Hi and welcome, everyone, to the last day of 2025! Welcome especially to our newest subscribers, who may have migrated over here from Kate Davies’ blog, where she kindly posted her foreword for Migraineur. If you’re new to this blog, and you’d like to know a little more about me, let me direct you to the freshly updated About Me page. I hope you’ll comment, too – where are you in the world?
(We did it vibes from Akumalik! From a photoshoot that was actually in fall of 2024!)
At the end of the year, I like to take a minute to look back at what happened this year. Not to just toot-toot-puff-puff my own horn, but to reflect on everything that happened. I don’t know about you, but my memory often doesn’t stretch back more than a few weeks. In the constant churn of deadlines and events, and the feeding and emotional management of three preteen daughters, I’d be hard pressed to tell you what happened in October, let alone January. Assembling these thoughts is a lot of work, but it’s worth it for the thankfulness that comes at the end. I promise, my posts aren’t always this long!
Designing
I’ve been shouting about this a lot lately, but this year I succeeded in my goal of publishing Migraineur. I conducted at least three photo shoots, learned a new publishing software, gathered all the information and test knits and tech edits and copy edits and shoehorned all that work into 104 tidy pages. …And started the journey of learning marketing and promotion. Migraineur is still making its way out into the world, but it’s “born,” so to speak, and that’s really something special. Here’s a sampling – I didn’t knit all of these in 2025, and most of them were knit earlier than 2024. Some of the below weren’t knit by me at all, but by my amazing team of test knitters.
Toasthead and Toasthands
Spike
Fernhead
Fragile
It’s been super-fun, during the last couple of months, to start actually using some of these pieces. I felt the need to protect them during the incubation stage of the book, and I still want them intact as samples, but I feel permitted to actually use them now!
A couple of patterns which didn’t fit in the book were also released on Knitty in the early part of the year. I loved working with this team that I have admired for so many years – 10/10 would do again.
It was a banner year for bringing ideas to fruition – in some ways, the hardest part of the process. But definitely a part of the creative process.
Spinning
The year started in the middle of a massive series of spins for socks. I completed the latter half of those spins on schedule.
Eight skeins of sock yarn spun on the “Panda” base (60/30/10% merino/bamboo/nylon), all different structures from three to six plies. Dyed by Sweet Georgia and Crafty Jaks.
Four skeins of sock yarn on a base of 40/40/20% BFL/Wensleydale/Mohair. Left three dyed by Bramble Ridge; right is hackled from fleece by me.
Much of the rest of my spinning was for teaching content for the pod! I produced 24 episodes of the Wool Circle. If you’re new here, I work for my dear friend Rachel who hosts the Wool n’ Spinning podcast. Behind her paywall, you can find my little video podcast that focuses on demos and learning. (There’s a free 1-week trial if you want to take a peek at my content.) I also took over one Livestream for the main Wool n’ Spinning feed, episode 303.
My main focus this year was the second half of our two-year book study of The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson. I finished up yarn structures in the first several months of the year, and September onward has been all about textured yarns (a.k.a. art yarns, a.k.a. novelty yarns).
A few of the many swatches of yarns spun for demos. These are all spiral-plied yarns with beads. Wool blended by me on a blending board.
Coils and supercoils are pretty special. These are all from one braid dyed by Ohmi Fibres.
I got really obsessed with boucle in the fall. Swaledale dyed by Crafty Jaks; grey is a Gotland/Romney mix I processed from raw fleece; brights were a braid dyed by Bohemian Yarns.
I did manage to squeeze in one big sweater spin: hackle-blending and combing half of a Wensleydale fleece that I dyed, and spinning the hand-pulled top to make this gorgeous three-ply.
A few more skeins were finished from my long-term Qiviut Blending Project. New readers: I’m several years into a long-term study of how qiviut blends with various breeds of wool and other mix-ins. I’m about 35 skeins in with maybe 13 to go. The goal is to eventually make them into a rather enormous blanket – Kate Davies’ Kerry Kyle pattern is my main inspiration, though at this point I may design my own.
Fiber Prep
You know what? Fiber prep gets its own heading this year. Spinning-heads will know, but preparing fiber to spin is really a craft all its own. This year I grew in this part of the process, and really enjoyed it. Much of it was on Alide’s drum carder that she kindly lends me when I need it, but I also learned to use my new-to-me hackle.
Wensleydale dyed by me, locks on the right, hand-pulled top on the left. This made the yarn you see above.
I got another muskox hide from a hunter friend, and harvested maybe 60% of the qiviut it contains before we had to leave on vacation. It went into the seacan and I haven’t gotten it out again yet; this is really a summer project! I definitely have enough qiviut to finish the Qiviut Blending Project and continue sharing with friends who want to try spinning it. The prep for the QBP is also complete. I really hope to finish spinning for it this year.
I dyed three different sweater quantities from five different half-fleeces. The above is a Tunis (yellow) and Clun Forest (the rest) which has hopes of becoming a sweater. I’m mid-sample to decide on the exact shade I want:
Finally, I bought a Corriedale fleece from All Wound Up farm in Alberta, which I scoured and have started lock popping. She’s a beaut.
There were two other smaller sweater quantities I carded, but I think you’ve gotten the gist. As you can see, fiber prep has given me a lot of joy, and I expect it to continue to do so!
