Don't be a flat squirrel

As knitting blogs go - you’ve got to admit that the title is a bit of a strange one.

A favourite saying of an old college lecturer of mine - this one has stuck with me over the years and never has it been more apt than now. Whether it is deciding on which new sweater pattern to buy from Ravelry to picking a new logo for the web site I can be guilty of the most horrible procrastination and over thinking.

The end result is predictable of course, I don’t do anything.

The worst thing that can happen to a knitting project is that it stalls at a point where a decision is needed. Do I have enough yarn to make 2 full length sleeves or should I cut them short? Should I stop and turn the heel now or turn them into afterthought heels?

A quick inventory of my WIP basket(s) shows that all of them - apart from an interminable grey sweater for DH - are stalled pending a decision from me. And the daft thing is that in most cases a quick 10 or 15 minutes of quality time with that particular WIP is enough for me to assess it, work out what needs to be done and to make a decision.

Indecision struck again this weekend during my #bedinburghyarnfest. I was determined to cast on a new sweater for myself and my task was simple. Pop on to Ravelry and find a suitable pattern. Predictably though, the more patterns I looked at the more indecisive I became. Having a time constraint didn't help the sense of pressure either.

My learning point from this was that my queue is in desperate need of a good sort out and a matching up to yarn in my stash. That way, next time I can make the process a lot more straightforward.

For this week though, my task is simple. Just make a decision. Whether I am faced with a WIP or an issue on my website. Make a decision and move on.

Not now, I'm counting

I'm currently enjoying working on a fab colourwork project - a kit from Lucy Locket Land - and it is a sheer joy to work on. Lovely, sheepy wool, bright colours and the sheer joy of two handed colourwork knitting. When you are in the zone it's a great feeling and you hum contentedly to yourself as you work your way along the rows and see the wonderful pattern emerging.

Except if you are in my house. In the same way that kids can sense the opening of a fridge door or the fact that you are embarking on an Important Phone Call, my two have an unerring knack for knowing when I'm in the middle of a knitting project that requires counting.

Any requests from "have you seen my trainers" to "the cats have brought in a mouse again" is met with a renewed focus on the work in the front of me and the muttered response "I'm counting". It's like they have a sixth sense and without fail, they know exactly the worst possible time to interrupt me.

They are pretty quick learners though, I'll give them that. By the end of the weekend they were wise enough to realise that if I had the 'grey woolly thing' in my lap then they should just back away quietly. My eldest boy even went for extra brownie points for sidling back into the room, quietly depositing a jaffa cake at the side of me and then leaving again.

I think I know what happened to the rest of the packet of jaffa cakes but it was a small price to pay for getting some uninterrupted time with my new favourite project.

Things I learnt from my Festival At Home

Don't get me wrong, whilst I thoroughly enjoyed my #bedinburghyarnfest day I'll be the first to admit that the day didn't go entirely in accordance with my nice neat plan.

• It didn't start well, when immobile DH insisted on coming on the grocery shop with me. I had planned on a quick, military style operation to get the necessary snacks. Shepherding a bear with a sore head(knee) around a crowded Waitrose full of intolerant and grumpy people slowed me down somewhat.

And my quick browse in Ravelry threatened to derail proceedings. Chronic indecision struck and not only could I not decide on a sweater pattern I also couldn't find a single pair of 4mm needle tips in the house. Faced with the choice of pulling the needles out of an existing project (don't judge - we've all done it) or settling down with an existing project I opted for the latter.

I made good progress on my colourwork hot water bottle cosy but then had to search for something easier for rugby watching. My stash search produced 3 skeins of Blacker Yarns Cornish Tin 2 which would have been perfect but on closer inspection one of the skeins had an almighty tangle in it. I decided that untangling it wasn't in the spirit of the day so it went back into the stash.

I did manage to locate a beautiful yarn cake - bought at EYF last year from The Wool Kitchen. A ready to knit gradient yarn from the Urban hints range. This has been cast on into a nice simple shawl. For now I'm just working simple stocking stitch and I'll decide on a border later on.

For next  time my learning points would be to

• Wind yarn ahead of time
• Plan a new cast on properly and amass the necessary materials - don't try to do it on the fly
• Buy more snack - and don't forget the cake!

The secret of a good festival at home: A list of course

Like anything else, the secret to a successful knitting day at home is all in the planning. After much thought and deliberation ( and my 2nd cup of coffee) I hearby present my agenda for the day.

8.00am to 10.00am: Market shopping and domestic chores. Particular attention being given to the buying of snacks which are easy for a 10 and 11 year old to prepare and eat (as they will be in charge of feeding themselves and immobile DH).

10.00 to 10:30am: Home to unload shopping and make offspring aware of location of all of Saif snacks. Mental note to check kick off times for Six Nations rugby.

