Hedgehog Knitting: As You Mean to Go On

"If that means you need to be knitting more, make sure you're doing that."

It's not often I hear the recommendation that I knit more from someone I report to, but in 2025 I did. We were talking about trying to manage the changes and stress levels coming from the federal changes and the reality that our jobs were changing hourly some days.

I took it to heart, trying to make sure I was getting back to holding yarn again regularly, not just carrying it in my work bag back and forth and pretending I have made progress while instead I stare blankly at my phone or out the train windows. Someone asked recently why it is that all of my Zoom calls don't equate to buckets of knitting time and I had to explain that most of my meetings, I'm running them or actively doing something and if not, well... I might be trying to rewrite a to do list or knock out 1-5 quick emails that come in faster than I can read them.

But over the winter break I did go through the stash, only six months late on my annual Toss the Stash and Try to Re-Sort It Enough So You Can Put It Away.

A picture of my office floor covered in clear bins of yarn. In the middle is a cat curled up in a fluffy cat bed. She is totally zonked out and entirely unconcerned.

Obviously Widge had to help. She spent several hours as I moved yarn around entirely tucked into her cat bed, snoring gently and entirely unconcerned that an avalanche of yarn might end up on top of her. The Stash Toss, as it usually does, made me want to start about 18 new large and significant projects. I also pulled this upcoming years' worth of sock yarn. I only made it through six pair this year, though there are two pair in project bags that could probably be finished in not too long that will set me up for 2026 finished object counts nicely.

I also pulled out a box of things that have moved to my Ravelry trade/sell page and have already shipped off some yarn.

Looking at what I've pulled out and set up compared to what I've finished in 2025, I'm expecting to knit about 6-7x what I accomplished this year. Even in 2020, which was the year I hit 20k, that's not where I was so this should be fascinatingly ambitious.

An orange sweater with a lace front laying on a couch.

I did make this sweater though! This is a TinCanKnits pattern, Prairie Fire, and it used 1200 yards of Lisa Souza's Polwarth Silk in the Rust Colorway. It's a wonderfully cozy sweater. The pattern doesn't have any shaping, so it fits more like a sweatshirt than a tailored sweater and the yarn is cushy. It's perfect with a pair of jeans. It's currently on the drying rack after having been worn instantly after I cast off -- let us hope that it returns properly in sizing.

A detail shot of the lace pattern on the orange sweater. The yarn is Lisa Souza Polwarth Silk DK in Rust

TinCanKnits patterns are always exquisitely written. My only delay in working on the project came at one point on the body because I, as the fallible human, did not read the entire chart and instructions before launching into it. Once I did that, smooth sailing.

For now though I have wound the skein for the traditional New Year's Eve socks, which will follow me around a couple of parties and hopefully bring in a fresh new calendar with yarn front and center.