OK, I have three bags full! And it’s getting exciting because I am going to be emptying those three bags, or rather completing the projects in them.
There is the Anastasia Shawl, the Philippa Jumper, a new design – the Baby Heaton, a garter stitch striped scarf, a garter stitch scarf, Pip Longsocks, another new design – the Tenorite Tank Top, and another new design – a Chunky Tank Top.
And that’s just in these three bags!
If you’ve been following my Stories you’ll already be aware of my projects and been following the journey, seeing as I’ve knitted them. Eek, just realised, thinking about Stories, I’ve not listed another project, the lunchtime crochet cushion cover!
Eek, and another one , that I’ve cast on and didn’t write about in a blog. And to be honest that might not be the only one, because if you’ve been reading my blogs I’ve decided to stop resisting who I am and just cast on a project whenever and wherever I get the urge.
And it’s been fabulous to embrace that!
If you are a one-project knitter, one of those who finish one project before starting another, I admire you and please keep doing you. But for me, I am a multiple knitter. I need different knits for different moments or moods.
Sometimes I just want garter stitch, at the end of the day or even in the middle when I just want to switch off and not think about what my hands are doing and just absorb the soothing stitches.
And that has been what this, now completed, striped garter stitch scarf has been. It takes just one hank each of shade Biscuit and shade Chocolate in Purl &Jane Yorkshire Yarn Bluefaced Leicester Aran. You knit two rows in one shade, then two rows in the other.
So simple, so effective, so relaxing.
And then I’ve cast on a classic Purl &Jane pattern, the Anastasia Shawl, and I shared the start of this journey in my previous Weekly Stitches.
It’s been one that you have to concentrate on, so not one for the evening. However, the more I get to knit the rows, the more I get into the rhythm of the pattern and it feels like my brain is coming back, because I did design this one 13 years ago and it seemed so simple and straightforward then.
I think the result of the thing that happened in 2020 and our reliance on Google is that we no longer think when watching a series, “Where have I seen that actor before?” Instead we Google it. We don’t use our brain to remember where, or read maps. We are becoming a society that reads the last page of the book before we read the rest of it.
But perhaps, like me, you are trying to be ‘old fashioned’ and keep that brain working by doing things to keep it sparking. And for me, one of those things is knitting or crochet.
You can Google how there’s been research into all the great things knitting and crochet can do for you…lol!
So where was I?
Oh yes, the way my brain has approached the Anastasia Shawl this time around. Slowly, I would say, but now it’s getting addictive. Like that tricky Sudoku, you know you can do it so you will keep coming back to it. Put it down when you just can’t find that number, then pick it up again and boom, it’s so obvious. Why didn’t I see it before?
Like those sudoku moments, the shawl is sitting on the needles at the moment because it’s one stitch out, and that hasn’t happened as I knitted the last 10 repeats of the eight rows. So obviously I was having a moment and I will go back to it when my mind is fresh.
That’s another reason I love having different projects on the go. I can put something down when it needs more concentration and pick up something else that suits the moment.
What else shall I go back to?
The next thing shall be the new design, the Tenorite Tank Top. I have taken photos of this and shared them on Stories but towards the end I forgot (still need to keep knitting to get rid of that brain fog!) so here is one of the completed ones. I loved knitting this tank top so much. I want to cast on another one!
But I must share it with you all and get that pattern done with its final checks. As they say, I should stop gatekeeping it…
There are still three bags full, but perhaps they won’t be for long.
And that’s the joy of being a multiple knitter. There is always something waiting for the moment when you are ready for it.