She Sells Yarn and More

I am excited to start this year’s Shetland Sampler Shawl Mystery Knit-A-Long with Toni Lorenz. To help me stay on track, I thought I would document my experience with the project each month. I have just sent off for my Sandy Skeins Sandy Sock Trios and an extra pair of needles, and as soon as they arrive I am going to cast on. Here is to knitting goals in 2025!
– Erika

January 2025

Knitting has been a long-known remedy for anxious nerves. A frazzled or distraught mind can be quickly relieved at the ends of a pair of needles. After certain experiences, it might be necessary to calm one’s mind by sitting down for a few stitches in search of a bit of peace. I had one such experience this morning.

While I was taking my usual walk around the block, I had a bit of a fright from something that is normally behind a tall wire fence. Somehow, whether intentional or unintentional (I am never too sure with my current neighbors around here) the stout, muscular mastiff that lives around the corner was, in fact, on the opposite side of the fence than he normally is. I was alerted to this fact as I rounded the corner by a great, rough bark and the sound of a metal stool flying backwards as something pushed off of it. My head whipped to the side as the dog charged into the street toward me. In all my walks past this house, until they were right in front of me I had not before noticed how glistening white and pointy the dog’s teeth were. His fangs looked like they belonged to a Great White instead of a canine. My feet stopped dead in their tracks as I stared at this shark-dog’s rippling muscles and bulging jaws. His sidekick, a tiny yapping chihuahua, backed his friend up with increasingly loud yaps behind the mastiff’s cruel bark. Luckily, when I stopped walking, the dog stopped charging forward, and I cautiously stepped backward out of his territory. Not wanting to forgo my walk, I took my chances and briskly walked around, skirting the large dog’s property, and continued forward. He must have decided that I was not a worthwhile snack, and he did not follow me.

As I continued my walk, I determined that what that grumpy dog needed, and indeed what it seems we all could use a bit more of, is productive meditation. I thought of how glad I am that I decided to try the Shetland Lace knit-a-long this year. I have never been a part of a knit-a-long, but this year it landed on my 2025 Goals list. Hopefully I will not have any more close calls with shark-toothed dogs, but I do anticipate the knit-a-long project giving me something consistent to work on and look forward to, especially in what may be a stressful and transitory year, with two upcoming moves just this year, one of which is to a location that is yet to be revealed to us! I thought it might be nice to have something tangible completed at the end of the year; something to look back on that in some ways stayed the same, but in many ways morphed and grew and changed as extraordinarily as we will this year.

February 2025

It is March 1. I am just finishing the last row of my February clue, so I appear to be on a decent track. I was able to complete the first two months, largely in the absence of my built-in knitting instructor (though I did visit my mother for a few days mid-February), and with a move across the country at the end of January. Fairly impressive, I think, at least for me!

My lovely husband has us watching war films some evenings now, which is fine by me as I can work on my shawl; I suspect, however, he may grow annoyed at my habit of consistently looking down at my work and then every few minutes asking questions about what just happened or which one that guy is (they all look the same, in those army helmets). Not much can be done about that, as it is one of the few times I have to work on my projects, and I suspect a large part of the reason I have been able to get both clues done.

Hopefully I am able to continue this trajectory into March and the rest of the year. I am really enjoying watching the shawl take shape, and I am loving the gentle color changes in my beautiful green Sandy Sock trios; though, admittedly, when I see my mom’s work in progress, I get a bit jealous at how much neater hers is! I have a few more “fudges” in mine. I’m hoping my granny is right and, as she (apparently) always says, “that $%*& will block right out.”

March 2025

March was a close call. With five days left in the month, I was not even halfway through the March clue. It was a busy month, I guess! I made a March goal to complete both the knit-a-long clue AND the book I started on March 1^st, the consequence of this being that I came close to finishing neither. Luckily, I went to visit my built-in knitting instructor the last week of March, and was able to sit and knit to my heart’s content each evening. I managed to finish the March clue with one day to spare. I shall try to finish the April clue earlier in the month, so that I don’t get behind and have to panic over any more close calls. Especially as I now have a new project I want to start – a happy byproduct of visiting my favorite yarn shop. (Otherwise known as the BEST yarn shop, though I might be biased.) Despite my panicking that I had failed my 2025 goal and it was only the third month, I am, in fact, still on track. For now.

I even finished my book, too, on the very last day! That’s two March goals checked off as accomplished.

April 2025

April was another close one – I started out very behind, and did not think I would be able to finish the clue by the end of the month. My goal was to complete the April chart before we left to spend Easter in Florida, and I was unnervingly close to not hitting that. By mid-month, I had only done about three rows! Happily, I rallied, and finished the entire April clue a day or so before we set out on our south-bound journey. It took quite a bit of determination, though!

I think April might be my favorite design so far. I am not at all sure that it actually looks like the design Toni intended, but I’m liking the way mine came out. I’m very excited to see what the next clue looks like. I really enjoy that they are all very different. (Except it means I have to re-memorize my patterns each month.)

