Knitting as therapy

Do you feel as though sometimes your brain is completely full? Like a cup of coffee filled to the absolute brim and the slightest movement or the tiniest sliver of additional information will cause it to spill over? I am prone to over thinking at the best of times but recently I have been feeling this more and more.

I am a huge fan of Writing Things Down and my belief in the power of a good long list is unshakeable, but recently I stopped journalling. Everything seemed to overwhelming and and certainly during March and April all the days seemed the same - writing about them seemed rather pointless and if I’m honest, pretty depressing. Journalling seemed to encourage me to dwell on the negatives and I felt rather like a hamster on a wheel.

Recently though I’ve discovered two things - the fabulous team at the Positive Planner who have produced a bullet journal in addition to their daily gratitude journal, and also Ruth Poundwhite’s Journalling for Business course. Both have which have inspired me to get my pen back out and write things down again.

Sitting, knitting something simple (in this case a garter stitch washcloth) and writing down ideas and thoughts as they come to me, with no pressure and no feeling that I’m doing things wrong. It’s been remarkably therapeutic and I really can’t recommend it highly enough. Even if you never look at the pages again after you’ve written them - the thoughts are out of your head - and that’s the main thing. The impact on my mental health has been really striking in recent weeks - although I’m sure that’s also partly due to spending less time on social media (Facebook in particular).

In case you need a simple pattern for a washcloth to try this for yourself I have jotted mine down here. Please feel free to bookmark it for future reference if you too, have a ‘Brain Too Full’ moment.

“WASHCLOTH PATTERN: CO 2 sts,
K1, kfb, k to end. Repeat this row until you have 50sts.
k1, ssk, k to end. repeat this row until you have 2 sts.
Cast off.”

— Louise Tilbrook Designs

Hot weather knitting

You know it is officially Too Hot to Knit, when you see me knitting with cotton yarn. Ordinarily I steer well clear of cotton. I find it hard, inflexible and top of the list for hand pain when I knit with it.

But the last few days with temperatures above 30c in the South East of England (and in the 20s at night) have meant that just looking at wool brings me out in a sweat. So cool cotton is the order of the day.

I was given one of those fancy facial cleansers that you need to take off with hot water and a cloth, ages ago and I haven’t used it because of lack of said cloth. Of course I could have bought a cloth (or cut up an old sheet or something) but like any self-respecting knitter my inner voice piped up to say ‘you could knit that’.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who, when faced with buying something that is either needed or wanted puts it off with a thought to make it yourself. Of course the reality is that other things compete for your knitting attention and the needed thing never gets made.

And in my case, the lovely gifted thing also doesn’t get used but just sits on my bathroom shelf looking fancy.

So, it may be ‘cracking the flag’s’ outside as my Grandma used to say, but come this evening I might be hot, but at least I’ll have clean pores.

Do you have any go-to patterns or yarns for hot weather knitting? I’d ordinarily go for socks but even they feel ‘too woolly’ for me right now.

Exciting times ahead

I’m genuinely thrilled that so many people have enthusiastically embraced the Facebook-free experience of the new Everyday Knitter home and are happily finding their way around as we embark on a second week there.

It is different to Facebook - not least because your home feed is chronological (whoop!) and you get to customise what you see - but partly because we are so used to the Facebook way of doing things it naturally takes time to adjust.

As I’ve been spending a lot less time on Facebook recently I have started to notice how I automatically tense when I pop back in to check on things. I find being there incredibly stressful and I’m sure it must be the same for others, we just don’t notice it when we are immersed in it. I guess it’s a bit like the analogy about the frog in slowly heating water - you only notice how hot it was when you get out.

Anyway - mixed metaphors aside - it is with relief and a sense of mounting excitement as I approach the 7th August. This is the date that the Facebook group will be permanently archived and all Everyday Knitter activity will happen on the Mighty Networks platform.

We will be kicking off with a settling in KAL starting on Monday 10th August and hopefully that will give people a chance to participate and try out some of the group’s features for themselves - especially if they always felt a bit reluctant to post or get involved in the larger Facebook group.

If you haven’t joined yet, why not come over and take a look? I’d love to get the chance to show you around.

Moving home

It’s a big day today as I’m sharing the news that I am moving the Everyday Knitter community off Facebook and on to a new platform on the Mighty Networks website. 

I have been finding Facebook increasingly difficult to deal with, both personally and professionally and increasingly horrified at the level of simmering anger, inflammatory posts and general divisiveness there. The only thing keeping me on Facebook in all honesty was the Everyday Knitter group.

Finding the MightyNetwork platform has been a real joy and I’m really excited to move the group into our own dedicated space away from the noise and distractions of social media and create our own special community. It’s free from adverts and will be free for you to use.

The Facebook group will remain active for now - you can see my pinned post in there explaining it all in detail - and it will be permanently archived on 7th August.

The link to the new home for Everyday Knitter is below - if you’d like to pop over and check it out you would be more than welcome.

I’m really excited for this new phase of Everyday Knitter and I really hope you’ll join me.

What's in a name?

Toe Beans - toe-up shortie socks with a hint of lace

Sometimes a design starts with a name and grows from there. Sometimes you knit something because you like it and the name comes later. Sometimes you rack your brains for a name and end up asking your husband.

This time the name came in the form of ‘feline intervention’.

I knit these super-short trainer socks with a cute lace panel up the front of the foot. It was only after I was trying them on - and Ebony decided to help with the photo that I realised that they look a little like cat paw prints through snow. Toe Beans seemed the obvious name - although I couldn’t persuade Ebony to show his for the camera.

After trying a few different styles of shortie socks I have realised that I don’t like anything around my ankle, it’s a strange sensory thing. Socks need to either be a decent mid-calf length or to stop straight after the heel - I can’t be doing with cuffs flapping around my ankle.

So I knit these how I like them. Toe up, short row heel, tiny bit of lace for interest.

Of course, if you wanted to make them longer you could absolutely just carry on knitting and have a conventional pair of socks with the pattern just up the front of the leg. But as they stand, each sock takes a fraction under 20g yarn, so they are ideal for stashbusting opportunities.

As will be my new policy going forward, the Toe Beans pattern will be available on both my Payhip platform and on Ravelry, but the only links I will be embedding in my social media posts will be Payhip ones until I can be sure that the issues with Ravelry accessibility are resolved.

There is an early bird discount - TOEBEANSEB - which gets you 25% off the purchase price until 24th July 2020, and that will work on either sales platform.

Toe Beans

A Payhip pattern sale

As I've talked previously I now have an alternative platform for pattern sales - on Payhip

All of my popular patterns are there now and by way of a road test I thought I would have a summer sale over there. If you use the code SUMMER50 you will get 50% off any pattern of your choice.

The checkout process is super quick and easy with no registration needed - and if you do want to add the pattern to your Ravelry library you can do so at a later date.

You can't upload the actual PDF, obviously but you can record in your library that you own it and - more importantly - where you stored it.

Anyway, if you do decide to try it out please do let me know what you think of the platform - constructive feedback is always welcome