I’m afraid my blog took a backseat for the last few months due to our move from Kansas back to Colorado. So I thought I’d ease my way back into writing with a run down of some crafting accomplishments from the last year.

In February, we celebrated our nephew’s marriage. Coming fast on the heels of Christmas celebrations, I did some mad knitting to get this blanket done in time for the big day. I always enjoy knitting a textured knit/pearl pattern because it shows the beauty of the knitting and keeps the project from getting boring. This pattern was particularly intriguing because the “wrong” side has a subtle pattern of it’s own making it reversible. I also thought it was a fitting wedding gift where two opposites come together as one.

Pattern: Knit Picks Baby Bridges Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease Color: Hazelnut (from my stash)

The next major project was for another wedding–this time for my first-cousin-once-removed i.e. my cousin’s daughter. I wanted to do something for her that would be representative of my grandmother/her great-grandmother aka Nana, who was an avid knitter/crocheter. I was fortunate enough to inherit what was left of Nana’s yarn and crochet thread stash as well as the pattern books where she noted recipients of various projects, often with details of how long it took her to complete them. In her later years, she focused mostly on crocheted lace doilies. And while I personally appreciate a lace doily, I wasn’t too sure about how a 20-something would feel about it. I wanted it to be a keepsake, but I also something that she could use. So I decided to modify this marvelous blanket pattern by simplifying the color scheme and using a lightweight yarn. Voila! A lovely keepsake tablecloth.

Pattern: Charlotte’s Dream Yarn: Knit Picks Lindy Chain Colors: Linen, Thicket

As we moved into the summer season, my niece, who had taught herself to crochet the year before, asked about doing a project together. She wanted to make an octopus, and I happened to have a pattern for one in this book of amigurumi. She did a great job and even found a mistake in the pattern. The next project was to be a hedgehog, but she got distracted by other things more appealing to middle-schoolers like horseback riding.

One of the patterns I was considering for our October nephew was a striped chevron blanket. The pattern was still sitting in my pile when Lion Brand had a sale on Jeans yarn. I couldn’t resist adding this blanket to welcome our new nephew to this world.

Before diving into Christmas projects, I whipped up some cute pumpkins for our fall table that ended up looking a bit “frosty” when my foraged flowers started dropping their fluffy seeds.

For Christmas this year I worked through more of my stash with stocking caps for our nieces. I really liked these crochet patterns from Hailey Bailey: the Sparrow Beanies & Tanager Beanies. They worked up quickly but look a bit fancy.

Throughout our 2020, I kept track of the daily temperature in Manhattan in order to create a temperature blanket as a memento of our time in Kansas. In addition to recording the temperature each day, I also splurged and bought a slough of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes during one of their sales last fall. I think I may have bought about every single heathered color that they make! I then spent several days sorting and comparing to find the best transitions of color for the number of temperature ranges I’ll have. Playing with color is truly one of my favorite little things to do.

I also picked out this pattern from We Crochet as a basis for the blanket. Now I’m just waiting for another sale to get the rest of the yarn. With graduations and another wedding on the horizon, however, I’m not sure when I’ll get to working on something for myself, especially now that we don’t have the bi-weekly commute between Kansas and Colorado. But I’m grateful to have reasons to add to my crafting queue.