Journal: So It Is Christmas, What Have I Done?

The year of 2024 was very long and very short at the same time.

We lost our Grandpa in June, only 14 months after loosing our Grandma on Easter 2023. Thus, most of Grandpa’s stash moved in with me, to be eventually turned into knitted socks for charity. Grandpa was always crafty, he made his own fishing nets, he did upholstery when needed, he painted and refurbished old furniture, he built houses for living and during the plaque, he started to knit socks for children. For Christmas 2019 I gave him a pair of leftover socks and to Grandma I gave a ball of handdyed yarn and a set of knitting needles. She didn’t start knitting, he did. So, safe to say, it has been a bitter sweet year with Godchildren growing, the oldest one is starting his military service tomorrow, and the age catching up on us adults, whether we want or not.

Craftingwise the year was boring, I knitted a lot, which wasn’t terribly exciting, just your basic knitting. I tried few new techniques, some of them nice and others not so much. I finished a pair of socks I had casted on in 2017. I finished two additional #31in20MAL cast ons, the oya lace flower and a pair of socks. If my calculations stand correctly, out of the 45 cast ons I casted on for the #31in20MAL, I still have 10 projects to finish, 5 of the sweaters, of which 2 has actually been worked on enough to say, that the end might be coming, 1 I’m frogging (again) and 2 haven’t been touched since the original cast on in January 2020. I casted on 8 sweaters, 3 I finished in 2020.

So, for 2024 I finished 49 projects done in 16 different techniques:

• Knitting: 5 pairs of adult (size) socks (I refuse to call my goddaughter an adult, but her shoesize is 39), 6 pairs of children’s socks in various sizes, 2 pairs of children's mittens, 4 children's sweaters, 3 children's neckwarmers, 3 children's hats, and a scarf. = 24 projects
• Nalbinding: 2 pairs of adult’s socks, a hat, a pair of children’s mittens, a pumpkin, a set of sample socks for heel and toe structures and 2 odd samples. = 32 projects
• Crocheting: A creature. = 33 projects
• Sewing: A underdress and a top-dress in Karelian folk dress style. = 35 projects
• Woodwork: 2 sets of nalbinding needles (one from 2023 that was missing eyes and a set from 2024), a spindle shaft and a music box. = 39 projects
• Random stuff: A horse in pewter casting, oya lace flower, a blanket in railroad work, crocheting and knitting, spun 5 different yarns, resin casted combs and trinket boxes, made spindle whorls in foam clay and trinket dishes in silk clay, learnt to loom band and worked with 5D diamond painting and did a piece of cross stitching. = 49 projects.

(I count “spinning” as one project, although for example in 2024 I spun yarns for several different projects in mind, and did few experiments as well, that were finished into useable yarns, but they still count as one. Same goes for the experimenting with the resin casting and the silk and foam clays, although there were separate pieces, they were still counted for one each. I know there isn’t really a logic behind this, but so it has been for years already. For some reason I also don’t count dyeing for the finished objects.)

A side of listed techniques, I wove a roll of leg wraps, which I should cut and tablet weave both ends, I dyed yarn and fibres with acid dyes as well as natural dyes, I played with cold working metal, I worked on my latch hook project (and taught my goddaughter how to make it), I continued to work on a punch needle sample, that has never made it in to my WIPs board or counted as FO, as it has and it will be a sample, maybe if I one day fill the hoop, it might be counted as FO. I taught several people to knit, and one to crochet. I taught my goddaughter to cross stitch and in general to take crafts as experimental thing rather than serious thing, if only I would learn that too... My goddaughter taught me to make the loom bands and encouraged me to continue crafting some hibernating projects, luckily, she had forgotten the matter later in the year.

As other new techniques in 2024, there was the pewter casting we did at teaching practice last spring. Part of the teaching practice was working with metal, which included some simple work on forge, bending and forming metal cold and the pewter casting. Yes, I have been trying to tell myself that I don’t need set of moulds and the works, as I don’t play chess or any tabletop role games either. Pewter casting was one of my favourite new things for 2024. I also finally managed to try the resin casting. I have had resin, some dyes and some moulds since 2020, but I never got around making anything with the matter, partially because the ventilation in my apartment is nearly non-existing if I can’t open the window, and although the window does open year around, it is not very sensible to leave it open for 12+ hours when the resin is curing… There are definitely many things to learn in resin casting and I bought some other castable mass, which should be more useable in bad ventilated places, so will see which I like better.

I learnt few new nalbinding stitches and saw faux-nalbinding in the wild. I prefer calling the faux-nalbinding as Jämtland crochet, as it is in fact, crocheting, not nalbinding. The person (or their company) was very intrigued of my interest to the pair of mittens, as I couldn’t by looking say how it was made, but the maker of those particular mittens pointed me to right direction (possibly as they had just seen me nalbind, and they obviously knew the difference in techniques). 

I bought some new yarns, I was given/traded/something some pretty awesome American wools to spin, I bought and made spindles and nalbinding needles, I bought some new knitting needles that scare the sh*t out of me, but more about them in later date, I inherited some imitation pearls, that need both to be re-stringed and a bit of extension, so I chased down some similar age and similar tone pearls and bought the new string and now I just need to re-do them. I’m not exactly sure if it is a 2025 project or not, as my goal is to have the pearls finished by my doctoral defence, which isn’t happening in few years, maybe in 2028, if everything goes well…

As I mentioned, I feel that crafting year 2024 was very boring, there was a lot of necessity knitting done, and I have few garter stitch only WIPs still on the way. I would have liked to dip my toes on more new things and experiment more with new things with-in the techniques I already know of, but I suppose there is time for that too, and it is not happening same time with thesis writing and other studies requiring a lot of focus. 

I carry 47 WIPs into 2025. For the first time since 2020, when I started having a “WIP’s board”, I decided to classify my WIPs according to technique, and not oldest to newest or just random. I’m not sure yet if I like it or not, but at least it makes the distribution of crafts easier to follow. There are:

• 14 knitted WIPs
• 11 nalboud WIPs
• 6 embroidery WIPs
• 5 sewing WIPs
• 4 weaving/basketry WIPs
• 3 WIPs from my last year’s project “Undressing a Viking”
• 4 WIPs including bobbin lace, latch hook rug, 5D diamond painting and a sample project for several categories. 

Although 47 might sound like a lot, I personally don’t feel that it is so many, there are long term projects, some projects I’m waiting get back to, so projects that will be finished in next few weeks (one after being dormant for better part of 10 years), and some projects that provide comfort and ease on crafting, as I struggle a lot on starting new projects if pattern or yarn selection is in question, so some are just waiting for me to need that.

My goals for 2025 include continuing some of the pieced items, aka the mitred square and African flower blankets and work about 60 pieces to each and work about 60 lengths of yarn to a nalbinding leftover project, which might turn out to be a blanket or a pillow cover or something else. If the amount of snow remains low, I’m planning to harvest some willows next month for basketry, I will continue working with the “Undressing a Viking”-project, at least the textiles and other parts that don’t require wood or metal working equipment, I’m sort of thinking about buying a gas forge to improve my skills in metal work and I’m still dreaming of pedal lathe, although a spring pole lathe seems to be more accessible, but it needs specially made tools, which I don’t know if I could make myself and they are expensive to buy…

All in all, I’m looking forward the crafting year 2025, yet I pray my skills of crafting won’t need to turn into survival/post apocalyptical skills, and it is a pray I hope each and everyone of you to join me, to whatever deity you aim your prayers to.