A belated start to Socktober

It seems as though every blog post I start recently has something to do with time flying, or lack of time. And true to form here I am sliding in, slightly breathless into the second day of every knitters favourite month - Socktober.

There isn’t an official KAL that I know of but since when did dedicated sock knitters need any excuse to dig through their stash and cast on for a new sock project.

These autumn-inspired scrappy socks have been on my needles for a week or two so I’m making a determined effort to get them finished and then see how many pairs I can polish off during the month. DIY self stripe socks have become something of an obsession of mine over recent months. There is something very satisfying about being able to use up the smallest of scraps from your leftovers. If you haven’t seen it already, I use the Clasped Weft Join for this which is great fun and makes joining in new yarns an absolute breeze.

Thrillingly we have also experienced some cold mornings in my part of the UK. It’s always a slightly smug feeling, as a knitter, when you can pull on some warm woollen items to make your walk to work, toasty warm. You might of course be boiling hot by lunchtime but that’s another problem altogether. With the cold mornings in mind I knit up a larger, wrappable version of my Coffee Break Cowl using 2 skeins (rather than 1) worsted weight yarn. I was really surprised at how quickly it knit up and it has just the right amount of length. Enough to wrap around the neck once, without giving you that strangling feeling.

RAVELRY PATTERN

This is why we have WIPs - the case for project polygamy

Oftentimes we feel compelled to reduce our WIP count or to defend our many (many) unfinished objects. We make lists, we feel guilty and we lament our lack of willpower in casting on All The Things.

But today, for a chance I would like to present the defence for project polygamy.

After a long day at work I come home feeling tired, stressed and emotional. Dealing with peri-menopause, a house, kids and a job can leave even the perkiest of people feeling a bit steamrollered and I don’t mind saying that the current political shenanigans are doing absolutely nothing for my mental health right now.

In months gone by I would have, in all honesty declared it to be Wine O’Clock and had a glass or two. But now I’m no longer drinking that isn’t an option, and so I resorted to cleaning off some accumulated clutter from the kitchen table. Imagine my joy when I unearthed a small project bag and found a sock toe - all cast on and ready to knit. I think I had prepared this project back before my summer holiday to be my airplane knitting (and then left it behind in a packing oversight). Either way I was so grateful to find this simple, no-thought-required project that I nearly cried.

My eldest son brought me a cup of tea, my youngest carted off the worst of the kitchen table clutter and I was able to sit and just knit. No thinking needed. It’s a simple thing but sometimes a small sock toe and a cup of tea (plus boy hugs) are exactly what you need.

Re-entry

It’s clearly the sign of a good holiday when you find yourself back at your desk, hands on keyboard desperately struggling to remember how to write or compose a blog post.

The week I was away flew past - lots of swimming, lots of reading and a surprisingly small amount of knitting. I didn’t pick up a pen or even think about writing. The real world seemed very far away.

Now, I’m back and struggling a little. The Instagram world is full of drama (no surprise there), the current political situation in the UK is going from bad to worse (and with today’s news, to the diabolical) and I’m struggling to stay afloat. I just want to pack everything back up and escape back to our little bit of Greek paradise, but obviously that’s not an option. There is school uniform to buy, lists to be made and a whole mountain of domestic chores await.

So I’m going to do what any sane knitter would do in the circumstances and dive into my stash in search of a new cast on. If ever there was a time to start knitting a survival blanket - I think it might be now.

One is never enough

Giant granny square blanket - Number 2

So it seems that granny square crochet blankets should come with an advisory health warning. After finishing my blanket last week I found myself sitting in bed on Sunday morning feeling slightly bereft and not sure what to do with myself. So of course I did the only acceptable thing in these circumstances and started another one.

Addicted, nah, not me.

Apologies by the way if you were under the string impression that this is a knitting blog. I promise that normal service will be resumed shortly.

And if you are tempted over to the way of the crochet you might like to know about a CAL over on Instagram. Run by @martushkaknits the #crochetfromyourheart CAL is for any crochet project that you are undertaking this summer. Lots of people are doing scrap yarn granny squares or similar long term projects and it’s really wonderful to see all of their progress. If looking through their fabulous projects doesn’t get you reaching for the crochet hook then nothing will.

A Crochet Success

It’s always a happy day when a finished object coincides with a Finished Object Friday so it’s definitely time for a happy dance as I declare my giant granny square blanket done. Even more so as it’s one of the first crochet projects of mine that I’m truly happy with.

After much deliberation about the border I opted for just 2 rounds of double crochet after the final round of dark purple. I tried a picot edge and it didn’t look right so I opted for the ‘less is more’ approach.

It's based on the Purl Soho Giant Granny Square pattern on Ravelry and I used just over 2000m leftover sock yarn on a 2.5mm hook. No matter what I do I always seem to crochet quite tightly so in the end I just embraced it and I really like the relatively tight fabric it produced. It feels pleasingly substantial without being too heavy and I can see this lap blanket getting an awful lot of use over the coming months.

The only downside is that I can’t share it in my own Everyday Knitter FB Group without breaking our strict ‘no crochet rule’ - which is pretty funny really.

I feel oddly bereft to have finished this now - and I have a strange urge to cast on another one. I think I may be mildly addicted.

False starts and firm opinions

It was the kind of scenario you just couldn’t make up. 

Picture the scene. I am doing a bit of flatlay photography for my one Instagram photo of the week. I’ve got my little blanket project in progress, my coffee still hot and the junk on the bed shoved to the side out of side.

In wanders my eldest son, he glances at the bed and asks if that’s his new blanket I’m working on. “Why yes it is” I answer, “Just like the one you asked for”.

His old baby blanket suffered a sad demise a few years ago, courtesy of our old, incontinent cat and he had been asking for a new one for a while.

He expressed concern that this new blanket, whilst using the same colours ‘looked different’ to how he remembered it. There then followed a slightly confusing conversation which only after careful consultation with my Ravelry project library did we determine that we were in fact each talking of an entirely different baby blanket.

The one I was remembering - a Moderne Baby blanket - of log cabin-like construction had in fact belonged to his brother (oops). The one he was picturing with fond memories was in fact the first baby blanket I ever designed - the Fuss Free Baby Blanket - which starts with a central square knitted flat and then has stitches picked up around that square to be knit in the round.

Realisation dawned as we looked at each other across my lovely flatlay. 

But luckily the central patch would serve just as well for the other blanket and I really hadn’t done more than an hour or two’s knitting on it. 

So, I learnt a valuable lesson. To always check what’s in someone else’s mind when they ask for a knitted something. And he learnt how to frog and rewind yarn!