If Knitters Ruled the World

A casual conversation online the other day sparked the idea for this blog post. We were casually chatting about politics, and putting the world to rights in general and one of us commented that "If knitters ruled the world they would make a much better job of it".

That thought has been buzzing around in my head for several days now and I can't help but think that there are many things we take for granted in the knitting community, that if they were routinely practiced in the everyday world, would make it a much better place to be.

For example, with tongue ever so slightly in cheek and in no particular order I give you

1. Posting a picture online of something you had accomplished or were proud of (analogous to posting an FO picture) would elicit supportive comments and genuine praise from those around you. It would be generally accepted by the community you were part of that if they couldn't say anything nice about something, then they would simply refrain from comment. There would be no snarkiness, no attempts to outdo your post with something fabulous they had done and no suggestions about how they would have done it better.
2. The accepted response to someone being in difficulties, depressed or generally feeling down would be to give them a hug, a cup of tea and some cake. Yarn would also be nice. There would be no attempts to solve their problems for them, to tell them how to 'pull themselves together' or to make them feel worse about their situation. There would be tea, sympathy and no judging.
3. It would be perfectly acceptable, indeed positively expected for you to whip out your needles and knit at every available opportunity. There would be no assumptions that simply because your hands were moderately occupied your ears, eyes and brain were not capable of being fully focussed on the task or conversation in hand. This type of multi-skilling would merely be recognised for the efficient use of time that it is.
4. All telephones would automatically have a hands-free option and saucepans would be self-stirring. It would really help if cars were self steering too but having seen some of the news coverage of driverless cars I'm reserving judgement on this.
5. Ice cream vans would be replaced by Yarn on Wheels. Little mobile LYS's on wheels who would regularly rock up in your neighbourhood and have a permanent and inexhaustable supply of needle tips, buttons, tape measures and stitch markers - all the things that you seem to run out of on a regular basis. They could keep the jaunty jingle though.

In general I think that more cake, more tea and more yarn is the solution to more problems that we admit. If we just extended the tolerance, support and friendship of our online community into the wider world I am firmly convinced that knitters really could make the world a better place.

Maths fail

I know it would ordinarily be obvious to anyone who was thinking straight but in my defence I was overcome by yarn fumes and the strong urge of spring startitis.

Crochet, as we all know uses up more yarn than knitting. Which makes it ideal for stashbusting purposes - although careful planning can be needed to ensure you don’t run out of yarn.

When starting my corner to corner crochet blanket I thought briefly about joining up all my scraps into a large magic ball and just letting the colours change as they fell naturally. That was far too easy of course and didn’t quite suit the way my brain works so, after a bit of experimentation I decided to go for two rows of each colour to produce a striped effect.

So far, so good.

The problem is of course, I’m sure you following at the back have already picked this up, is that as the rows get longer I am going to need a lot more yarn. And I mean A Lot more. The average mini skein has 20g yarn (approx 80m) and much of my scrap yarn doesn’t weigh more than this either. My blanket is currently measuring 50cm along the two long sides and I am already using up about 15g yarn per stripe.

It doesn’t take a maths genius to figure this out, but it has taken me two days. Draw your own conclusions. But, as the loveable Baldrick of Blackadder fame would say “I have a cunning plan”.

Short of abandoning my perfectionist scruples and switching to a magic ball philosophy, the next best thing is to make my blanket from 4 panels. I will work the first panel until the stripe takes up 20g yarn and then start the decreases. Based on where I am now I estimate that each panel will be 60cm (24") square - giving me a decent sized lap blanket of 120 x 120cm (47 x 47"). I will end up with lots of small bits of yarn which will be ideal for adding into the other 3 squares - ensuring that the blanket still has a cohesive feel.

This also has the happy accident of keeping the project high on the portability stakes. Rendering a project perfect for ‘sofa knitting only’ is the kiss of death for many of my long term projects, and this way I can still carry it along with me (and it can come on holiday with me too).

