what i knitted this year

on january 1, 2025, i finished my first ever sophie scarf, the ubiquitous pattern by petite knit. it was to be the first of many. it's a little wonky and i hadn't yet learned an easy way to keep track of how many rows i needed between my increases, but it's warm and i still love the color. 

it was soon followed by a second one, which i finished january 20. there were also mistakes, but i soldiered on and when i wear it, no one can see them. it was fun to work with two yarns and see how the variegated silk mohair changed the vibe as i went along. 

and then january 26 there was suddenly a 3rd one in pink. i was getting the hang of it, but still a little inconsistent in counting those rows and remembering which side my increases should happen on. 

february 14, i gave myself a valentine in the form of a sophie hood. it's made of soft blue permin tweed that i found on sale at my local yarn shop. the child appropriated it in november, but she will be giving it back when i finish a cream colored one for her. 

march 1, i finished a brown sophie scarf for my sister. still with a few imperfections, but i was finally getting there on figuring out where i was at and i think i even managed to keep the increases all in the same side.

i finished a green sparkly sophie scarf on the plane to arizona on march 13, but neglected to take a photo of it finished. i immediately embarked on the next one.

march 27, i finished my first cashmere sophie scarf and decided that all sophie scarves should probably be cashmere. this one was for husband's middle child's birthday. 

april 20th, i finished a brown cashmere one for myself, but then later gave it to a friend. 

i had a period over the summer where i was weaving more than knitting, but i did manage to finish a light blue sophie scarf with a sparkle thread around the end of may. i think i finished my pink one around this time as well, or a little before, but weirdly failed to take a picture of the finished product. the pink one is cashmere and was also held together with a sparkle thread.

summer was approaching and my sophie scarf production slowed to a trickle. but i had to do one in a bright, cobalt blue. i finished it sometime in early june. 

so far, this is pretty much the year of the sophie scarf, and we were only halfway through. then i took a bit of a break and did a lot of weaving over the summer. summer feels less like knitting weather. 

september 20, i finished my first sweater vest. mistakes were made. but i've worn it quite a lot since making it. i immediately started on a pink one in the same pattern. held with a sparkle thread, of course. alas, it's not done yet. 

december 6, i finished another sophie hood, made with the beautiful japanese noro yarn i got when i was in minnesota in march. i held it together with a lovely silk mohair thread to make it softer. 

it was so fun to make another sophie hood, i dug out some cream yarn with neon flecks in it and immediately made another, finishing it dec. 16, because i was sick and able to hang out on the couch knitting for an entire weekend. the child wants one in plain cream, so i've already started that one, hoping i might be able to finish before she heads back to portugal. 

and that's it, all of the finished knitting projects for 2025. i do have quite some WIPs built up and it's one of my intentions for 2026 to finish all of them up. we'll have to see how that goes!

celebrating the solstice

i've long wanted to do something special to celebrate the winter solstice. i saw a tiktok that suggested that you write down 13 intentions, cut them apart and fold them up and put them in a jar. then, every day for 12 days, you burn one of them without looking at it. then my sister sent me that very same tiktok, so i decided this was the year to begin celebrating the solstice with this ceremony. i convinced the child and her friend to do so as well. on the 13th day, you open the last intention and read it and it's the main one for your year ahead. it will be interesting to see which one remains. it felt really nice to do something to mark the shortest day before the light begins to turn again. 

what i wove this year

we're closing in on the end of the year. what a shitshow this year has been, watching that spray-tanned satan and his band of evildoers dismantle everything good about the country of my birth is disheartening to say the least. so i'd much rather focus on something positive and creative. like everything that i wove this year!

i started off with tea towels for husband's eldest. we made the warp just before the end of 2024 and i finished them up february 19. 11 finished tea towels! they were made in colors she requested. i managed to make a few of them more my style by going for a madras plaid look adding some orange and red. i keep one from every warp for myself, as a memory of what i've woven. she got six of them and the rest were sold or given as gifts.

on april 5, we created the warp for taylor swift's lover album, starting my quest to weave all of taylor swift's albums as tea towels. i wanted it to sparkle like the lover bodysuit and sparkle it did! i think emmy, my weaving mentor, wanted to talk me out of it, but in the end, we are both glad she didn't. it took awhile, but i finished the warp on may 18. 13 finished tea towels!

on may 24, i started right in on the next album - reputation. it was quite the departure for me to work in black and white and grey, rather than a colorful warp. i broke up the monotony a bit by weaving in a bit of red and green sparkle. i also had a different kind of silver and black sparkle thread in the warp, but it didn't behave nearly as well as the sparkle thread i used in the lover warp. lesson learned there! i took them off the loom june 28. i got 13 finished tea towels from this warp, though there are only 10 in this photo. i had to weave some extra ribbon for the straps, so the last three weren't finished yet in this photo. 

on june 29, we already made the next warp - i took a break from the taylor swift project to weave a good long summery warp that i called rainbow sherbet. i finished it already on august 9 - 21 tea towels! unfortunately, they're already gone - as gifts and one person bought six of them for christmas presents! husband's middle daughter also got six of them for her kitchen. i wove in with some sparkly threads and all the ones she chose had those. 

