It's OK to not be productive

It's OK not to not feel like knitting
It's OK to not feel productive
It's OK to just sit and look out of the window

I don't know about you but I'm feeling overwhelmed by the smallest things right now. Not least the plethora of adverts and messages on social media telling me now is the perfect time to learn a language or do that course.

Turns out that no, it really isn’t

I'm having a hard enough time keeping it together in front of the kids, doing all the usual mum stuff and getting our house ready for who knows how many weeks of two adults and two kids working from home in a small 3 bed semi.

Mercifully my temperature blanket has become my knitting of choice right now. Absolutely no need to think, plan or wind yarn. Just sit down and knit in the allotted colour for the day.

Who knew at the start of the year that my blanket would be something I actively enjoy working on. I thought I'd have reached the tedium stage by now but it turns out that’s exactly what my brain needs.

I'll be ignoring all marketing emails and unsubscribing from anything that tells me "now is the perfect time to..."

Unless of course it is "now is the perfect time to prune your social media and eliminate all unnecessary crap" 

Permission Slip

For the first time in over a week I've felt like picking up my pen and writing. Most days I knit, but if I'm struggling either mentally or physically then my writing is the first thing to go - which is ironic as writing is the thing I know that helps me the most.

Getting thoughts out of my head and into paper is the best kind of therapy there is - a notebook never judges after all.

And the first thing I'm writing today is a big fat Permission Slip.

Feeling unwell and spending more time in the house I've been online a lot more. Yesterday I realized that I had spent most of the day circling around Twitter reading a mish mash of facts, opinions and rants from people as scared as I was. Put simply it was the worst way to spend my day.

So inspired by JessicaRoseWilliams on Instagram today I've come up with a few simple strategies on my permission slip to myself

1. Turn off Twitter (in fact delete it from my phone this weekend)

2. Check out the WHO and Public Health England website once per day

3. Watch the main news headlines and then turn it off

4. Journal a page a day. No censorship just write how I feel without having to adjust it to consider how what I say affects others (my youngest son is very upset by this too)

5. Go for a daily walk

6. Cook something nice from scratch, even if it's just carrot soup

7. Read a book - fiction - and as far from the 21st century as possible

8. Hug my family

We often joke about retreating into our ""family bubble" at difficult times - at least we have plenty of experience of that

Just writing this helped me, I hope it helps you too 💕

Beginning with the end in mind

Or in my case, I think it should read ‘Beginning with the ends in mind’

Because of course I didn’t. I ploughed headlong into my Temperature Blanket with nothing more than a vague hope/expectation that I would deal with the ends as I went along. Predictably I didn’t - well, I did for a few days but then I got bored.

So now I have 60 days worth of blanket - and very pleased I am with it too. With the endy, tangly mess at one side - not so much.

I had thoughts of maybe just braiding it and having an attractive ‘french plait’ feature down one side but after doing a little reading - and I weirdly dreamt about it last night too - I think I’m going to go for the option of working an i-cord tube and rolling up the ends inside the tube as I go.

I’m planning to have a little practice later on today to see how I go - I’ll report back just as soon as my cold medicine kicks in.

10 uses for scrap yarn - that don't involve knitting a blanket

Scrap yarn, leftover yarn, whatever you call it we all have it. Unless you are the most minimal and thrifty of knitters we all have a little (or not so little) stash of leftovers from other projects.

The question is what on earth do you do with it?

Yes of course there is the ubiquitous sock yarn blanket or mitered square blanket, or a mahoosive triple stranded project but sometimes you just want something quick and easy. Something that uses up odds and ends but doesn’t require a life-long commitment to yet another epic project.

So here, in no particular order are a few of my favourites:

Knit tiny hearts

Make felted tumble dryer balls

Knit tiny hats for prem babies

Knit scrappy socks - the clasped weft join is your friend here

Donate it to Knit for Peace

Make a magic ball

Knit a cute animal - I love the Bunny Nuggets pattern by Rebecca Danger

Make a pom pom (or two)

Knit an i-cord cosy for your ear buds to prevent tangling

Put it in a vase and make a feature of it!

PIN FOR LATER:

Temperature blanket: January update

It’s a few days late but I promised you an monthly update on the corner to corner knitted temperature blanket and so, here we are.

I have to say that I’m really enjoying it so far, but of course it is early days with nice short rows and it is manageable as a lunchtime/portable knitting project. I quite enjoy my lunchtime routine of checking the noon temperature and then adding my 4 rows of garter stitch for the day.

I’ll probably feel differently in June when I’m trapped under a huge woolly monster.

With the issue of portability in mind I did give some thought to creating 4 corner to corner squares - ie increasing to day 45, then decreasing to create 1 square at the end of March. The idea of more portable squares is an attractive one I have to admit. But for me, some of the aesthetic joy of these blankets is the continuation of gradient as you move through the year. Breaking it up into squares can be really stunning, visually but it’s not really the look I’m aiming for.

So, I think I’ll have to resign myself to some stay-at-home knitting for those summer months. Perhaps with a cunningly placed lap tray to keep the thing off my knees.

A tale of two blankets

Top: knitted mitered square blanket, Bottom: crocheted granny square blanket

A tale of two blankets

Both are sock yarn blankets and both are well loved. 

But the crochet one took a fraction of the time (about 3 months vs 3 years) and weighs a heck of a lot more. I haven’t done the exact maths but my knitted mitered square blanket weighs about 400g (that’s approx 1600m sock yarn). The crocheted one is a bit smaller in size and weighs over 650g (well over 2500m sock yarn)

As much as a mitered square blanket will always be my first love there's no denying that a crochet blanket is a speedier way to work through my leftovers. I know that there is some debate on whether crochet does actually use more yarn than knitting but at least in my experience, the giant crochet granny square has freed up a lot more space in my leftover yarn drawer than the mitered square one ever did.

Just to seal the deal further I’m now contemplating a crochet blanket holding yarn double for even more stashbusting potential.

Our February theme for the Stash Appreciation Society is going to be holding yarn double/triple so I think I'm going to have to give this a go - in the interests of scientific research if nothing else.

If you are interested in what we are up to in the group you can find out more information at the link below - or just pop me a question.