Mrs. Collins Makes Stuff

That is a wrap on 2024. Last year was… Let’s call it complex and interesting, and leave it at that for the intro. Making was great the first half of the year, then it died a slow and painful death the second half. The rollercoaster that my mind and health took was a level of not fun that I hadn’t anticipated and I want my money back. The grief and mourning that I had to watch my loved ones experience was heartbreaking. The battles that I watched them go through and the new lights that I was forced to look at people in were both shocking and painful. I am not sure that things will ever really be the same after this year.

That being said it didn’t all fall apart. There definitely rays of sunshine through the clouds, and good memories were made in there too. From a making standpoint I did make quite a lot in the first half of the year. Ravelry reports that I only made 15 things, but I believe I didn’t log quite a few things, like a baby sweater, a hat for Feebs, socks, and a several charity knits. Oh well. I only sewed one thing, and that was the game bag in January out of the recycled man-pants. I am still ridiculously proud of that thing.

My total for the year:

Two tops: Home Camisole & Rota top

Three hats: Honey Pie Hat, Tundra for Feebs, & Everyday Slouchy Beanie

Two pairs of socks: On the Go socks- End to End & Contrast Heal and Toe

Three Sweaters: Zipper Sweater- Man, Flax- Adult (me), Flax- baby

Cowl/ Shawl/ Wrap: Paris in Berlin, Oaken Shawl, & Lakeside Beach Wrap

Charity knitting: Hats & washcloths

Bottoms: Bliss Shorts

Accessories: Purl Pouch & Barebones Fingerless Mitts

Sewing: Gaming bag

So, not as shabby as Ravelry claims, but not as good as my challenge, and certainly not a good as most other years. I am so close to finishing the Highlights Tunic dress, but the weather is cold and I have no motivation to finish it right now. I really need to get Sister #3’s shawl finished and gifted to her. I want to finish Feebs’s socks and give them to her. And I still want to start something super squishy and delightful that warms my hands and soul. But I am just not quite there yet. That is a big hope for 2025. I want to get that spark back. I finished 2024 and didn’t knit a single sweater in the second half of the year to keep me warm in the winter. That is heartbreaking. Nothing makes me happier than a newly knit sweater for the cold months. The hardest thing with making this year was losing the desire to knit that hit me in August/ September. Knitting is my therapy and my happy place, so losing that threw me into a tailspin.

The year as a whole seemed to be about death and decompensation. Between the actual loss of life that we struggled through in Spring, then onto loss of health and what felt like loss of sanity, the year just felt very steeped in sorrow and fear. I spent the year feeling like I didn’t fit in my skin. Like at any second something would happen and either it would shrink wrap me or shred to pieces and I would be no more. I think I have never felt so out of control of my own person before. I struggled like never before, and my family had to stand by and watch me fall to pieces.

So while that was such a shiny and bright overview of how I felt about my place in 2024, there were definitely some highlights and life lessons that survived.

1. I have always know that I come from a solid foundation. My people, some blood some not, are my rock. They held me together when nothing else was. It is so crucial to always surround myself with my core people. At the same time, I need to be sure that I am that same level of solid for them.
2. I can only fight against my own brain and body for so long. I can only swim up my own stream of consciousness for so long before I collapse from exhaustion. At some point I may even realize that fighting against my best health interests isn’t benefiting me. My body and mind need rest, and eventually they will just take it.
3. Stress can and will kill me if I let it. I can’t fix the world’s problems, I can’t fix all of my loved one’s problems, and I can’t fix all of my health problems. I can only control what I can and I HAVE TO LET THE REST GO. I can’t keep allowing myself to be pulled into other people’s crisis’s. I will offer my help, set boundaries, and hold those boundaries. If they decide to act on their issues only once they become crisis’s, then they may have to resolve them on their own. Every adult in my life is smart and capable and can handle their own lives. If they need my help, they will ask. I will not intrude in their lives in an attempt to fix their issues.
4. I very painfully learned this year about who I can count on. This was a good and bad thing. I needed to know who would stand up when push comes to shove, and now I know. At the same time, it was crushing to find out that people I always thought were part of my ride of die crew were all talk.
5. Asking for help doesn’t make me incapable of handling my own business. I learned that this year and while it got on my very last nerve, I had to stop and ask for help. There were times that I physically could not perform a task, or at least not safely. I don’t think that it makes a person weak to ask for help, but I am used to being able to take care of everything on my own. 2024 proved me wrong and I had to hand over control of the reigns, several times. I won’t lie, it pissed me off, but it was necessary and I am so incredibly grateful that my people stepped up to help when it was needed.
6. I already knew this, but I was reminded last year, that nothing lasts forever. Your best days pass and your worst days pass. You just have to either remember them or survive them and things will change. New things will always be coming and good, bad or indifferent there will be new memories to make and new adventures to experience. Nothing stays bad forever.

I would love to say that by the final day of 2024, everything was resolved and the curtain closed on a happy ending. Nope, that wasn’t quite the case. However, I spent the last day and eve of 2024 with the two halves of my heart and our best friends. We rang in the 2025, as we do every year. We toasted to good things up ahead and we said farewell to the year that put all of us through the ringer. We went into the New Year with quiet optimism and all of the tools that we had acquired from the last year. Out with the old and in with the new.

I love my people. I love our traditions and adventures. I love everything I have in life and the optimism that things will change. I am happy to say that I survived another year. I am thrilled to say that (spoiler alert!) I may be getting back some of my making spark in 2025, and that big health changes may be on the way. It won’t always be bleak and sorrow. Time makes change and I will change with it. Let’s head into the next chapter.

Loves,

M