It's Complicated...

Hello my darlings.

No, I have not died, or disappeared off the face of the planet.  However, 2024 has been a hard year.  I'm afraid I haven't had the energy or motivation to achieve very much at all with my crafting, and even less to document it.

I do still have my advent calendars:

However, I don't have the energy to show you everything that I'm getting from them each day.  It's not all that exciting anyway!

Finn is still with us, at the age of 13 and a half, and he's still doing well, despite a little arthritis, and going a bit deaf.  Sadly though, this year we did have to say goodbye to his former pack mate, Bounty, who was adopted by friends of ours soon after we adopted Finn.This was our last walk together:

I don't think I got around to setting any goals for 2024, which is just as well, as I certainly wouldn't have achieved them!

I've had one surgery, several uncomfortable medical procedures, and broken toes by tripping over Finn, TWICE!  I have one new diagnosis, and have discovered another physical anomaly about my body that I never knew about, but explains a lot of things that have happened in the past!

Nobody has died in the family, but we do have one more cancer diagnosis, this one seems to be early stage, and not especially aggressive, thankfully!

Stephen is doing well, and somehow managing to maintain himself just outside of the criteria for diabetes, despite our diet having slipped somewhat.

I haven't made it up to Newcastle at all. We haven't been on holiday at all.

However, I have managed to see the Northern Lights!  From our own garden here in Sheffield!

Terrible photo, but it was taken using my mobile phone, without any sort of fancy technology other than standard dark mode.  Which goes to show just how dramatic the event was!

The really funny thing about this was that it happened while Stephen's parents were visiting at the start of the summer.  So Stephen's mum got to see the "mirrie dancers" for the first time, while she was all the way down here in the middle of England, when they live on the north of Yell, the middle Shetland isle, where the Aurora Borealis is visible multiple times per year, every year!

FO's

Despite everything, I have managed to finish a handful of things.  Mostly socks to be fair, but at least I'm enjoying knitting again.

The first thing I finished this year wasn't knitting.  This was a cross stitch kit that Stephen got me for Christmas last year, and it's what I spent most of the first 3 months of this year working on.

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like.  It's an amigurimi spliff.  Demi saw one filled with catnip as a comedy cat toy, and asked if I could make one.  This was about a year ago now, but I still haven't been up north to deliver it!

The pattern is loosely based on Sammy Spliff by Meriah Martin, but adapted to make it smaller.

The yarn is basically 4-ply scraps in suitable colours.

I think I was working on these when I did my last update on Christmas Eve last year. Just standard socks for Stephen.

The yarn is Crazy Zauberball in the colourway "Zimtschnecke".

I'm still slowly working on my granny squares "memory blanket".  I think I made this square while in the waiting room for my surgery back in April.  I might have made more than this during the year, I can't recall.  If I did, then I forgot to photograph them, and I certainly haven't made more than 2 or 3.

This year, having not had the motivation or energy for crafting, I've found myself reading a *LOT* of fairly brainless romantasy novels.  I tend to read at night, when my insomnia is sending me into a tailspin.  My old kindle is still perfectly functional, but it isn't back-lit, which means I couldn't read it in bed without keeping Stephen awake by having the light on.  So I'd found myself reading a lot on the kindle app on my phone, which rather made my actual kindle redundant.

Conveniently, the Amazon Prime summer sale happens around the same time as my birthday. So I checked to see if there was a back-lit kindle for a reasonable price in the sale.  There was, and this is what I ended up with.

However, after a couple of nights I realised I was getting terrible cramps across the back of my hand from the way I had to hold the kindle.  So I decided I should attempt to make some sort of handle to fasten it to my hand.

This is what I came up with.  It's just a simple crocheted strip, with loops at the ends to hold it in place.

Sadly, my design was flawed, and while it did help, it also wasn't terribly secure.  So in the end this is being used an a bookmark for a paper book, and I bought a cover and pop-socket for the kindle.

The yarn for this is Women's Institute Soft and Silky, in the colourway "Lilac mix".

Finally, after months of trying and failing (you'll see some of those efforts in the WIPs section later), in about September, my knitting mojo finally started to return.

It's still nothing like it used to be, but I'm enjoying it again.

Fortunately, it was in time for Stephen to start complaining that he was wearing out his old hand-knitted socks, and it seems that socks is the way forward for me when attempting to recover from a nearly 2 year long slump in crafting motivation.

The yarn for these ones is specifically designed to create perfect pairs of socks.  There's a bright yellow 'leader' section of yarn to show you where to cast on, then another exactly half way through the ball, so you can use the 'leader' section to position the start of your cast on exactly, and end up with a perfectly matched pair.

The yarn is called Regia Pairfect, and this is colourway "01735".