then the loom rested while i went on a week-long weaving course at skals, where i wove 8 small test weavings with 8 different techniques. i didn't want to put a new warp on the loom in case i learned something that i wanted to try out immediately when i got home. there are two that i will do for future warps in my eras tour project.

on august 24, it was back to my taylor swift eras project. we made the warp for speak now. i had the yarn for that one is more or less why that album was the next one. i've actually not gotten very far on this one, so i can't show the finished product yet. i chose to play with what's called "color effect" and i can feel that i'm already bored with it before i'm even really started. 

i have to pull myself together and get to work on it. this was just the end, or should i say the beginning, where i get the warp started and try weaving a bit with all of the colors to see how they look together. as you can see, i've tried a couple of sparkle threads as well to amuse myself. i have a stack of these weavings to make small bags/purses out of, but i have yet to make any. instead, i've turned to knitting of late, though not on my christmas sweater that should have been finished last christmas, but more about that in a knitting wrap-up post. 

i did finish one more thing on the little loom in 2025. i took a new rag rug runner for the kitchen off the loom november 19. i've come a long way in my weaving ability since i did the first one down in randbøldal 5 years ago. it looks so nice, i really love it! there's still 6-7 meters of warp on the little loom, to make some more rugs, so i just have to tear up some old duvet covers and get going. this one took me most of the year - i can see in my photos (that daily photo project is still coming in handy), that i started this one february 9. it was a bit tedious, laying in each strip of fabric and making them meet and lay just right. but that's why it's nice to have two looms, so you can move between projects according to what you feel like doing. 

i got some wool ready to try my hand at making a proper wool rug on that warp, but have made two attempts and am not keen on it, so i frogged it back again (not sure it's called frogging when you weave) and i'm not sure what i will make next. probably another rag rug with some old duvet covers in shades of pink and green that i can use in the bedroom. 

a total of 58 tea towels and one four-meter long rug woven this year. if i'd kept up my head of steam, it could have been more, but weaving just takes the time it takes and that's a big part of what i love about it. 

reading can take you anywhere

i had a most interesting conversation with husband's eldest this evening. she is consciously cultivating an interest in reading. she joined a book club, she went to a book forum (bookcon?), and has even already bought tickets to next year's edition of the same. she had a terrible teacher early in her primary school years, so this is a brand new interest and one she's choosing intentionally. i admire her for that. 

she asked me what i like to read. i said, "everything." and that's mostly true. of course, i have things i like better than others. i can reread/re-listen to the mrs. pollifax novels endlessly. but i did study russian literature, so reading has always been a very big interest for me. 

still, i found it hard to recommend books to her. she said what she likes best is what's called "fagliteratur" in danish. which means non-fiction, specific topic-related stuff. she was reading a book called "tarme med charme" (which means, loosely translated, "the charm of the intestines," which oddly rhymes in danish). she admitted she wasn't keen on the style of the book. i could have told her that from the overly cutesy title. ugh. 

i recommended murakami, some of the james bond novels written post ian fleming, but sanctioned by his estate (anthony horowitz and kingsley amis come to mind), danish author solvej balle, who just had a great feature in the nytimes, and gabriel garcia marquez. i tried to describe some of the books to her, but then she said she had trouble with fiction because, "what should i use that for?" 

i was stymied by that response. what can i say? there's nothing you can't use it for. you can use it for everything. you can use it for how to live your life. you can use it to open you to the world and experiences you wouldn't otherwise experience. you can use it to cry, to laugh, to process what you think about the world. i tried to express that to her, but it wasn't easy. and it oddly sounded a bit vague. 

how can you tell someone that books can transport them to worlds they would never have imagined if that part of their imagination isn't turned on? what book would it take to turn it on? how do i take her from the charms of the intestines to lincoln in the bardo or quichotte? or the wind-up bird chronicle? 

it's so encouraging that she wants to read to expand her horizons, but what's the best way in that takes baby steps, but opens up a world that hasn't previously been open?

thank you, molly!

this week, i stopped by a random stranger's house, which is near my work in aarhus, to pick up a little parcel from my bloggy friend molly. it's a small world. a friend in south africa who i've never met in person, but who feels like one of my oldest friends, 🫶 sends an envelope for me with someone she's working with who happens to live in denmark. and it totally brightened my day in this dark time of year. it's a lovely blank book, a sticker, some tags, a cool capetown patch and a notebook that can stick to the refrigerator. i will smile and think of molly every time i see these things and use them. and i will be grateful all over again for this space and the whole bloggy universe, even if it isn't what it once was. i hope this friend of molly's work will take her back to capetown so i can return the favor. and if that's the case, molly, i hope you like taylor swift tea towels. 😘

this week in seven senses

i enjoy reading the seven senses substack. the seven senses are the ones that come to mind - see, hear, taste, touch, smell, plus two that are a little more thought-provoking - balance and envision. i decided to try my hand at noting down something from those 7 senses that i experienced this week. it seems like a noble exercise. 

