knitting life

What gets in your way?

Yarn is from Eden Cottage Yarn. project bag is from Eldenwood Crafts

What stops you from casting on?

As a champion procrastinator I can put something off for weeks, even months. Or if I have that certain spark of motivation I can cast on almost immediately.

I've had this yarn kit (@edencottageyarns ) and pattern (Kismet sweater by @unwind_knitwear ) for months. I love the yarn, I love the pattern....have I started it....nope.

My main barriers are:

🌿 Winding the yarn. Lacking a dedicated craft space means that my set up is always a little cobbled together and I need the house to be quiet.

🌿 Getting the first few rows in. Especially if there is a complicated set up or lots of markers are needed.

🌿 If lots of counting is needed at the start. I can't do that when the house is busy.

The common factor here is the need for quiet. So of course I decided that yesterday afternoon with both boys at home and husband doing DIY loudly upstairs was the perfect time to start.

Do I never learn.

Of course I managed to mess up the increases so l be starting again today - hopefully when things are quieter. What get’s in your way and stops you from starting a project?


Embrace imperfection

This week's Tuesday Tip is less of a tip and more of a mindset shift, and it's around the idea of perfection.

If I could offer knitters - both new and old - one piece of advice it would be to let go of the idea of your handknits being perfect. If we want something to be perfect and to look as though we bought it in a shop we can just go ahead and buy it.

Machines make the same thing, in the same way each time. They churn out endless, identical items untroubled by fatigue, emotion or thoughts and feelings.

Human beings aren't like that and thank goodness.

Think about it in terms of an average adult sized sweater. It will contain 1000s of stitches all of which you have created perfectly. There might be a couple of stitches that aren't - why on earth would you chose to focus on the 1 stitch that's wrong, rather than give yourself credit for the 1000s and 1000s that are absolutely perfect?

Embrace imperfection - life's way too short to focus on the tiny imperfections, especially as they are the things that show our humanity.

I'm now on Substack

It’s been a long while coming. I think I created an account on Substack nearly two years ago - and then promptly sat on my hands and did nothing with it.

But, something about the shifting seasons, the coming of spring and - let’s be honest - the dire state of Twitter right now - has made me dust it off and read all those articles explaining what Substack is and why I should be using it.

My regular weekly newsletter isn’t going anywhere, please don’t worry. But that newsletter, while I love it, is pretty much focused on yarn and knitting with the odd snippet of ‘other stuff’ thrown in there for good measure.

With my Substack I want to do something a little bit different. There will still be knitting and yarn - obviously - but I want to explore some of the other aspects of my online and real life. We are all made up of many parts and have varied interests and I’d like to be able to write about all the aspects of my life. Not just the woolly bits.

My first post goes up today, so please do pop over and check it out. And if you’d like to subscribe, posts will go directly to your inbox so you don’t have to search for them or worry about missing them.


The joy of small things

Colour Block Mitts - pattern here

I’ve never really been about the grand gestures or the lofty ambitions but increasingly I am focusing on joys of small, simple everyday things. Life in lockdown certainly taught us to appreciate the simple things and I’ve found that I’ve carried that through into my everyday life now - more so than I ever did before.

I was reflecting the other day on how, as a parent so much emphasis is put on your child’s ‘firsts’ - first steps, first tooth, first bike ride. But we never really think about the ‘lasts’ - simply because you don’t know they are the last time you’ll ever have to retrieve their favourite bear before they’ll go to sleep or the last time they’ll need their laces tying.

And perhaps it’s a good job we don’t know that they are the ‘lasts’ at the time. On our recent holiday to the Lakes (thankfully on the last day as we were packing the car) it hit me that our next October break in that cottage will look very different with one son away at Uni - and honestly it hit me like a body blow - and one that I was absolutely unprepared for.

I’m glad I hadn’t thought of it earlier in the week otherwise it would have hung over my whole week with a series of ‘is this the last time …’ thoughts.

But it really did bring me up short and make me glad that I had taken a bit of time to stop and appreciate some of the small things that holiday - even if I was less than serene after the third game of Monopoly.

As part of my daily journaling I often add a short gratitude list - just tiny things during the day that I noticed or I particularly enjoyed. If I’m organised I might have snapped a photo or two as well and I love to scroll back through my camera roll and see the little things that captured my attention.

