The Tail End of 2022

     A few weeks ago, which was early December, I came up with three possible fibre resolutions to choose from and do until New Year's Day.  Option 1 was to finish up or toss out old works-in-progress.  Option 2 was to start and finish as many easy projects from stashed yarn as possible.  Option 3 was to start and finish projects for myself.  

      What I wound up doing was some of Option 1 and some of Option 2.  I finally called an end to the two sweater projects that had been stalled for years.  I got rid of their yarn too as it was no longer my taste.  I also knitted a couple of hats for gifts using an old familiar pattern.  One of the hats was actually Option 4 because I bought yarn for it instead of using yarn on hand. 

     I ended the year having used as much yarn as I'd bought over the course of the year. 

Fashion Types and the Fiber Arts

     I read a book by Carol Tuttle called Dressing Your Truth: Discover Your Type of Beauty.  To get the author's specific recommendations for dressing according to my type, I went to her Living Your Truth website, took the DYT quiz, created an account, and went through the beginner guide.  I went through the beginner guides to all the types, not just mine, and took notes.  I wanted to know what she recommends for the other types so I could avoid those things.  

     I found the content helpful, and considered the ads that came with the content worth enduring.  I like thinking about things in categories.  I've used the Color Me Beautiful system for my clothes since I was a child, when my mother had a colour party.

     I also looked at content online by Molly Bingaman of Ladybird Styling, which is similar to DYT. 

     I understand now why I have barely worn the Lush cardigan I knitted for myself last year.  Its lace design details, unstructured circular yoke, somewhat thick (DK) yarn, negative ease (I did zero ease), and loosely knitted fabric are definitely for a type different than mine. 

     The sweater quantity of yarn that I bought recently was DK.  I returned it.  I have not decided what sweater project I will do this fall, if any, but I know any yarn I get in the future for sweaters should be thinner than DK.

     You can undo a handknit sweater and knit the yarn into something else.  I could do this with my Lush just to be thrifty even though the yarn is too thick.  

     I understand now why I like the look of wool roving dyed multiple colours but I lose interest after I spin it into barber-pole yarn with the colours all mixed together.  No wonder I once spun a repeating multicoloured braid by pulling the sections apart and spinning each colour on its own.  In light of my type, it makes sense that I like solid colours, sequential or symmetrical Fibonacci stripes, plain weave, and stockinette stitch.

     I expect the information will inform my fibre arts choices going forward.  I hope this will mean fewer regrets and more items that work in my wardrobe. 

Squirrelled Away Another Sweater Quantity

     I did wind up buying another sweater quantity of yarn, in a beautiful dark blue wool.  I've used the colour before for a hat for a gift.  The yarn was on sale and I'd been eyeing it all through last year's yarn diet.  I plan to knit up this yarn in September.  Buying it means the volume of my yarn stash has gone up and that makes me somewhat uneasy, but the prospect of a sweater is good.  

     Early in the year I bought four balls of Jamieson and Smith Shetland yarn to knit a Bousta beanie.  I got as far as the brim and then quailed at the thought of trying stranded colourwork for the first time.  The project has been hibernating ever since.  

     I bought 200 g of fingering weight wool yarn in tonal teal for myself, to make a set of mitts, ear warmer, and cowl.  I bought 100 g of multi-coloured Malabrigo fingering to make mittens for a relative. 

     The same relative gave me two skeins of Malbrigo worsted from her stash and picked out two skeins at a yarn shop with me.  I've knitted two cowls, which are on their way back to her, and I plan to knit two hats. 

     She and I got to go to the 100 mile fibre fair in Coombs, B.C.  I saw a woman there with some hats and a cowl made with the språng technique.  I was impressed because the woman had used Coptic colourwork, intertwining on a background of interlinking, as well as the Tegle pattern, a solid-colour pattern of triangles in S and Z interlinking.