Knitting
I haven’t been updating you with my finished objects here on the blog so much, so this is going to be a bit of a drive-by! I wouldn’t say I’ve done a ton of knitting this year in terms of quantity of fabric, but in terms of pure number of stitches, it’s nothing to be shy about
The priority early in the year was getting the handspun socks knit up. I finished this over the summer, putting the socks in rotation this fall. I look forward to reporting how they wear, but I hope it’s a long time from now that they start developing holes that I can report on!
I knit all of these socks in the middle six months of the year. Here they are in rotation – I am endeavoring to wear them all the same number of times to test the durability of all these different yarn structures. I’ve done this before. I made these with my own adaptation of a new-to-me toe-up sock pattern by Kate Atherley that fits my foot like a dream.
It wasn’t a big sweater knitting year, but I got a bit done.
I finished Fitton’s Dynamo in January, which I had started in 2024.
I knit this top-down slipover this fall, a plain adaptation using the free Feel the Bern pattern by Caitlin Hunter. I think I need to rip back the hem and add a couple more inches to make it look good on me, which I’ll do after I’m done my current sweater.
I had hopes to knit a lot more accessories this year from my collection of small bits and bobs of yarn. That didn’t happen at all. But a few other small things were knit along the way.
I got the second Harry Potter knitting book (ed. Tanis Gray) for my birthday, and immediately knit myself two cowls out of it out of my treasure chest of Milarrochy Tweed. This is one of them.
A long-time wish had been to make the “Hap for Harriet” pattern by Kate Davies out of this handspun lace I made in 2024. Dyed by Greenwood Fiberworks, spun into about 800 yards from one braid. I tore it apart to make it into two colourways that I blended together in the middle. I made it chiefly over my trip to Vancouver this fall.
Finally, this isn’t small at all, but I knit this blanket for MiniMighty. She wanted to make it herself, and I preserved the few dozen rows she did at the bottom left of the blanket. Really she just wanted to have it. She inexplicably loves BB8 despite not having any other interest in Star Wars. This pattern is from the Knitting the Galaxy Star Wars knitting book ed. Tanis Gray.
My knitting was disorganized, I think, but one thing is true: None of this yarn was bought in 2025! Indeed, I’m pretty sure I didn’t buy any yarn in 2025. Nope, that’s not true – I bought one skein from Meaghan of Bramble Ridge. Pobody’s nerfect.
Sewing
I finished the quilts for my girls as I’d hoped.
Beyond that, I have barely touched a needle. My sewing machine (fixed up from the dump) started acting up in ways that I can’t fix (and we don’t have a sewing machine repair person in our little town. New readers may not know this, but Rankin Inlet is only accessible by plane). That’s really OK – I have dreams of sewing, but there’s a season for everything.
Weaving
Speaking of seasons, I reawakened a season for weaving! When we re-painted the playroom that is also my office, Jared helped me install a cool ladder-hanger-system for my rigid heddle loom. It’s now out all the time but doesn’t take up any appreciable space. I knit a couple of the older warps that had been hanging around for years.
This table runner/future bag was all made with J&S 2-ply jumper weight, left over from making my girls Wee Bluebells (by Kate Davies) years and years ago.
But where my loom really shone was when I started weaving up samples of the textured yarns I’ve been making this fall. Gosh this was fun.
I have eighteen little fabric samples like this, all about 12″ wide by 16-20″ long. I really want to make them into little spindle bags for my Wool n’ Spinning friends. Really, with all this weaving, I’m making more sewing goals for myself!
Very recently – like since Christmas – I finally started using my inkle loom. I’ve had this for a while, promising myself that I could use it when the book was finished. My mom made this actually possible by gifting me some weaving yarn and shuttles for Christmas (thanks mom)! Weaving, especially inkle weaving, is very much a side-hobby for me, but one that feels very playful and low-pressure, precisely because of my lack of ambition in it. Low-stakes creativity.
Other
Shall I take a moment to touch on our other hobbies, and the other ways that life has lifed?
The girls and I painted all 70+ figures from the Hero Quest game Jared got for his birthday. Have we played the game yet? errr…. no.
Favourite board game: “Through Ice and Snow.”
Favourite video game: Blue Prince with Jared.
Favourite book: Carrie by Stephen King.
On an actual life note, the real big change for our family this year was that Jared became a Suffragan Bishop for the Diocese of the Arctic. This was a big sort of subterranean shift in our whole vibe, though day-to-day operations of Chez Osborn are largely unchanged. Mostly he travels more, which we are still adjusting to.
2025 was a year for growth. I’m coming into my own more as a creator, while juggling part-time work as the administrator of the Arthur Turner Training School and doing kids stuff at church on Sundays. I preached again a few times. The girls are growing inside and out, and Jared is growing as a leader.
It was also a year for loss. We lost my grandmother after long illness this summer, and the girls and I got to be present for her funeral. More recently, and of less eternal but more immediate consequence, we lost my little dog Diamond in an accident. And day by day, we listen to the news and we grieve with the world, but not as those who are without hope.
Thanks for looking back at 2025 with me. It’s quite satisfying to survey the last year and gain a new understanding of the shape of it. Do you have any superlatives you’d like to share in the comments?
Right now, it’s blizzarding fiercely outside my window. It’s looking like the last day of 2025 and the first day of 2026 might see our community homebound and bundled up against the wind and snow. We are cozy. We celebrate. We know the light is coming.
Osborn Fiber Studio 