2014: A Year in Review

It's 2015! (Or #20swifteen as my cheer-leading future doctor daughter has taken to calling it). New Years Day is about taking stock of the old year and making resolutions for the new year. (Let's leave the resolutions for later, shall we? If you don't make them, you can't break them, right?...)

So here is my stock take of the 2014 knitting. My needles were exceptionally productive this year with 27 separate finished projects in 2014.The year started with cowls and scarves. In the heat of an Australian summer I turned to crochet and made Tweed ruffles. In February, I KALed along with some lovely ladies and I can Cowl if I want to! fairly flew off the needles.

I knitted my life into a cowl - Knitographical. I wrote it's story and exhibited it and the Flat Fox picture in a art exhibition. (And people actually treated it as real art!)

In February in solidarity with knitters all over the world, I plied my needles for the Ravellenics as I watched the Winter Olympics from Sochi in Russia.  Two pairs of mittens had their birth as competitors in both Mitten Moguls and Lace Luge. (That's Steampunk on Toast on the left and Oyster Shell on the right)

I made toys... Lots of toys. I spent my lazy January holiday assembling long neglected toys. (See The Great Sew-up-a-thon). I KALed along throughout the year and bent the rules of COM (Cast On Month) to cast on a new toy piece a day. (Clockwise from top left, Nativity camel, Intrepid Fox, A headless bear - clearly he's not headless anymore, Fit to scare children, Christmas sheep, Jean Greenhowe Teddy, Mike the Monkey, Tropical bird and Rabbitty in the middle).

Unlike 2013, I made only two hats. These were little whimseys diverting me from the main game for a weekend here and there.(Divergent and Mum, I need this!).

I discovered shawls. I planned to make my first lace shawl but along the way made two more. I think this is the start of a new addiction. The last new project on the needles for 2014 was a shawl too.

(From left to right: Curly wurly, Lacewing and Brown as).

And there was freeform. I got enticed to play along with the lovely ladies in the International Free Form Forum on Ravelry. With their enthusiastic encouragement I made my first freeform shawl and then went  on to design my first patterns and have people successfully make mould from them (Mould is Fun). In honour of the future mycologist daughter, I made little knitted mushrooms too (Fungus among us).

2014 was the year of the jumper; One for Mel (Funky Chunky), one for the boy (Not so little boy blue) and one for me (Recycled Rhodium in just 27 days in November).

The long term project of the year was a scarf- afghan (Anyone got cable!). This is a construction idea I'll be exploring further in future.Everyone in the family wants one.

And then there was the inevitable Christmas knitting. (Clockwise from top left: Angel in a box, Sunburnt reindeer and Pallina di Natale).

What will 2015 bring? The needles are primed for anything again.

(Note: All the links in this post go to the blogpost about that project. All photo-collages made using picmonkey).