When our boys were little we used to joke that we had taught them to enjoy their pleasures small - a ‘beach holiday’ to them was spending time throwing stones into Wastwater. And I think there’s a lot to be said for that as adults as well.

Articles I enjoyed on this topic:

Find Gratitude In The Small Things (theodysseyonline.com)

4 Things Keeping a Gratitude Journal Taught Me - Life's AHmazing! (lifesahmazing.com)

Gratitude Journal: 66 Templates & Ideas for Daily Journaling (positivepsychology.com)

How to make a blanket grow faster

Do you ever have one of those projects that just steadfastly refuses to grow? It seems to defy the laws of physics - yarn is being consumed, time is being spent and yet each time you measure it, it remains stubbornly the same.

I have a blanket like that on the needles. It’s a stripy garter stitch baby blanket and I’m on a deadline but no matter how much I knit on the thing it still refuses to reach the finish line.

For the purposes of private amusement yesterday I compiled a tongue-in-cheek list of the strategies I had employed so far to make the blanket knit up faster and I thought they might make you smile too.

  1. Keep stopping to stretch it out and measure it. Be sure to stretch it hard for maximum optimism.

  2. Put in progress keepers - lots of them - so that you can see physical evidence of progress.

  3. Use snacks as a reward. My preferred method is a square of chocolate after every pattern repeat or set number of inches.

  4. Persuade yourself that rectangular is the new square - much more practical. You aren't giving up you are just making a design choice.

    Only options 2 and 3 have ever had any measure of success for me. But I'm totally open to other suggestions.

PIN FOR LATER

MKALs - are surprises overrated?

It’s an interesting question isn’t it - and one which I’ve thought about a lot in my years as a knitter. It’s that time of year again when knitalongs abound and the FOMO (fear of missing out) is strong as I survey Instagram and see everyone’s amazing yarn choices and spoiler alerts.

It looks so tempting, and a very large part of me is desperate to throw my WIPs to the wind and dive into the glorious planning stage of a Shiny New Project.

Perusing websites, squishing yarns and generally having a lovely 'high-on-yarn-fumes’ time.

Because while you are in the planning stage, this project is perfect. It can literally do no wrong. It is going to be amazing, the best shawl ever.

But is it though? I think we all know the answer to this one and it starts with ‘Maybe…’.

With a mystery KAL especially there is always that tiny voice at the back of my mind that says ‘ah, but will you wear it though?’ Will it join the very large, 5-skein shawl at the back of the wardrobe that cost you an arm and leg, and yet to my shame I never wear.

Shame isn’t an emotion that I particularly want to have attached to my knitting, but nevertheless there it is. Looking at me every time I reach to the back of the wardrobe.

One argument for an MKAL is that you invariably learn something new along the way, and that’s undoubtably true but at the end of the day it’s all about balance. And I can learn new techniques once I’ve actually seen what I am supposed to be achieving.

I don’t deal well with uncertainty at the best of times and grappling with an unfamiliar technique when I’m totally in the dark about how it is ‘supposed’ to look can send my blood pressure sky high.

In addition, I have to be sensible (groans) and recognise that I have limited time available to knit the designs I have in my pipeline, never mind the socks and other items that my knit-worthy family ask for. When I do have a bit of knitting downtime, often I’m looking for something super simple rather than something that will challenge me. There’s a reason that I’ve knit over 10 Hitchhiker shawls.

And who would I be knitting it for? That’s a slightly more tricky question because then I would be forced to ask myself whether I’m knitting it for me, really for me, or so that I have something new and shiny to share on social media, so that I felt part of a club.

Obviously, this is entirely my own thought process here and I’m attaching no judgement of others to this at all - just sharing my own jumbled up thoughts. I have definitely taken part in KALs and MKALs before and had a whale of a time. I think it’s more a case of context - at a time when I have a lot going on, the added pressure of keeping up with a KAL can just feel like one more thing on my to-do list and no-one wants to feel like that about their hobby.

All this is a very long winded way of saying ‘it depends’ isn’t it?

I guess it just shows that we don’t knit in a vacuum and that our choices on what to knit are governed as much by timings and personal cicrcumstances as anything else.

How about you? How do you feel about MKALs - and are there are any particular designers who always have you rushing to take part? Or you happy to watch from a distance and maybe cast on later, once you have had a good look at it?