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" 

Knit The Good Yarn

If there was ever the perfect time to knit up that special skein of yarn from your stash, I think this is it. We all have one of two skeins that we are ridiculously attached to. It might be a souvenir from a fabulous holiday, a gift from a loved friend or in this case an irreplaceable skein of yarn from a talented dyer who passed away much too soon.

Sparkleduck yarn was my first introduction to hand dyed yarn. Stocked at my local yarn shop (sadly also no more) it was like a magnet to my new knitters eyes. I rapidly built up a little collection and over the years I have steadily knitted the skeins - a few of my early sock designs such a Bleaberry Tarn used her yarn and it always drew admirous comments.

This is the skein that I have always held on to - a skein of her sparkle sock yarn in the colourway Here Be Dragons. It is stunningly beautiful - my speedy photo doesn’t do it justice - and so many times I have gone to use it, only to worry that whatever I chose won’t show it off to full effect - and tucked it back into the drawer.

But now seems to the perfect time to go for it. I carefully wound it by hand yesterday. Spent several hours deciding on a pattern - before deciding to go for my usual option of winging it - and cast on this morning over my cup of coffee. Remembering the all to few occasions where I met Heather - both at the Sheep Shop and also at Fibre East.

If you would like to join me in using up something special from your stash while we all cope with the uncertainty and stress of the current situation, please do. I am using the hashtag #KnitTheGoodYarn - please do use it as well and we can all follow each other and offer a little support.

Knit strong!

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.

How to knit a mitered square blanket

How to knit a mitered square blanket - available here

The wonderful things about mitered square blankets (sometimes called memory blankets) is that you can really personalise them and make them your own. Most patterns are really just a basic recipe to help you get the idea of how they are constructed and after that you really can freestyle to your hearts content. They are ideal for stashbusting and using up scraps of yarn - it's so pleasing to construct a real, beautiful, practical "thing" from a what is essentially a bag full of scraps.

Many mitered square blankets embrace the colourful nature of hand-dyed sock yarn and show it off to great effect. You can go as wild as you like or stick to a more restrained colour palette.

My Mitered Square blanket is often commented on although in truth it still isn't finished. I still use it as a blanket - I just haven't yet decided how large I want it to be. So every now and again I'll pull it out and add another row of squares. Each little square only uses about 3g yarn (yes - I really did measure it on my little digital scales) and so it's perfect for using up all but the tiniest bits of yarn. If you don't have tiny digital scales, a tightly wound ball of sock yarn equivalent in size to a walnut approximates to about 5g yarn in my experience.

Unless you have a very specific colour scheme in mind there a few points it is worth considering before you start your blanket.

Variety: In most cases the blankets really do look better with more variety in colour. To get the best result you really do need a lot of different scraps otherwise you run the risk of the same colour cropping up too frequently (or even adjoining). If that's fine with you then by all means go for it but one of the most common complaints from people who have started a blanket and then stopped is that they don't have enough variety to choose from. For this reason, sock yarn mini swaps are quite common amongst knitters and knitting groups.

Size of squares: It sounds blindingly obvious but it's worth mentioning at the start. The larger your individual squares are the more yarn they will need. Some people embrace this wholeheartedly and are happy to just knit large squares and add in new colours to the square as each scrap runs out. My brain is wired to need a little more order than that, so I'm happiest when I can complete a small square in one single colour. I've also seen some really fantastic blankets knit with teeny, tiny squares (about an inch across) which look fantastic - but the thought of all those ends is enough to make me hyperventilate.

Portability: Again, forgive me for stating the obvious but apart from the initial stages, this is not a very portable project. You have to take your yarn scraps with you if you want to work on it out of the house and if you are the type who likes order and symmetry (raises hand) then you might need to have space to spread it out and determine where colours are placed.

Square 1

Square 1: 

This tutorial starts by casting on 20 stitches with a stitch marker placed on the needle at the halfway point. This will yield a very small square though, so for your blanket you might want to think about starting with 40 stitches in total (20 +20).

For my sock yarn blanket I use a 3.25 mm needle - the fabric doesn't need to be as dense as for socks - but's worth experimenting a little to get a fabric you are happy with. You are going to be spending a lot of time with this project after all.

With your first yarn, cast on 10 stitches using the long tail cast on, place a marker and then cast on another 10. The next row is your right side and you are going to work as follows:

RS: Knit to 2 st before marker, ssk, slip marker, k2tog, knit to end.

WS: K 

These 2 rows form the basis of your mitered square.

All you are doing is decreasing two stitches on either side of the central marker on each RS row. WS rows are just knit all the way across. If you find yourself getting confused about your right and wrong side, clip a removable stitch marker into the fabric of the right side. Once you add in more squares and join in colours it will be much more obvious which is the right side.

Keep working in this manner until you have 2 stitches left on the needle. Pass the first stitch over the 2nd to bind off, break yarn and draw the yarn through the loop to finish your square. Now the fun starts as you pick a second colour to join to the first.

Square 2

First you need to cast on stitches for one side of your square (10 for this example), place a marker and then pick up and knit 10 stitches from the right hand side of the square (the right side as you look at it).This is done with the right side of your first square facing you - stitches are always picked up in this manner.

Turn the work and knit 1 row (WS), then proceed as usual with your mitered decreases. 

Carry on as usual and in no time at all you will have a second square joined to the first.

Square 3

Square 3

With your third colour you are now going to pick up and knit stitches along the left hand side of square 1. In our example that means picking up and knitting 10 stitches with your new colour, placing a marker and then casting on a further 10.

To easily cast on stitches in the middle of a row I like to use the simple thumb cast on. For many of us, this is how we first learn to cast on and whilst it can be a bit loopy and lacing in structure, in my experience it's fine for these little squares. After this you just proceed as you did with square 2. Knit back along the WS and then continue alternating decrease and plain rows.

Square 4

Square 4: Are you hooked yet?

The 'corner' patches are always fun as you are picking up stitches from sides of 2 squares. With your next colour, pick up and knit 10 stitches from the left hand side of square 2, place marker and pick up another 10 stitches from the right hand side of square 3.

Turn and knit along the WS. Then work as usual. 

From this point on it really is just a matter of having fun and playing with colour. You will start the next section by casting on 10 stitches, placing a marker and then picking up and knitting along the left hand side of square 2.

Once you get the hang of it, it really does become intuitive and you'll be excited to see how it starts to come together. The only mistake you can really make is to accidentally start your mitered decreases in the wrong corner but, honestly you'll soon see if you've done that - and you could always call it a design feature. Honestly, the hardest part, once you get into the swing of it is choosing the next colour - but that’s also the most fun.

As this is a bit of long tutorial, that you might want to save and come back to I have condensed it into a handy PDF. The Mitered Square ebook has been re-written for 2023 and now includes information on the yarn amounts you’ll need for different sizes of squares - and for options in different yarn weights too (sock weight, DK and with sock yarn held double.

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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!

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