The weekend whips around again

Garter stitch in Cumbria DK from The Fibre Co.

My weeks seem to whizz past at the speed of light at the moment and before I know it Saturday morning is here again.

This weekend we are all down with a cold (again). Nothing serious but it gives us a good excuse to light the fire, pull up the drawbridge and hunker down for the weekend with good food and films.

I'm not sure I've got the hang of the whole Hyyge thing but I think our version is going to be pretty spot on this weekend.

I plan on doing a fair bit of knitting and apart from my sock designs my other commission has temporarily stalled whilst I await deliver of some particularly special yarn.

So it's time to pull out this simple garter stitch shawl and make some serious progress on it I think. After a few weeks in the WIP basket I think it's finally ready to tell me what it wants to be.

Whatever you're up to the weekend - I hope you manage to squeeze in some knitting too.

Blocking socks and making notes

Some days definitely feel more productive than others. It seems that with designing , as with so many things in life it is a case of 2 steps forward and 1 step back. Except that yesterday, after several consecutive days of backward steps I had a sudden sprint forward. New socks were blocked and photographed - in the 30 minutes of decent daylight that Essex has to offer at this time of year - patterns were drafted and charts charted.

Working a day job as well as designing has its ups and downs and there are times when I think I could be much more productive if I were to design full time. However, in my heart I know that at the moment I quite like the contrast between my two jobs. Being at my day job allows some space for my creative brain to have a bit of time off and to relax. Some of my best ideas pop into my head whilst commuting and it's not unknown for me to have to stop suddenly in a lay by to wrote something down (I know better than to rely on my memory).

Without the space created by my day job, that wouldn't happen and instead I fear that the constant pressure to create would be too much - my poor, flagging creative brain would just give up and wave a little white flag.

So for now, I'm content to be exactly where I want to be. Although if I didn't have to get up in the cold and dark to go to work on a Friday morning I would be really, quite happy.

I'll be quite honest, with everything that is going on in the world right now, me waffling on about my knitting seems irrelevant and inconsequential. Massive world events are taking place and much of the social media I see seems to be pretty hostile and angry right now.

It's not that I'm not knitting - I knit on through everything - it's just that I am struggling to write about it with everything else that is going on

One thing which has struck me though is the importance of keeping a positive outlook. It's easy to adopt a ' we're doomed' approach and run around panicking in the manner of Dad's Army or we can choose to see the positive and the uplifting in the everyday.

I read an article just this morning about how the women's March and the #pussyhat project has created a whole new wave of women (and men) keen to learn to knit. So much so that knitting stores in the US have chosen to lay on extra knitting classes at the weekend to cater to them all. More knitters has to be a good thing..right? Because knitters are amazing people who could probably move mountains given some sturdy yarn and some suitably sharp needles.

So, this week I am taking the decision to embrace a more positive outlook and rather than descending into Twitter- fuelled angst I am looking for practical things you can do to make a difference.

Some ideas which I came up with are:

Clear out some stash and donate it to Knit for Peace.

Donate unwanted toiletries or clothes to a local shelter.

Check out the Women's March London 10 Actions project.

Donate to or promote the work of a charity close to your heart.

I'm sure you can come up with your own personal list of things things that are important to you. But your challenge for today is to look for the positive in the everyday stuff and if it involves yarn, so much the better.

Rookie error

In an alternative world this sock, given the amount of time I've spent on it should be well past the heel by now. One of the pitfalls of designing of course is that a fair amount of ripping out is required from time to time but this time the errors are entirely of my own making.

The intended design is fairly cable heavy with additional twisted stitches and the design is already charted and good to go. All I had to do was knit it.

The first two attempts went wrong when I mis-crossed cables. Apparently I never learnt that knitting late at night with tired eyes and dim lighting could lead to problems. Third time lucky though and I was well on my way down the cuff. Cables were looking good, the stitch definition looked fantastic. Things were going well. 

But wait. I had cast on my standard 64st and totally forgotten to allow for the fact that cables draw the fabric in and make the resulting sock circumference narrower. A good rule of thumb normally is to add half the number of stitches that you need for each cable. So if you have 2 cables which each involve 6 stitches you would need to add 2x3=6 stitches to keep the final circumference the same.

So it was a case of ripping back again, adding in the correct number of stitches and away we go again. This time...I've definitely got it right...

Mornings like these

Frosty morning in Essex.

Here in my part of the UK we are experiencing an unusual prolonged period of calm, cold, still weather. Each morning waking up to a hard and beautiful frost and the sun slowly rising through the mIst.

Mornings like this are a sheer delight and worth any amount of scraping ice off car windscreens. I'll admit that our mornings are usually far from idyllic. There is more than the usual amount of school uniform related chaos and last minute homework dramas. As we rush out of the door to drive into town there is little time to stop and admire, but these last few mornings have been so beautiful that our usual walk from the town car park to school has been much slower than usual.

Suitably wrapped up snugly (smugly?) in layers of handknits we have taken our time and paused to admire the amazing ice sculptures. Well, I paused and DS2 set about trying to break ice puddles with a stick but he was admiring it in his own special way.

Obviously as a Knitter, mornings like this being their own special joy. Being able to select from a range of beautiful handknit woollen shawls and scarves is a great feeling, as is being able to say casually "Oh, I made it" when a work colleague asks where you bought said shawl. But it also makes me realise that I tend to concentrate my knitting on certain items. Somewhat embarrassingly I don't own a pair of knitted gloves/mitts having lost my last pair and most of the hats I made I gave away to family. Surveying the contents of our "woolly items" basket I can't help thinking that this summer might have to be spent with some dk/worsted yarn making some new woolly items for next winter. 

So if you see me knitting woollen mitts in July, you'll know why. 

Hours in the day

It's not an original thought but it is a true one. We are given the same number of hours every day and it's up to us how we chose to spend those hours. Once the essentials such as sleeping, eating and working are taken care of we, each of us, have time at our disposal.

I chanced upon a conversation in the pub last night where a neighbour was recounting a tale of a house he had visited for work purposes which was, according to him, a mess. He described washing up left undone and a heap of laundry in the kitchen and then to cap it all, the owner of the house was sitting on the sofa - Knitting!

Imagine the horror of it!. His tone of outrage and disbelief was palpable. Why would any self respecting woman be sitting, wasting time knitting when there were clearly domestic duties to be attended to.

Needless to say I found all this very amusing. I didn't try to persuade him otherwise - I know from experience that he is a stubborn and recalcitrant man but I did find it very funny. Especially since I had spent most the afternoon with my feet up with my boys watching films and yes...knitting.

Yes, the kitchen floor could do with a clean, yes there was laundry to be done (although school uniforms were done) but we had a fun, snuggly and knitterly afternoon. It made me happy and recharged in a way that no amount of house cleaning would. I'm sure that the boys will also have enjoyed the afternoon much more than if I had spent it cleaning and putting off their requests to snuggle until an unspecified later time.

And I make no apologies for it.