Is that a knock on the door? Yes it is, and 2025 is standing on the doorstep, waiting to be invited in to play. For some knitters, this will be a year to work through their stash and arrive in 2026 leaner, meaner, more intentional. For my own knitting, I’ve designated this as the year of the stash-up and I’ll be adding more yarn than I can use in order to hit 2026 with plenty of materials to see me into retirement.
“Haven’t you finished playing?
Get down to business soon
Because your lean years are coming,”
Todd Rundgren – Too Far Gone
I will focus on the types of yarns I most enjoy knitting and wearing, and a core of the collection will be Shetland wool. You can buy this all washed and prepared in neat little balls, but you can also buy it on cones at a much keener price. The downside is that the coned wool retains some oils from the spinning process and you have to wash it with detergent and fairly hot water – either before you start to knit, or after you complete your garment – in order for the yarn to bloom and soften. I find this transformative process very enjoyable; it’s akin to steaming a pudding in that you start out with one thing and end up with something much better, but the process happens almost by magic.
Colour and texture are important elements in knitted garments and they are the main reasons I love knitting. Combining the 4-ply Shetland yarn (and perhaps its extra-fine sibling) will provide lots of opportunities to vary the thickness of garments, and to play with marling colours together. Of course, hand-dyed yarns like these sock yarns I’ve recently puchased provide ready-made splashes of colour and can also serve as jumping-off points for colour palettes if you’re not confident about making your own colour choices.
Swatching will be a big part of my knitting life in 2025. I’m imagining myself building a mood-board of swatches that will allow me to visualise how garments might play together. But it’s not all going to be about the technicalities. I’m already working on my first garment of the year – The 1986 (named after the year the pattern was published). This almost counts as a stash-down project since I’m using some wool I’ve had for a couple of years. The pattern for a sleeveless pullover is a recent charity shop find which I’m modifying slightly to give it a more contemporary feel. Funnily enough, this yarn is also a Shetland-style wool, but already washed and just a bit more refined. I bought it taking the ball-band information as read and thinking it would knit to a gauge somewhere between standard UK 4-ply and DK weight. In reality, I think it’s happiest knitting it to a pattern designed for 4-ply yarn and that suits me just fine.
I don’t doubt that another pair of socks will hit the needles soon as I finished my latest pair on Christmas Eve. These are in West Yorkshire Spinners’ sock wool in the Starling colour, though I keep calling it Mallard because I feel these colours are quite ducky. I’m considering branching out and trying a bit of a different heel on my next pair as I’ve found recently that my socks are a little sloppy around the ankle area. It’s not problematic, but something I feel could benefit from a little improvement.
This is just a taster of what will be happening on and adjacent to my needles this coming year. After rather a fallow 2024, I’m looking forward to a more knitterly year. All that remains is to wish everyone a Happy New Year and to actually pick up my needles….
Pam Alison Knits 