a year in review

This is kind of embarrassing, but… I managed to miss my own blog anniversary! I didn’t completely forget, but I just didn’t check the date early enough, and the actual anniversary passed already. And I was going to make a big deal out of it and everything… oh, well. I’ll just have to do it now!

Happy birthday my blog! :)

It has been so much fun sharing my work with you, and starting to get comments has been just thrilling to me! I’m so glad I started a blog, and even though time might be scarce sometimes, I try to keep a fairly regular schedule of posting, because that’s what I appreciate in others’ blogs, too.

I wanted to reflect back at the things I made during the year, and especially all the new things I learned. I usually try to incorporate something new in each project I start so as not to get bored with the process. I rarely knit the same thing twice and even if I do, I try to do it a little differently the second time. Here are some of the new things I’ve learned/done this past year:

A lace scarf (believe it or not, I had never made one before)

Provisional cast on

Provisional cast off
Kitchener stitch

Toe up socks

Short row heel

Dutch heel

Entrelac

Dyeing yarn using different methods

Twist cables and frilly cast on in the Latvian mittens

I-cord edging

Twisted stitch ribbing

Steeks

Swirl knitting

Attaching a zipper to a knitted cardigan

Felting in the washer

Beaded stitch markers

Crochet cast off

Three needle cast off

Slip stitch patterns

Quite the list, huh? I’m not sure if I can find as many new techniques to learn this year, but I’ll try! If it weren’t for all the knitting blogs out there, I would still be knitting all my projects using the few basic techniques I learned years ago. Reading blogs has taught me so much, and I am a firm believer in the power of the global community! And not only have I learned new things, but I’ve also gotten new friends that I otherwise would never have met.

To add a little excitement, I want to give away a prize, and I want to do it by the way of a contest. Sort of. The task is to vote for your favorite FO (finished object) from the past year, and we’ll see, who can match mine. Now, I know that those, who know me well have the advantage of being better able to guess what my favorite piece of work might be, so I will draw the winner of some hand dyed sock yarn from all the commenters (heh, that word doesn’t pass the spell check…), not just the ones that guessed right. So if you haven’t been reading this blog since the beginning, browse through the archives and find your favorite thing! In my next post I will reveal what was my favorite thing to knit.