Of course I still wore it — no one on Zoom knows that I didn’t trim my ends and that those things that might have been buttons were actually stitch markers — but I haven’t officially taken official photos for the official Instagram yet. I used some stash Madelinetosh that I already had but I also still preordered some of that Sugar Maple colorway from Little Skein in the Big Wool, because I have capital-P Plans to make a Plover Cardigan, so it’ll still be a Little Skein / Jacqueline Cieslak collab, just a little different.

A pair of red and tan fair isle knitted slippers with snowflake-like patterns on the top.

My November socks were these excellent slippers, which I have probably worn the most out of all the socks I made this year — mostly because it’s still winter and my toes get cold.

I also spun yarn! I couldn’t resist getting this Extremely Fall Braid from Knitcraft & Knittery, and I spun it up pretty immediately. I also (spoiler alert) knit my very first project from my handspun out of this, and I love it.

December

A pair of dark blue tweed hand-knit socks with gold accents on the cuff and toes.

I finished my twelfth pair of socks, one per month, for the entire year. This month I made up my own pattern again, and I’m pretty happy with the result. I am not holding myself to one-pair-of-socks-a-month in 2021 because I don’t feel like it, but I’ll probably knit a few pairs here and there.

A brioche knit beanie in dark blue and light blue. The brim of the hat is folded up to show the light blue contrast on the other side.

I knit my brother a hat, once I remembered to ask him if he wanted one! I used a pattern I’ve knit before — Andrea Mowry’s Harlow Hat — and also managed to use leftover yarn, which means I can reward myself with buying more yarn, right? …right?

And I picked back up where I left on my Seven Wonders pullover, which I finished in January. I stopped knitting it near the end of 2019 because my wrist started bothering me (seed stitch is not my friend), and I very carefully decided it was time to keep going on this one. Sleeve Island with seed stitch and wonky wrists is rough, y’all.

The other thing I did in December was beat my all-time-high books-read-in-a-year-since-I-started-keeping-track record, which had been set at 104 in the year 2010. 2020’s count came in just over the top at 105, and I focused a little more on reading once I figured out I could actually beat that record. Do I remember everything I read? Absolutely not, my brain is too busy just trying to survive a global pandemic. But did I enjoy reading that many books, most of them lighthearted and relatively conflict-free, usually in bed? Yes I absolutely did. I haven’t set a specific goal for 2021 yet, but I’m not planning on beating that record anytime soon. 2021 is (maybe) for digging in to much meatier books, that take me weeks instead of days to finish.

I have more updates, especially spinning updates, but I’ll write about those later. Thanks for sticking around, friends.