Today, I’d like to talk to you about knitting.

I think that we — if you have been a spectator to my online ramblings for a while, at least — have established that I tend to get very, very restless, and in turn, get very, very obsessed with quite a number of new things. Particularly if they prove to keep me occupied so that my brain does not flit about as it is wont to do.

So, enter: knitting.

I learned on 31 December 2019, when I opted to stay home instead of going out because I was too sad and I felt ill. I’ve never tried it before, as crochet seemed to be more useful in tropical climes, and also less scary because you only have one needle instead of two. I know that’s faulty logic, but I was like 12, okay.

Anyway. Here is what I have knitted in January so far:

I… knit quite a bit of things in January. As such, I’ll be talking about the first three things I finished, which are decidedly not very exciting. Mostly because they are all, essentially, rectangular. In any case, I hope this is helpful or entertaining.

WOOL AND THE GANG: GOOD TIMES BLANKET

So, a few things. I didn’t have the correct needles (they didn’t have them in stock) and I didn’t have the patience or thoughtfulness to get them somewhere else. But, my first venture I think was overall a fun one. The pattern is very easy to read and follow, and the stitches (basically a garter stitch all throughout) were easy and therapeutic to make. Why does it look so shit, then, you say? Because it was my first project and I didn’t make a little tension swatch: an important little step that I can see now would have helped me out a lot with this project. Particularly because I had different needles, and so the amount of yarn in the kit, plus the resulting dimensions would have had to have been adjusted accordingly

In any case, it was an enjoyable kit. I was surprised at how much I took to it and how much I enjoyed it. I bought all of this crap on sale, by the way, but if you’re inclined, here’s the link to the kit and the yarn colours I used were Space Cadet and Perfect Peach. I ran out as I was casting off the stitches so I had to use a coral red (?) shade of WATG’s Tina Tape Yarn, which I think ended up looking kind of cool, tbh, but maybe that’s just me.

WOOL AND THE GANG: LIL TAKE ME HOME BLANKET

This woolly yarn went everywhere. All of my clothes and everything now has a little essence of WATG Crazy Sexy Wool in Purple Haze (which it seems like they have discontinued?????). Again, this blanket suffered a case of a few dropped stitches, but overall quite easy to make even with all the additional tassle-y bits. This kit used 25mm circular needles, which I found to be a little bit fiddly, but otherwise, it was an overall an okay project. Found it to be much quicker to knit since the stitches needn’t be quite as tight, plus it covered quite a bit of ground.

It is now my T.V. blanket. What a noble purpose. (Kit can be found here. None of these links are affiliate, worry not.)

RANDOM ASS SCARF I KNITTED IN BRISTOL AND WILL BEQUEATH TO MY BROTHER

Because I’m a little obsessive dummy, I wanted to do a small knitting project on my way to Bristol, when I went to see Pacita Abad’s show at Spike Island. I started knitting this fairly straightforward scarf in WATG (ofc…) Sugar Baby Alpaca (which… lol) in Moss Green. Again, it’s mostly a straight garter stitch all throughout the green part.

In Bristol, I found myself at a small haberdashery at the St. Nicholas Market. (I Google-mapped my way there, okay, so it wasn’t a serendipitous meeting.) So, the tweed bit was from that place. It’s part nylon, wool, and acrylic, so not quite as soft as the baby alpaca wool, but they just look really good together. I think I could have made this a little skinnier, to be honest, but what’s done is done.

The tweed bit I used for stitching practice so there’s a bit of purling and seed stitching, and rib stitch, and stockinette. Which was fun to see kind of unfold over the length of the scarf. I didn’t learn until much later how to tell from how the stitches look which stitch I ought to do for the next row if I’m after a particular pattern, but I figured that out at some point, haha.

The rest, I will write about in another installment, I think.

I have concluded through this very thorough exercise that I am more likely to learn new things by doing. And that, instead of getting frustrated at my lack of knack, if you will, I either a) throw the towel in and give up, or b) soldier on anyway. As is evidenced by all my dropped stitching, wrong stitching kept for “visual interest” and so on.