It feels a bit weird sitting here writing for something that isn’t my portfolio, and I feel a bit guilty because if I’m typing this then maybe I should be writing about non-verbal communication or starting my HIV presentation, but I don’t feel like it today, I feel like listening to Taylor Swift and writing a post for my blog that I’ve not felt like for a few months. So that's what I’m doing.
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| Drinking makes everything better |
Spring is kicking off here, the forsythia has been in flower for a while, the daffs on their way out and the tulips are in flower. And the blackbirds have either started nesting in the hedge or are just marking out their territory, either way they’re noisy little bastards that wake me up now the clocks have changed. The corner of my house is clearly a great spot to sing from, it just also happens to be the corner of my bedroom. I’ve been feeding the birds, I want to get a flat table so that I can feed the blackbirds and robins, but as I went out to top up the feeders this morning and have a nose at the flower border to see if my anemones had come up yet, I saw that the apple tree has blossoms! Last year it didn’t flower and had a growth spurt instead and I was worried that it wouldn’t flower this year either. I pruned it in the autumn, which was a bit daunting but I don’t think it had ever had one before and would probably explain it’s really weird shape. Obviously the Wassailing we held for it helped as well, because who doesn't feel better for mulled cider? I also gave the cherry a trim when I did the apple and I don’t think that has worked as well because I’m still getting pom-pom style bunches of blossoms and no new growth, yet any way. Maybe it was jealous and I need to Wassail it as well next year (hmm, cherry brandy in warm cider? Could be a winner).
I saw this blanket on LetesKnits instagram when she designed it for her own baby. My cousin is due to give birth in a few weeks and I’d been trying to decide what to make her when I saw this. It looked simple but with just the right amount of something to make it stand out.
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| Try and spot the mistake. |
Yarn:
Paintbox yarns, wool mix aran in Marine. I couldn’t find anything I liked at my YLS (online, because they’re still closed for lockdown), so I bought this from Lovecrafts.com. I wanted something that had a lot of wool in it for all its benefits, but for a baby blanket I wanted to make sure it could be machine washed because babies are grubby and hand washing a blanket every time it gets dirty will get very old very quickly. This was really nice to work with, soft but didn’t seem to be felting on my horrible dry hands, and coped well with quite a bit on tinking.
Needles/Gauge:
The pattern gauge is 12.5cm wide by 12cm high for one pattern repeat on 5.5mm needles post blocking. Mine is 11x10cm on 5.5mm needles but pre-block. I know it’ll grow a bit with a bath, but even if it doesn’t I’m happy with the material and size I’ve ended up with.
Modifications:
I only made one mod for this, I slipped the first stitch of every row knitwise. I just like the edge this gives the garter ridge border.
Difficulty:
Can you knit and purl? Then you can do this. The cable-like stitches are simple and well explained and the pattern was easy enough to remember after a while, especially if you find it easy to read your knitting (I can read my knitting as well as I can read my handwriting, which is why I have a couple of ‘unique features’ in some of my squares where I’ve got a stitch twisting the wrong way). I did find it helpful to have a whole load of stitch markers separating the squares though.
Worth repeating:
I would definitely make this again, because it was in aran it knits pretty quick. It fits in that nice ‘simple enough to knit while watching tv’ but not ‘so simple it’s boring’ sweet spot too.
Books
I had a week off in February to use up the last of this years annual leave and I read a lot of books. It was really nice. I treated myself to some more of the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman, waiting to collect outside my local bookshop seemed a bit weird - there was a queue of us outside going just inside the door one at a time, like picking up books was illicit (which might be apt given the books I was buying). I read each of the first four books in the series over about five days, I haven’t done anything like that for ages. I read the next two in the series over Easter weekend. I really like these books, I think they’re well paced and funny. And I’m kind of annoyed that I’m nearly caught up and soon I’ll have to wait for the next one to be written.
Food
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| Ten finally! |