A very brief break from the knitting in order to actually sew something!  I know, sewing really isn't my thing.  It's a skill I have at what I consider to be an adequate level, but no more!  I can do basic mending, and create very simple items.

This particular very simple item is a pouch for containing spell cards for my new table top role playing game character.

If you've read any of this blog before, then you are probably aware that I've been a part of an epically long campaign using the GURPS rules.  This year, we finally completed that campaign. It was emotional to say the least.  My character from that campaign - Linnea - will, I think, live in my head forever as an entirely separate personality from now on.

After a brief palate cleanser D&D one off, and a short epilogue to the GURPS campaign, we have started a new campaign using the Pathfinder rules.  

I'm playing a Nephelim Cleric of Cayden Cailean.  My character - Ishnaqeth - has access to a lot of spells, and it's a pain in the hoohaa having to look them all up every time I want to cast one.  So Stephen helped me to create a selection of cards with all of the information for those spells on them, and I made this little pouch to store them in.

I know that this could also go in the Penguins! section, but since I made it all myself (I even cast the resin button myself!) I thought it deserved a place in FO's.

My final finished object of the year (unless I spend a lot more time knitting in the next couple of weeks than I expect to), is another pair of socks for Stephen.  As I said, apparently socks are where it's at for motivation.

The yarn for these ones is Opal Reginwald 4-ply, in the colourway "9901".

WIPs

A few years ago I worked really hard on getting my number of unfinished objects down to a manageable level, and I promised myself that after that frankly Herculean effort, I would always keep my number of WIPs down to single figures.  Well, this year ruined that, because I foolishly tried starting things that I didn't (and still don't) have the energy or motivation to finish right now.

First I cast on a simple ribbed jumper.  No pattern, just winging it.  The idea is to create an off-the-shoulder thing.  I did a few drawings, made a few calculations, then cast on a ludicrous number of stitches.  

Then didn't really get much further.  I did manage a bit more than in the photo, but not much!

The arrow on the photo is me being terribly proud of myself, because I used a long-tail cast on, for about a bajillion stitches, and somehow managed to judge the length of the tail to perfection!

The yarn for this is Sirdar Snuggly 4-ply, in colourway "0444".

Next, I joined a reddit knitting sub, and asked for ideas on how to get my mojo back.  They suggested that I put away everything that was annoying me, and instead choose an old favourite pattern, and some pretty yarn from my stash that I'd been itching to use.

So I chose TGV (Highspeed knitting) by Susan Ashcroft, which I've made several times before.  It's a super simple pattern that usually requires almost no thought, and is just a joy to knit.

My mistake here I think was the yarn I chose.  It's a gorgeous gradient yarn that's been sat in my stash for years, and I've really been looking forward to using it.  The problem is that this particular yarn was dyed into a gradient using the "sock blank" method, and had been stored still knit up.  So before using it, you have to unravel the sock blank, which of course leaves the yarn crimped and kinky, which in turn makes it more difficult to work with.

Again, I got a bit further than the photo shows, but despite my best efforts, I grew frustrated with it, and it got put away until I can deal with that yarn.

The yarn is by Yorkshire Dales Yarns, who sadly are no longer in business, and the colourway is "Blueberry".  You can't see in the photo, because I wound it into a ball, rather than a cake, but the colourway changes from that lovely blue, through purple, to a pinkish colour.

This is one I'm actually actively working on.  It's a giant crocheted shark, made with super chunky, flouffy yarn.  This is also for Demi, although it took me so long to get started on it that she'd forgotten she'd asked for it by the time I started making it!  

It's quite hard work on my fingers and wrists working with such thick yarn, and such a large crochet hook, so I'm having to take frequent breaks to go knit a bit of sock.  Still, it's progressing!

The pattern is Shannon the Shark, by Little Green Bear, and the yarn is King Cole Warn & Toasty, in the colourways "5983" and "5980".

This is my most recent photo of the latest pair of socks that I'm making for Stephen.  Yes, it was taken in the middle of a gaming session.

I have progressed a fair bit further than this, mostly this afternoon, while watching silly movies with Heather, but I can't be bothered to take a more up to date photo and faff about uploading it, as I'm still getting used to my new Chromebook (Early Christmas present off Stephen), and the major differences between Chrome OS, and Windows, since as I told Stephen today, I've been trained for 30 years in how to use Windows, therefore I can't get my creaky, ancient, set-in-it's-neurological-pathways brain to understand that Chrome works differently!

The yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply, in the colourway "Autumn Leaves".

Stash Acquisitions

Considering it's been a whole year, there's probably fewer of these than you might expect...

My friend Fran sent me these gorgeous mini skeins for my birthday.  Aren't they beautiful?