May 2025

The beautiful month of May saw the tides turn round. Not only did the Virginia weather turn absolutely glorious, but I finished the May clue with over half the month to go. I really prioritized my shawl this month, working on it in the spare moments of both the morning and evening until it was completed. It helped, too, that May’s clue was a much simpler pattern than prior months. Being done with the shawl early felt great, and left me time to work on other projects that have been grabbing my legs as I walked by, begging to be completed! (Think those dark, spikey, man-eating vines in an evil forest, swirling their tentacles around you and pulling you down. That’s what my other WIPs were doing.) I liked finishing my clue early so much, I might try to do it again next month. Seeing as my June will include a nice family trip in Vacation Land, I might just get it done.

June 2025

A nearly month-long visit with my parents meant even more knitting than I expected. Not as much during our family trip to Maine, but there was plenty of stitching going on at She Sells Yarn in Florida, so I finished the June clue on the very first day we arrived in Bar Harbor. Such a relief! At the official half-way mark I am actually on track, to my great surprise. The coming months, however, will bring additional challenges: moving overseas at the end of July and starting graduate classes in mid-August may prove a distraction from the Knit-Along Cause.

On top of those impending disruptions, having finished June’s clue before heading back home to my other WIPs left me no choice but to begin a new project. I decided on starting a second Strange Brew sweater – I had made the mistake of not bringing the necessary wool to begin the colorwork section for my first Strange Brew project. Such beautiful yarn, such interesting patterns, a growing number of WIPs; HOW on earth will I keep myself focused on the one thing I MUST complete each month?!?! That is to say, a warning: never, ever, EVER leave home for a month with only two projects to work on, as I did, or you will go back with even more WIPs than you left with, and your husband may cast you skeptical glances as you walk through the door with armfuls of new yarn. The coming months will display how many distractions I can handle and still complete the shawl in question by December 2025. (I have to include the year here – ask my mother why.) All in great fun, I say.

Above: Strange Brew #2 taking a peaceful rest after being frogged for the third time.

July 2025

July was a month of Knitting-Roulette.

To start with, the first couple rows really kicked my butt. I checked and rechecked every section, but somehow when I got to the next row, the previous row’s pattern was not correct. How is this possible?! And to make this conspiratorial inability to accurately follow the pattern even stranger, for once I was NOT multitasking. Normally I am listening to a podcast, watching a show with Ben… but for those first few rows, I was doing nothing other than knitting and being eaten alive by the mosquitoes outside. I eventually gave up trying to go back and correct everything, and just “fudged” the stitches. The movers were coming in precisely 14 days at that point, and I didn’t have time to dilly dally!

Due to the aforementioned imminent move, I was forced to pause my knitting progress to prepare. Since the Army movers will actually pack and load everything for us, this really just looked like frantically running around with a list (or twelve), labelling everything and making sure all items were grouped accurately so they would be shipped to their intended final destination. Thus, I decided to save the rest of the July clue for when we arrived in Florida to say goodbye to my parents. I assumed I would have more time and a clearer, calmer head after the moving of the goods was done.

Not so! Our Florida trip was busier than ever. My, how fast four days goes by! I was worried I wouldn’t have time to finish the clue before August. Luckily (for no one but me), I had ample time for knitting at the airport. We were required to check-in six hours in advance, and then our flight was delayed an additional two hours. I couldn’t sleep (the flight was scheduled for 2AM!), so I finished my July clue before even getting on the plane. Which turned out well, as I slept almost the entire flight. Crisis averted.

A note on how I am structuring the colors, as I realized I haven’t mentioned yet: I did not start with any sort of plan for how I wanted it to look. I started with medium, just by chance, then used the dark, and then the light. For each new clue, I switch to the next color in “line,” so I use medium, dark, then light; it does work out that they alternate nicely on each side. The result, so far, is more of a blocked look than a fade, but I think it looks nice.

The August clue will have to be printed off at the hotel in Germany!

August/September/October

It finally happened. Either I am a good predicter of lapses in stride or I jinxed my streak of luck, I am not sure. But regardless, I fell massively behind in September. And, as you can see by the timing of my writing this in October, I am still perilously behind for this month as well. (Actually, I originally wrote this as just August/September, but seeing as it’s two days to November, I threw in the towel/ball of yarn and tacked October to the end. Ach du liebe Zeit! – my new favorite Deutsch phrase.)

The beginning of August was blissful. I found a park close enough to walk to, and a nice spot to sit in the sunshine and knit. A nice German lady even came by and complimented my work! Well, I could not actually understand what she was saying, but she came up and touched my yarn and sounded rather complimentary. So I’ll take it. It made my day – no, my month! (I still think about that lady and smile!)

Then, school ramped up. We moved into our new apartment. School ramped up some more. I got very tired – my current schedule has me waking up for about two hours in the middle of the night Monday through Wednesday, and whew, it’s exhausting! I know – nothing to you amazing folks working night shift; goodness knows I could never do that! But for a poor morning gal like myself, it’s a brutal schedule. Thus my capacity for reading fancy patterns is rather low.

So, there. I finally fell behind. Perhaps I had it coming, with all the bragging and being proud for staying on track in the previous months. Oh well, I am positively DETERMINED to finish by Christmas – it WILL happen! That is my goal and I am setting it right here for all to see. Keep me on track, good Fiber Friends! Send your strongest “on-track” thoughts and wishes my way! And come December, we might just have a Christmas miracle and I will show you an FO I can really be proud of. Quite the ambition for a wee knitter who can’t even finish a pair of socks in a year!