Comfort Blanket KAL 2021

Amazingly, it’s almost a year since I ran the Comfort Blanket KAL and if anything, we need comfort more than ever right now.

As, the nights start to draw in (here in the northern hemisphere) it’s only natural that our thoughts turn to cosy, warm, blanket knitting - and to me - nothing meets these criteria quite like a sock yarn blanket.

This year, partly because my leftover sock yarn stash has reached epic proportions, I’ve decided to ‘go large’ and use my sock yarn held double on larger needles. I’m determined to get the bottom of this bag of leftovers if it’s the last thing I do.

I’ll be running the KAL as a 4 week event over in the Everyday Knitter Mighty Network community again and I really hope you can join me there. If you joined in last time, everything is still there as you left it and hopefully this might help with a bit of an autumnal kick start to revive your blanket mojo.

If you didn’t join in last time you are more than welcome. Please just follow this link to purchase the pattern, and your welcome PDF will contain the link to the group and all the information you need.

If you bought the pattern last time around and didn’t join the Mighty Networks group, don’t worry. Check your inbox in the next couple of days and you’ll find a bespoke invitation - just for you. I really hope you decide to join us.

Right, if you’ll excuse me I have some serious stash sorting to do - each of my blanket squares takes 60g yarn so I’m hopeful of reaching ‘zero leftover’ status by the end of this blanket.

An impromptu break

The joys of a weekend off.

I hadn't planned to take a social media break over the weekend but on Friday I found out that Saturday was #DigitalDetoxDay.

It seemed like a good prompt to pop my phone in a drawer and remove temptation, and to be honest it was such a good feeling that I extended it into Sunday as well.

I used to regularly take social media breaks but at some undefined point I stopped, probably around the time Covid started - convinced that I'd miss some vital nugget of information.

Of course, we all know that it doesn't work like that. You tell yourself that you are keeping up to date with vital information but really you are following gossip, argument and a whole lot of partials informed speculation.

Definitely not good for the mental health.

So, instead I had a lovely, calm weekend. Well, the usual preparing for back to school kerfuffle, but at least my brain was clearer and better able to deal with it.

I read a book - the Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris and started a new sock yarn blanket (because... Why not?)

And more importantly, I felt in a better place to write, journal and set a few new moon intentions for the month ahead. (Today is New Moon in Virgo if you follow that sort of thing)

Now I just need to take that New Moon energy and channel it into some healthy online habits for the week ahead. Starting off the day here, rather than doom scrolling on Twitter sounds like a good start to me.

You are creative - even when following a pattern

I don't think we say this enough. I hear so many people dismiss their own creativity, every day, on the grounds that they are just following a pattern. And yet it's totally untrue.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

As a knitter (or crocheter, or crafter) you are inherently creative. It's what you do. In fact you probably do it without even thinking about it.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Yes, you might be following a pattern but your choices of colour, yarn, needles etc are all coming together to create something totally unique, something created by you. Something that wouldn't exist if it weren't for you.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

You take sticks and string, wave your hands around a lot (OK, a real lot) and actually produce something that wasn't there before.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

And if that isn't the definition of creativity then I don't know what is.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Please share this with someone else who needs to hear this today.

Where did a year go?

How on earth is it August already?

But leaving that aside I was amazed, reading through some old journals to realise that it's been a year since I decided to move away from the old Everyday Knitter Facebook group and set up a new community on the Mighty Networks platform.

The old Facebook group feels like a whole world away now and I can't ever imagine going back to Facebook groups again.

In fact, if I didn't need to maintain an account in order to have any kind of business presence I'd delete my FB in a heartbeat. I hate that I can't do that, but at least I can minimise my presence there as much as possible.

If you haven't had a look at our Everyday Knitter community on Mighty Networks I'd really urge you to give us a try. It takes a bit of getting used to, as does any new platform but it is a refreshingly different and advert/algorithm free place to be.

And we have a new KAL starting today - for the Pattern Please Shawl - just in case you needed an incentive. You can find all the KAL information on my previous blog post.

And if you’d like to check out the group, please just tap on the link below.

Soulmates - knitting and coffee

Some things just go together, like cheese and wine, or bacon and eggs and for me knitting and coffee is one of those non negotiable pairings. Sitting down with a freshly brewed cup of coffee and some relaxing knitting is just the perfect thing. And one without the other just isn’t the same.

A recent bout of ill health has meant that I’ve been forced to re-evaluate this valuable part of my routine and I think it’s fair to say that I’ve struggled to enjoy my knitting in quite the same way without my hot cup of coffee by my side. Other hot beverages are indeed available - and believe me I’ve tried them all. But it’s just not the same, and my knitting mojo is definitely flagging as a result.

I think it’s partly because I view both of them as synonymous with ‘me time’. When my kids were very small, sitting down with a hot coffee (and the actual time to drink it) was a rare luxury. But I could often grab 5 minutes to knit while they were toddling around. Unlike a hot coffee, they couldn’t do much damage to my knitting, short of knocking it off the coffee table or trying to eat it - and I always tended to use small wooden circulars when they were around to minimise damage (either to them or the knitting).

Over time, my routines evolved and the boys activities moved on to more active pursuits where supervision at a distance was all that was required. For quite a few years, I was the connoisseur of soft-play centres and would put up with any amount of ear-splitting screeching for an (almost) uninterrupted hour of coffee and knitting.

Now, I find myself with a lot more knitting time (and a very bad social media habit which threatens to encroach on knitting more than I care to admit). But it has to be accompanied by something with low acidity and caffeine free. I know that on the scale of first-world problems this is probably up there with Waitrose running out of strawberries, but the lack of coffee has really affected how much I’m knitting, which is never good.

So far rooibos is probably my favourite tummy-friendly beverage but if you have any tried and tested recommendations I’d love to know. Anything to get me enjoying hot drinks again would be gratefully appreciated.

A Summer KAL

The Pattern Please Shawl - small version

I wanted to let you know about a relaxed, no hassle KAL that I’m running over on the Everyday Knitter Mighty Networks community. If you are a member of the group, the pattern is being made available free to you for the duration of the KAL so do pop over there to get the code. And if you haven’t joined us yet, please do consider checking us out - here.

If you would rather knit-along in your own way there is a 50% discount code as well - see below for details.

About The PPS

It stands for Pattern Please Shawl - a slightly cheeky reference to the eternal ‘pattern please’ requests that pop up perennially in Facebook groups. The PPS is an elongated kite shape, that is fun to knit but does take a little more yarn than the average ‘one skein’ project.

Where can I get the pattern?

Go to the link below and use the code PPSSUMMERKAL, this will allow you to download the pattern for a 50% discount (until 31 August 2021)

https://payhip.com/b/DY5j

When does the KAL run?

It will start on Monday 2 August and run until 20 September 2021

Yarn requirements (uses 4ply/sock weight yarn)

Small version: 70" long and 12" wide/deep (pictured above)

• 60g main colour plus 5 x 10g contrast colours (CC1-CC5) - 50g contrast in total

Large version: 90” long and 18” wide/deep (pictured below)

• 2 x 100g skeins 4ply/sock weight yarn

Stashbusting

With 60g of main colour and 50g contrast colour (for the small version) this is the perfect project for making use of mini-skeins if you have any to hand, or using up odds and ends for the stripes.