I'm really hoping that once I finish the latest pair of socks, and Demi's shark, that I'll have the motivation to add a few squares to the mitred squares blanket, which will give me an excuse to use at least a little bit of these until I can decide what I'm going to do with the rest.

These are Somerset Yarns sock base, and the colourway is "Bleached Coral Glow".

This lovely skein was a gift from Jo and Ian, friends, and members of our gaming group.  They went to World Con in Glasgow this year, and came back with tales that make me really want to go too at some point, but also this for me.  The colourway is from a series inspired by the cover art of the Terry Pratchett Disc world series.

This one is the Giddy Yarns Merino sock base, and the colourway is "Granny Weatherwax". 

You'll probably recognise this yarn from the shark WIP, but what's incredible about this, is it represents the only yarn that I've bought for myself since May 2023!

Represents, because there was more than this to that shopping trip... 

I'm kicking myself for apparently failing to take a photo of everything I bought that day together.  This used to be second nature.  Clearly I'm out of practise, due to my failure to maintain my blog at all this year.

I needed the chonky, flouffy yarn, and the giant crochet hook, for the shark.  I also wanted some basic sock yarn in colours more suited to Stephen than any I had in my stash.  It seems I've collected a fair few sock yarns in various shades of purple, but while Stephen isn't all that picky about the colour of his sock, purple isn't a favourite.  I'm also reluctant to make socks out of the stunningly gorgeous hand-dyed merino yarns that I have plenty of.  It seems such a waste of the time and effort that went into producing the yarn, and merino isn't the most hard-wearing type of wool.

So I got these as well:

You've seen this too - West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply, in the colourway "Autumn Leaves"

Rico Design Socks Sprinkly Stripey, in the colourway "8".

Crazy Zauberball, in the colourway "Schlammpackung".

These were all bought from The Foundry Works, which is probably the best local yarn store in the Sheffield and Rotherham area.

Finn

He's still adorable, despite causing me to break my left big toe in 2 places back in May, because he got so over excited at the concept of fish and chips that he ran under my feet and sent me to the floor.

He's still adorable, despite causing me to break the middle toe on my right foot last night, again through excessive excitement due to the possibility of food, and putting himself under my feet.  This time I fortunately didn't face-plant on the floor, I just spilled half a pint of ribena and swore a blue streak.  I didn't even drop the plate of Stephen's dinner (Normandy pork and apple casserole) that I was carrying at the time, which I'm quite proud of.

As you can see, he could not care less!  

- blep! -

He can be a good boy when he wants to though!

Penguins!

There's a fair few of these, as it's been a whole year, including last Christmas, since I last showed you the additions to my colony.  I've probably missed at least one or 2, so if you read this, and you've given me a penguin in the last 12 months, that I haven't included here, please poke me, and I'll rectify that next time I do an update (which hopefully will be before next Christmas!)

My present haul from last Christmas, including Christmas penguins cushion, penguin bath bomb, and space penguins t-shirt, all from my sister and nieces.  Stephen got me the penguin tights, which I finally wore for the first time a couple of weeks ago!

Also in among those gifts was a little "create your own bracelet" kit, with beads, and charms.  This is the bracelet I made with it.

Utterly random gift off my sister!  Build your own (slightly wonky) fat little cardboard penguin!

A lot of effort went into my birthday cards this year!  I have kept them all. These were from Fran, Stephen's parents, and my sister.

Tall penguin is tall!

This was a gift off Krissy and my godchildren, I think he was also a Christmas gift, along with the usual hotel chocolat chocolate penguins (which I ate without photographing).  He has not been moved into the yarn cave to join the colony, because he's been sat next to my nest all year, waiting for me to take a photo and blog about him.

A while ago I took up journalling.  I'm not very good at it, because I rarely have the motivation to write about my day.  So my journal ends up being basically a "To Do..." list, and maybe a few notes about appointments I've booked most days.  Very occasionally though, I do a proper journal entry, with stickers and things.  I got myself this huge pile of penguin stickers to use in my journal, but they're also being used to decorate my laptop, my kindle, my Chromebook, and basically anything that I think will last long enough to be worth putting a sticker on!

This is not my penguin!

I took a photo of him anyway.  This penguin belongs to Claire from the Foundry Works, and he was living on the checkout counter last time I was there.

Finally, it's been over a year since I last bothered to paint my nails, but I felt like I should do them for Christmas, which of course means penguin nail art.  Not the world's neatest nail art, but I'm not a qualified nail tech! I'm still pretty pleased with them.

Aaaand... that's it for 2024!

I'm not going to promise an update in January, with goals for the year and stuff, but I will try my best to do one, and to update a little more than once a year in future!

Happy midwinter festivities of your choice to you all, and I shall hopefully be back in the New year!  Stay safe my dears!