10.30am to 11:00am: Ravelry surfing to find pattern for DK weight sweater for me. This time slot is strictly limited to avoid falling down a black hole.

11:00am to 12noon : Cast on for new colourwork hot water bottle cosy. Have a slice of cake.

12noon to 13:00: Lunch and reading a good book (must pop into library whilst in town)

13:00 to 14:00: Cast on for DK weight sweater. Have another slice of cake.  

14:00 to 15:00: Check downstairs that no one is injured, bleeding or starving and work on colourwork project again.

15:00 to 16:00: Try to finish stripy sock in progress and set up for afterthought heel.

16:00 to 17:00: Stash rootle. Find a fab skein of yarn for an impulsive and frivolous cast on. Have a cheeky glass of Prosecco.

17:00 to 18:00: work on frivolous and impulsive cast on.

18:00 to 19:00: Join family for dinner (take Prosecco with me) and catch up with rugby chat.

19:00 to 21:00: Find good Netflix family film. Settle down with Mitered Square sock yarn blanket.

21:00 to 22:00: Small peeps and immobile DH to bed. Settle back on sofa. Bring remainder of cake out of hiding and finish it - being careful to cancel crumbs.

22:00: and so to bed.

If I'm cunning I may be able to repeat this on Sunday too - fingers crossed.

Beating FOMO: Or "What to do when you can't go to a knitting festival"

FOMO - It is real and can really drag you down.

Fear of Missing Out is so common, especially since so much of our life is online and nowhere is this more apparent than when there is a big yarn show or event that is taking place - and you can’t go. Obviously, it isn’t possible to go to every show and obviously, you hope that everyone there has a wonderful and woolly time, but a tiny part of you wants to curl up with a box of tissues and cry because you can’t be joining them.

And so it is with Edinburgh this year. My favourite ever knitting festival and the one thing I write in my new calendar before anything else. But this year events conspired against us and my husband took the chance to have a world-class surgeon operate on his knee and hopefully restore him back to many years of fell-walking fitness.

So now I find myself with a free day on Saturday 8th March when I had planned to be sky high on yarn fumes instead.

I thought I would come up with a few top tips to help soothe you if you are experiencing similar feelings of FOMO this weekend:

1. Visit your LYS or plan an outing to an LYS near you. The yarn fumes will be there just the same - only maybe not so overpowering.

2. Better still, rope in a few like-minded friends. Add some cake (gin is optional) and you could have the start of a cracking alternative party.

3. Delve deep into your stash in search of treasure.

4. Cast on for a special new project

5. Share in the experience by following your friends online and via social media - a double edged sword this one. But cake (and gin) will help and you will get to experience the stash acquisition without the pain to your credit card.

6. You could even offer a virtual shopper service to your firends who are there - removed from the yarn fumes you are likely to be more rational and thus could advise on crucial yarn related choices.

If you have some time over the weekend why not join us in the #festivalathome fun over on the Everyday Knitter Facebook group or on Instagram/Twitter. Just use the hashtag #festivalathome and let us know how you will be enjoying your festival free weekend.

When swatching is a pleasure

There are times when swatching is a genuine pleasure rather than a chore and never more so then when you are getting your mitts on some brand new yarn to road test.

Samite is a new and permanent addition to the Blacker Yarns range and is an exciting blend of Blue-faced Leicester, Shetland, Gotland and 20% silk. It is a fabulous 3ply yarn which is woollen spun to keep its bounce and add strength that you don't normally find in silk blended yarns. Because there is a blend of dark and light fibres this adds great depth of colour and little nupps of silk add texture and interest to the finished fabric.

I knit my swatch in plain stocking stitch to see what the smooth fabric would look like and I was so impressed by how it knit up and how it blocked. The yarn has a beautifully light hand but yet has a little bit of woolly toothiness which makes it a real delight to work with. On 3mm needles I got a gauge of 21st and 28 rows to 4" and the resulting light and airy fabric would work well for a light summer cardigan maybe.

I knit a Peasy cardigan a few years ago using Rowan Felted Tweed and it strikes me that this would make a most excellent subsitute, maybe with just a little bit of adjustment for maths gauge. A colourwork yolked cardigan or sweater would also work really well with this yarn - the only difficulty might be in choosing your colours.

The 15 shades are beautiful - as you would expect from Blacker Yarns - and they all work wonderfully well together. And the names! Who wouldn't want to work with yarns named Aspen's Shiver or Tide of Dreams.

The yarn is having its debut at Edinburgh Yarn Festival and there is sure to be a lot of interest in it. But the lovely folk at Blacker yarns are keen to reassure people that this is a permanent addition to the range and will be available for general purchase in the very near future.