Knit for Yourself this Christmas

In the past I've written about both a minimal knitters Christmas and also about gift knitting - and specifically about giving without constraints or expectations - “If you knit something set if free”

But it occurred to me that there's another aspect to gift knitting - primarily whether folks are worth knitting for in the first place.

I don't mean that in a negative or derogatory way at all. But rather, unless someone has at some point expressed an interest in or a desire to have a hand-knit item, they why would you assume that they want one.

If someone has expressed a desire for a warm woolly hat for example then by all means - all speed to your needles. Knit with a passion, a love and a burning desire to keep that loved one's head warm. If they haven't, why not save yourself the time, trouble and possible anguish and just buy them one? They won't know the difference and you will saved valuable time - and yarn

Let's face it, knitting takes time and effort and it's a deeply personal thing to do. It's an expression of our love and obviously as knitters we see that. But the average person with little or no appreciation of handcrafts might not, almost certainly will not.

You have to weigh up your time - after all that’s the most precious resource here. Even the simplest of knits can take a few hours to make and most items - scarves, shawls, cowls etc can take considerably longer. That’s time you can’t get back. Time you could spend knitting for someone you know will really appreciate it - YOU

Boundaries - and a new KAL

It’s an odd start to a knitting post to be talking about Boundaries, but please bear with me. I promise it will make sense soon.

It’s only in recent years that I’ve started to learn about boundaries - what they are and why we need them. mainly because I didn’t have any. I would say yes to everyone who asked (regardless of what else I had to do) and always put my own needs and wants last - the joys of being a born people-pleaser. The upshot of course that when you don’t have firm boundaries, you end up running around in ever decreasing circles and getting increasingly stressed.

In the last year or two I've started to learn about boundaries and how to implement them in my daily life to protect my energy, my time and my mental health. My favourite one so far is saying no to things I don't want to do - rather than soldiering on with a sense of weary martyrdom.

In my knitting life - inbetween projects I’ve been working on a series of blanket squares. Each one with a different stitch pattern. Originally I was swatching for a few new projects but the idea sort of got away from me and became a project of it’s very own. Each square has a seed stitch border - a boundary of sorts - and that got me thinking…

As I've been knitting each square I've been thinking about boundaries and how I can use them to help improve my mental health and the idea started to form for a KAL.

Each week, a new blanket square. A stitch pattern and a suggestion for a boundary or self care practice you might like to try in your own day to day. They would add up to a 12 square (4 by 3) lap blanket and some handy self-care tools to have up your sleeve for tricky days.

The pattern will be going on sale later in the week - with the pre-KAL information and a provisional start date of Wed 20th November, but I'd love to know what you think of this so far? Feedback so far has been that a biweekly KAL might be more achievable - without the pressure of a weekly update and I’d love to know how you feel about that.

Either way, watch this space, or make sure you are signed up to my newsletter so you’ll the the first to know when it goes on sale.

Wovember...already?

A woolly pile of potential. 1000m Wendy Ramsdale wool

I had such grand plans for Wovember this year. I was going to Knit All The Things. I was going to write a series of wonderfully witty and entertaining blog posts to accompany it. Did I do any of these things - no I did not.

Never mind though, as I was consoling myself with an entertaining rummage through my stash - my favourite way to cheer myself up - I came across nearly 1000m of a long discontinued Wendy Ramsdale 100% wool.

It was clearly A Sign that a woolly cast on was needed.

I haven’t decided on a project for this yet - options range from a simple sweater to a lap blanket but I thought I’d host a very loose and informal KAL for this over in the Everyday Knitter Facebook group. No rules and no knitting police. Just pick a project (or a WIP) and join in with your 100% wool project.

See you there maybe?

Revisiting old patterns - old friends

Do you ever knit a pattern more than once? Do you have an old favourite that you like to knit over and again or are you of the ‘so many patterns, so little time’ school of thought.

I usually waver in the direction of the latter. Between designs and knitting for myself and family I rarely have the time or the inclination to revisit old patterns. But just recently i found myself doing just that.

I had a lovely skein of self stripe - this is Witchy from London House Yarns - and i wanted to knit something just a little bit more complex than a plain vanilla sock. But not too complex that I’d take the emphasis away from the lovely seasonal colours. Then I remembered an old design of mine and thought it would be fun to re-knit it.

The Expresso sock was named, partly because the original colourway was Cafe au Lait (from the now no-longer-dyeing Berry Colorful Yarnings). That made me think of coffee and the habit my lovely Nana had of referring to an Espresso as an Expresso. In her mind it was an Expresso and nothing would dissuade her. That seemed apt, as this combination of infrequent cables really made the sock zip along - adding to the self stripe fun.

Do stripy socks really go faster? I’m not sure but all I can say is that I cast this on just to do the toe yesterday - and despite my best intentions to finish a sweater WIP I’m already at the heel.

And just for fun - this pattern will be free until midnight Wednesday Oct 23rd (GMT).

Just use code EXPRESSO

A motivational pep talk

Do you ever do that thing of giving your motivation a bit of a pep talk?

Just the cuff of sleeve one to finish and then power down sleeve 2 -and then I can cast on my new autumn stripy sock project. I bought this skein of “Witchy” self-stripe sock yarn from London House Yarns a few weeks ago and I am determined to cast it on while I am still feeling all the autumnal vibes.

Do you ever find yourself lining up the next project as a sort of incentive to crack on and get something finished? As an added incentive I will even wind the yarn and install it ready in it’s project bag along with needles and other notions.

The one thing I can’t do is cast on though. I know what I’m like. One minute it will just be - “Oh, I’ll just start the toe”. The next thing I’ll have a sock and a half knitted - and the sweater will still be sleeveless.

Sweater knitting at speed

I know that it's Socktober and I should be cranking out the socks with the best of them but I've been struck by the urgent need for a new slouchy sweater in my wardrobe. Whilst shopping recently I saw a few comfy, oversized sweaters for sale and in the time honoured traditions of knitters everywhere thought “I could make that”

So I dug around in my stash and found a few skeins of The Fibre Co. Cumbria yarn, a lovely plump worsted. I had a single skein of a few different colours and had struggled to work out what to do with them.

Using the numbers from the Flax sweater I decided to split each skein into a 50g ball and 2x25g balls - one for each sleeve.

I had a colourblock sweater in mind rather than stripes and am just knitting with each colour until it runs out - so far I'm really liking the effect.

And yes, the use of the 12” needle for the sleeve is a cunning plan to avoid sleeve boredom. When I sit down to knit I have to do at least a few sleeve rounds first before cracking on with the body.

As cunning plans go, so far it's going well and I have the bit firmly between my teeth