Ever keen to extend the knitwear season as long as possible I was thrilled when, after a lovely sunny day or two at the weekend, the temperature plummeted again.
Don’t get me wrong, it was lovely to bask in the (almost) warm sunshine and to contemplate replacing my winter boots, with summer sandals. But when the mercury dipped again and the wind developed a distinct easterly sharpness I was secretly pleased that knitwear was still needed.
Shown here is one of my favourite shawls – the Cornhill shawl by Eden Cottage Yarns in their Carlisle Fingering, as well as my Fuss Free Mitts – a free pattern which is up on my blog. I knit a few pairs of these in various colours and I usually have at least one pair rolled up in most of my walking jackets. The other pockets generally hold masks – but that’s Covid times for you.
In other news I have been dusting off the blog a little and trying to get back into some semblance of a writing routine again. This of course necessitated the purchase of a shiny new notebook, about which I am very excited – more on that later.
For now I have been content with revisiting my blog reading and finding out who out there is still blogging. Much has been written about the death of the blog, but honestly I think that more and more people are finding that they need a break from the pressure and the heated-ness (if that’s a word) of social media. I read this article recently by Tanis Fibre Arts on the subject and I have to say that it really resonated with me.
I tell myself that I don’t have the time to sit down and draft out a blog post or two, but I’ll happily lose half an hour on Instagram – feeding the algorithm gods. So I’m trying to get into good habits by actually reading other peoples blogs and spending a little less time surfing Twitter or Instagram.
I used to use Bloglovin but I’ve never been a huge fan, so I thought it was a good opportunity for a fresh start. I signed up to the free version of Feedly and so far I have to say that I’m really enjoying it. I think there is the option for more features if you pay for a plan but I’m just seeing how I get on with the free version for now.
One thing I was exploring was the old concept of a blogroll – remember those? My old Blogger page used to have a little sidebar widget with a blogroll and I used to love visiting other sites and seeing what blogs they in turn followed. Is that still a thing do you think? I’d love to see that make a comeback.
Anyway, all this to say that hopefully I will be around a little more in the coming weeks as I blow the cobwebs away. And if you have any top blog recommendations please do let me know. I’m always looking for new ones to follow. Maybe I’ll even share them on a blogroll of my very own.