Vernal equinox

The weather today hasn't quite got the memo, as today starts off grey and gloomy but today marks the official 1st day of spring. The Vernal Equinox when night and day are of equal length and from here on in the nights will be getting noticeably shorter.

Extra daylight is always a boon for the busy knitter who wants to actually photograph their knits in something approximating natural light. Even if it does mean crouching in the hallway with the front door wide open trying to get enough light onto your project. Perfectly normal behaviour as far as I'm concerned although I did startle the postman the other week. Fortunately he has delivered enough squishy parcels to be well aware that I'm a knitter and thus, given to activities that non knitters might find be musing. 

I'm fairly certain that being greeted by the sight of me sitting in the open hallway with my feet in the air falls into this category. The knitters amongst us would know instantly that I was attempting to take photos of my finished socks and that the 'feet in the air' technique is a well established means of achieving this. It also helps to have everything abs of steel for this maneuver which I definitely don't. The non knitters might think I had fallen over or be attempting a weird yoga position maybe.

My postman just smiled, said 'Morning love' and deposited the latest squishy parcel on the doorstep.

Big plans

Blossom has big plans for the day. And by big I mean mainly sleeping, grooming and a little light napping. She was thrilled to bits to discover a snazzy new blanket on the bed this morning. The fact that it is only a small blanket corner is neither here nor there it is clearly worthy of further inspection. 

I would dearly love to stay here too. A second cup of coffee has been consumed and the house is just starting to wake up around me. Time to move and get my jobs done for the day but despite Blossom's best attempts the blanket will be rolled away and will come with me. There will be enough cat hair integrated into this project during its lifetime without adding any more at this stage.

I know full well that by the time I come back to this spot later this afternoon Blossom will have barely moved- except for the aforementioned light grooming. In my next life I'd like to come back as a cat please. Or maybe I'll wait until cats have evolved opposable thumbs first. Not sure I could deal with all that napping without a little knitting to break it up.

Stolen moments

As much as I'd love to have a peaceful and relaxing weekend this is definitely one of those times when the Knitting will have to take a back seat. A busy programme of family events and general 'stuff' means that the Knitting 'du jour' needs to be simple, portable and with absolutely no counting needed. I have events to take the kids to, shopping and the usual weekend stuff but the saving grace is several hours of rugby watching time.

I've learnt the hard way that I can't do complicated stuff and even hope to follow the pitch side action but this version of my Fuss Free Festival Shawl is perfect for that. I'm thinking I might make this larger than the original single-skein version by adding in some grey stripes at the end. I just need to dig through my stash for a suitably darkish grey and see if I have anything that will work. If not, I may just have to do a little online shop later - never exactly a hardship.

Whatever you are doing today I hope you manage to squeeze in a little knitting too. I'm going to pop a progress marker in my shawl now and see how much I can add to it in the odd minutes that I get to pick it up. Will report back...

Spring Startitis

Spring is definitely in full swing here with noticeably lighter mornings and beautiful spring flowers popping out everywhere you look. The lighter mornings are an absolute godsend for the knitter and photographer. The luxury of being able to take photographs almost whenever you like - as opposed to having to hustle like mad to get your photographs done in the 10 minutes of daylight you have available to you.

Spring does also bring a bit of a problem too. I refer of course to Spring Startitis. A well recognised event which goes hand in hand with the Autumn version currently afflicting our friends in the Southern Hemisphere. A change of season brings about a restlessness in the seasoned knitter. Suddenly the current projects on the needles look dull and staid in contrast to the glorious colours we are seeing in nature. We want to scamper freely in colour, to cast off our dull, woolly projects and cast on something pretty, fresh and brand spanking new.

This year I have decided to just go with the flow and cast on whatever the heck I feel like. Some projects may end up becoming finished and some may not make the cut after my initial enthusiasm wanes. But regardless, I am enjoying the change of season and Spring Startitis is just one way to welcome spring with open arms.