Oh, yes, I have been knitting. I’m not sure what happened through the final third of 2021, but things are on the mend and I’ve experienced a resurgence of enjoyment in the craft.

I finished the sparkly socks before New Year’s Eve, though I didn’t get around to wearing them at New Year. I’m very pleased with them. I did a knit one, purl one rib for the cuff and that’s probably all I’d change as knit two, purl two makes a better cuff in my opinion.

I worked a twisted rib for the heel flap which makes for a nice, neat look. I chose to do a barn toe over the straighter, flatter standard toe with Kitchener stitch to close it. I can’t honestly say either is my favourite to wear and I do them turn and turn about. I felt like doing a barn toe this time, next time I might not. I have rather a lot of this sparkly wool left and I shall keep this to hand until I can think of some other little project it might suit. A bit like the small ball of DK-weight hand-dyed wool that was left over after I knitted my beanie hat two years ago. The ball that sat in my notions bag until I got to the short colourwork area on the gift knit I’ve just started. It’s not that I was too lazy to get off the settee and grab the ball of yarn I’d intended to use, but it suddenly hit me that the ball beside my hand would work equally well.

This gift knit is easier than the one I made for Christmas and I feel more confident about it, but it does have one massive downside – it’s knit on a circular needle. It took precisely two rows for me to remember why I hate working on circulars so much. That being said, I’ve already gone off-piste with the pattern so I thought I’d better behave myself and knit it in the round like it’s been designed. You’re supposed to start by knitting a lace panel which makes the bottom band and then pick up stitches all the way along it and start knitting the main body, but I didn’t like how the lace panel was working up. It felt more natural to me to knit the body and then return and knit the lace panel at the end so that is what I’m doing.

One of the reasons I’m keen to work on this gift knit is that I have an idea of the first project I want to knit for myself this year, and I have the yarn set aside to make it. There’s nothing like knowing what I want the following project to be to get me moving on an existing one. My first “me” project for 2022 will be a sleevess waistcoat/vest/gilet in a gorgeous semi-solid pink yarn I ordered from Riverknits. I’m going to use a set of sumptuous mini-skeins that I received as a gift a year ago to make a wide front band/shawl collar. Whilst the main body will definitely be knitted, I think the collar might well be crocheted. If I wind the mini-skeins into a continuous magic ball (where you make a secure but practically invisible knot to join the ends together and simply keep on winding several colours into the one ball) then I can use up every scrap of the wool and the band/collar will be as wide as the yarn allows.

Well, that’s the theory. Technically, I have until March to complete my gift knit, but I hope to have it done by February so I can do a birthday cast-on of my own project. That’s quite easy to say sitting here at the end of the holiday season, but once work is in full flow again we’ll have to see whether it can be achieved.