2017 Recap

Hello again. And welcome to 2018, just shy of 18 days in. January has been the strangest blend of busy and slow so far. That feeling the can only come in winter, when you are cooped up indoors most of the time, and are spending your days either hanging out with your kids or writing in your office.

I've pretty much been doing only those two things so far this year. And playing with yarn, always playing with yarn. And it has kept me both busy and bored.

Busy, because over the last month I've put most (so close only a few straggling figures) of my data into my thesis, as well as writing over 100 pages of it. I've played blocks, and books, and kitchen and chase and tickle fights and cars..... with Alex and Dom. We've planned out the first half of our year, with Kevin working Locums that will shuffle our family all over Alberta (again). Oh and I dyed a big old pile of yarn.

Bored, because I've watched more of the Wiggles than anyone should. Same goes for Little Baby Bum and Word Party. I have dredged through my thesis writing (so hard to put your brain in the game after so much time off to focus on babies). And I spent a literal week without leaving the house (Kev was out of town for work and where am I taking two toddlers by myself in -30 weather?).

Anyways, all of that and more has kept me away from writing a blog post, but today I feel in the mood. So let's do it, and recap some of my yarny creations in 2018.

This year, for the first time ever, I kept an Excel spreadsheet and tracked my projects and yarn consumption. The idea was inspired by Mina Phillips (the Knitting Expat), and originally the goal was to use up my stash, at twice the rate I added to it.


Oh I'm sorry, I just fell off my chair laughing. Yeah that plan fell to pieces by March, and by June I had just stopped bothering to track incoming yarn... it was just too shameful.

Anyways here's the stats.

I finished 60 projects. Which included:

14 hats
2 cowls
6 shawls
16 pairs of socks
5 pairs of mits
4 adult sweaters
6 child's sweaters
4 stuffies
and 1 full size blanket.

My total grams of yarn used for the year was 8302 and that was 22 308 yards.

4 projects were chunky or heavier, 26 were worsted, 7 DK and 22 fingering weight (Clearly sport and lace weight are lacking in my stash).

I also dyed a fair bit of yarn (you can find it in my Etsy Shop).

Sewed a fair bit (project bags also for sale on Etsy).

And got back to spinning my own yarns.

Overall it was a great year for the Yarn Lab, and once I get this pesky thesis out of the way, I've got even bigger plans for 2018.