see

i stopped by arken, a modern art museum south of copenhagen. i wanted to see this  lærke bagger popup. lærke bagger is a famous danish knitter who has written two books that are part knitting pattern book and part autobiography. the sweaters in the photo are her "inner child" sweater, knitted by people all over denmark (and probably the world). each knitted with their own colors and their own stories. i didn't knit one (yet), but i'm impressed by those who did. anytime you gather a bunch of similar things together, it's impressive. there are so many stories there in those fibers, you could feel the energy of them all in the room. 

there was another exhibition there by an artist called kenneth rasmussen. he has a manic need to knit plastic bags and it resulted in this amazing installation. doing your obsession in a huge quantity can really turn into something. that's quite reassuring to a person who has currently made it her mission to weave all of taylor swift's albums as tea towels. 

hear

what i'm listening to is a bit mainstream, but that's just how it is. i can't get enough of taylor swift's life of a showgirl. i listen on repeat and i play the songs in order and i don't skip any. my current favorite is elizabeth taylor. but i also really like opalite. i feel like i'm officially a real swiftie now and this one will be my album. i can't wait to weave it.

taste

i made this yuzu curd for some cupcakes i took to a gathering with my old colleagues. it's yuzu season and i ordered two boxes from freshland. it's such a delicate flavor. the cupcakes went over well. and i just ordered one more box. the season is short and i absolutely love the citrus perfume-y taste. i might even go non-traditional and do a yuzu pavlova for thanksgiving. 

touch

this is a little twist of what's left of a warp that was made by a weaver named anne grete buhl. i'm not even sure what she made of out of it, but now i have her loom and some of her weaving yarn. these are silk fibers and i love the colors. and i love how they feel in my hand. i'm sure they contain a story. and now i get the chance to continue that story. 

smell

i'm finding smell to be hard. for one thing, there's no good photo for it. as we opened all of the boxes today from anne grete's home, it released a stale old house smell into the room. they had been in her empty house and she died a number of months ago, so i suppose that's natural. she was battling cancer in her final years and no doubt it developed over that time too. the loom i got from her also smelled like smoke. she had smoked for many years and it had penetrated the loom. i spent hours this summer, cleaning it and scrubbing off all of the nicotine. i wondered at one point if we should just make a bonfire, but i think it's more or less ok now. i think the fibers and fabrics can also be freshened up. 

balance

i've had a few situations recently that have upset or frustrated me. i endured a long drive where the main topic was boring car-related talk. like about the best way to take care of your brakes as well an extensive discussion of the switch from summer to winter tires. towards the end of it (i had forgotten my airpods, so i was trapped in the back seat where it was difficult to contribute (what would i have said anyway?) but impossible to tune it out), i thought about opening the door and jumping out. it was that bad. then last friday, one of the same colleagues made two outrageously sexist comments during a presentation. he thought he was being funny. but it wasn't. it's 2025 and he's a director. totally inappropriate. anyway. the point of these dumb stories is that coming home and hanging out with molly can make it all better. she is my balance. 

envision

my sister snapped this picture of the northern lights this week from the yard of our childhood home in south dakota. the sun has been crazy active and so the auroras were strong. alas, it was too cloudy here in denmark, so i didn't get to see any, but man, have i enjoyed her photos. i feel like they could inspire a weaving. look at those amazing colors! 

weekend getaway

our local creative group went on our yearly trip down to the bottom lefthand corner of denmark - højer. (is that how we're supposed to describe a country? i think maybe the picture in my head is too related to the map.) we've been going for quite some years now. there's an affordable big old house we can rent where we can all sleep (it sleeps 13) and an atelier where we can paint and dance and make a mess. and we did all of that. plus making ourselves some lovely food and drinking slightly too much wine and snaps and something called a half bitter that tasted a bit like christmas.  four of the ladies are in their 80s and they are all super cool and fun, each in their own way. i hope to be as curious, funny and spry as they all are should i reach their age. 

one of them painted this watercolor of some members of the group when we went to the beach. i had immediately gone down towards the water, so i'm not in this one. i was wearing clothes that blended into the landscape anyway. 

we all go on these weekends needing something different. some need companionship and people to talk to. some need a break and a change of scenery. i think we all want to be creative. we all bring too many materials. i took four knitting projects (i worked on 3 of them), some watercolors, some journals, fabric and hand-dyed embroidery wool and my linoleum cutting tools. i had no idea what i would want to work on. i think what i ultimately wanted to work on was the food that i made. i bought some beautiful raviolis at the italian supermarket in copenhagen and made three different sauces for them for everyone to enjoy on friday. 

of course, i found myself wanting to work on a knitting project that i hadn't brought along. that's the way it always is. you think you're bringing all the options you have then your brain thinks of something new when it can't have it. at least i restrained from buying new yarn. and that in spite of visiting a yarn shop! all i brought home were sausages from the local butcher and enough renewed energy from all the laughter to last the week.