Ok, so this post may be a bit heavier in topic than I usually do, so if that isn’t your thing, I get it and scroll for the project photos after this wordy bit. I’ll put a bold header past the emotional bits.

Life has been coming at me with some serious punches and crafting has been a bit more of something to keep idle hands and minds busy. At the end of 2020, my father passed (Expected, but still pretty quickly) but with Covid happening the memorial wasn’t until 2021. In May 2021, on the way to the memorial we learned my father-in-law was back in care. On the way back from the memorial, we needed to pick up my mother-in-law who was not dealing with the change well. My father-in-law passed in early July 2021, and it was clear my mother-in-law needed more care than she could get several states away. So there were many months of dealing with their house, moving her into our home and learning what exactly she needed for care with her dementia. Its been a slowly growing job and through that and our bathroom remodeling my craft space was also the overflow of all the other things space. I did manage to shop hop the local yarn shops this year, but then the universe self corrected and totaled my car on my birthday so… its been a lot. (Thankfully no person was injured) So the blog simmered quite a bit on the back burner in 2023. So if you missed me in 2023, I am sorry I was so busy with my own stuff, but I shall endeavor to try to do better in 2024.

Ok let’s move on from April then…

On the quilting front, I’ve not managed to get much more done as most of the time the quilting space was filled up with not quilting things. So I will still be picking up my block a day 365 quilt in August when I get back to it. But I did finally finish up the Jacob’s ladder from a block swap. I pieced the backing with some additional scraps and quilted it with a simple meander.

The block swap after that was a bookshelf quilt and I did get my shelf sections made and sent as well as receive, but have not yet assembled.

Closer to the holidays I was able to clear out a bit more space and fit in a small button Christmas tree kit I picked up in the holiday sales the year prior.

On the knitting front there were of course more socks… socks are so portable of projects. But there was also a sweater, and two additional shawls and since I bought a new winter jacket this year, the new hat is done and I am working on some mittens to go with them.

I ended up buying a bit too much in the yarns and quilting projects departments and I may need to revisit my monthly semi-mystery projects from a few years ago in order to not completely bury myself. Hopefully this year I do a better job at updating than just twice!

On the non-crafting front, I assembled a new greenhouse which is currently over-wintering my fuchsias. I have managed to do so with a pair of them so long that they overgrew the pots and I put them in the ground this fall instead. 

I realize I have been skipping several months over the past year, but usually I am on the ball come January and my goals, but this year, well its already 11 days in and finally here I come waltzing in.

First a brief recap of last year and why it was so much chaos. There have been significant changes in our family, in particular with my husband’s parents. His father passed; his mother is now living with us; and I was the lead on helping deal with their home in Kansas needing to be cleaned out of the 46 years of semi-hoarding accumulation. My craft supplies storage space shrank significantly and has had to be re-organized quite a bit. But hopefully things will not be so massively crazy in 2022. (Everyone collectively cross their fingers)

I did manage to finish the year of hats KAL, and even pulled off a sweater made of cotton for my husband in November. (which I may have just shrank a bit in the wash yesterday, so again.. cross your fingers). Then mid-December I pulled a muscle in my shoulder after finishing the back of my twisty sweater I am knitting myself and well… I have maybe 4 inches of one sleeve done since then. My green and yellow quilt is on the frame, but I am not super thrilled with how the first couple passes look so I’m debating ripping those out or not.

So let’s look ahead to what I want to get done in 2022. Obviously I want to finish the twisty sweater. its currently taunting me in its sleeveless state. I’d like to use up more stash, specifically in the scrap fingering weight department, so I am hoping to knit one of my Lotus Feasting on Scraps blanket pieces each month. I am also looking at my quilting stash and decided this is the year I work on the rest of the blocks for the 365 day quilt challenge that I started all the way back in January 2016. I am up to 38 squares, which means 327 more to go! I also acquired at some point some 2005 and 2006 Block of the Month blocks from a local quilt shop. Two of which were completed, so I’d like to finish those up and make them into something and liberate those from my stash too.

Mostly I just hope for some good sunshine and craft time in the coming year, and hopefully things will settle down again.