2021 Review

A bit late almost mid-January - my traditional review of my blogging, making, traveling and generally living in 2021.

The year was unusual in one respect - I almost stopped knitting. I had been obsessed with knitting for decades and I have heaps of sweaters, cardigans and accessories. However, as I have mentioned many times on the blog, I am more of a process than a product person, I revel in the immersion in the creative process. During the years my imagination has been taken by cross stitching, knitting, crocheting, yarn dyeing and lately - by sewing. The serger I bought last year gave me a vast impulse towards sewing with knits and this is what I've been doing mostly this year - out of the 66 items I sewed in 2021, only 11 were made using woven fabric. I made 25 tops, 9 pairs of joggers/leggings/shorts, 7 pajamas, 7 pairs of trousers, 5 dresses, 2 skirts, 1 hoodie and 10 pieces of underwear. I also did quite a lot of household sewing - lots of new bedding, tablecloths, curtains and cushions, which I usually barely mention on the blog. And I knitted one sweater, two shawls, three pairs of socks and two hats.

A random sample of some of the things I made, which required more skills and time:

Although we did hike and travel in 2021, I've noticed that we mostly stayed within known territory - the only new trail we walked last year was a long traverse (21 km) of Lozen mountain from Pancharevo to the village of Lozen, all other hikes were along well-known and trodden trails. True, we've been hikers for a long time and gradually all trails near Sofia are becoming well know to us, but we should try some new hiking challenges in 2022. 

Some of our more memorable hikes and the pinnacle of my travels in 2021 - my three days in Vienna:

In 2021, quite on a whim, I subscribed to Duolingo and I have now a streak of 352 consecutive days - soon it'll be a year! I started with Spanish, added German in October and now I am alternating between German through English, Spanish through English and German through Spanish. The latter is quite challenging and sometimes, when I'm tired, I end with a salad of German and Spanish words, but I like challenges :). I plan to continue with my daily linguistic mind games and hope to break through the wall that the German vocabulary and ridiculously complicated grammar are still posing in front of me.

So, that's all folks. 

It wasn't a bad year, all things considered, hopefully 2022 would be better :)