New Year's Resolutions?

It's that time of year. When we reflect on the year just ending and start to plan and dream about the year ahead.

I am not one to make big new years resolution announcements, for a few reasons:

1. My work schedule in January is not conducive to starting and maintaining any new habits
2. By openly stating any new goals I feel like there is such a set up for failure - if there is any weak moments or divergence from the goal everyone knows and it is much harder mentally, for me anyway, to get back on track. I know for others this has the reverse effect and by announcing their resolutions to the world they get the motivation and accountability they need to succeed.
3. A resolution made on 1 January may not be relevant days, weeks or months after. Life moves quickly and what seems important in the moment, may not be in the long term. I guess that is why a lot of new years resolutions are "eat healthier" or "exercise more" - these are general and will always be things that are required in order to live a happy and healthy life. I'm not saying that I won't try to do either of these things, I'm just not sure that I need to make them a new years resolution.

What I like to do at this time, is look back on what I have achieved in the past year. We spend so much of our lives doing and being, that often the milestones and achievements pass us by without any thought or celebration.

2015 was a big year for me, especially in my craftiness:

My nine most liked Instagram posts of 2015

• I started this blog in March and have fairly consistently posted entries.
• I started dyeing yarn, experimented and found a true passion.
• I opened my etsy shop. AND I have had sales. It's one thing to open a shop and put my creations out into the world, but for other people to decide they want to spend their hard earned money on my yarn is an amazing feeling.
• I knit a lot; including four shawls, a jumper, one soft toy, six beanies, two pairs of mitts (including the cupcake mittens), and at least 8 pairs of socks (I have been super lazy and have not entered my sock projects in to Ravelry).

Do I have things I want to do and achieve in 2016? YES - lots!!! I look forward to sharing my crafting progress and business growth with everyone.

Knitrospective - 5 tips I wish I knew when I started knitting

I was taught to knit by my grandmother when I was quite young. I was given a pair of straight needles, much too long for my little hands, and squeaky acrylic yarn. The stitches were cast on for me, way too tightly and I was shown how to do the knit stitch. I was told just to knit and then had the piece bound off for me when I was done. The knitting always turned out a weird shape, had dropped stitches, or extra stitches and was a boring garter strip.

Given these early experiences it took me a while after that before I went back to knitting for myself. Inspired by an urge to be creative and use my hands to make things.

I went back to basics and taught myself, by reading blogs and magazines, searching for how to's on You Tube and watching knitting podcasts.

Over time I was able to teach myself a lot, but when I look back on when I started knitting seriously, I wish I had known the following key tips:

1. A slip knot is not required to cast on, in fact knots should mostly be avoided in knitting

2. A tight cast on is caused by the lack of space between each cast on stitch, not the size of the stitch

3. Tinking back or ripping out is not failure, it is correcting a mistake you will not be happy with in the finished item
4.Choose a project you want to knit and practice on that as it is much more rewarding than a random strip or square
5. Use nice yarn and nice needles, as this is a key part of the process and adds to the Beginners should be taught to knit with good yarn and nice needles - because we should be sharing the joy and love that we have for our craft!

Knitrospective - Shawls

What makes a great shawl? Colour? Shape? Size? Lace? Beads? Garter?

Shawls are a regular in my knitting rotation. I have a lot in my queue and library. Once I have completed one I am searching for the next one to cast on.

They are go-to accessory pieces, especially for my work wardrobe. Essential for combating the chill of air-conditioning and also for adding the "knitterly touch" to my outfits.

I began with small, one skein shawls like the Multnomah by Kate Ray, Mizzle by Patricia Martin and Pimpelliese by Christine Ebers.

Pimpelliese

I now enjoy larger multi-coloured, lace or beaded shawls. Although there is always a place for a more simple, one skein shawl in the knitting rotation (my recently knitted Reyna is an example of this).

Nuvem has been on my needles twice, and could definitely be knit again.

My Hope

The two most intricate shawls I have knit have not been for me, but made as special gifts. The My Hope for my sister on her wedding day and Bella Botanica for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Both had beading and lace work and I loved the process of knitting each of them. I know both have been worn numerous times, which makes me happy. What I am disappointed about it that in both cases I never took proper finished object pictures, only progress and blocking shots.

I think I will at some stage have to knit a lace and bead shawl for myself, but at the moment I am enjoying the squishy garter and fun colour combinations from patterns like Drachenfels and Moonraker by Melanie Berg.

Moonraker

A shawl that was in my queue for a very long time was Bloom, which I finished earlier this year. I wrote a full blog post on the finished object. I have worn it at work and received many compliments - it has some wow factor. I am thinking about yarn combinations for another one.

Bloom

So what is the best kind of shawl? It's much too difficult to decide, I guess I will have to keep knitting more to try out more patterns, colour combinations, shapes and techniques.

knitrospective - inside my notions bags

This is not so much a look back, but a look inside. Something I have developed over time is the contents of my notions bag. It has gone through many stages. Starting out with not much in it, to bulging at the seams, to a now pared back version of what are my essentials. There is quite a lot jammed into this little bag, but everything is there for a reason.

Let's take a look...

- Tapestry needles - a small plastic case with needles of varying sizes for darning, weaving in ends and grafting

- Zip lock bag of spare yarn - for holding stitches, inserting the spot for an afterthought heel and emergency stitch markers. I keep it in little butterflies in the ziplock bag to stop it getting tangled

- Measuring tape and safety pins - both fairly self explanatory and always come in handy (my marathon running husband has even been happy I take my notions bag with me everywhere as he has needed extra safety pins for his events bibs)

- Emery boards - for fingernail snags but also for needle snags (small rough patches on wooden needles or small imperfections that sometimes occur on the cables of circular needles).

- Three bags of stitch markers

• a set of the plastic locking markers for holding dropped stitches or marking increases and decreases
• pretty markers; mostly small gauge with beads and some cute dangly sheep - I generally use these ones for marking the beginning of a round, sleeves, back/front etc
• larger, closed rings; that I use for marking pattern repeats - a little repurposing with these ones - they are the rings from old bras that I cut the rings out of

- "Stabby things" - this metal container (also repurposed, originally the case for a stylus pen) holds all my pointy things. Two different sized crochet hooks. A cable needle. Needle threader. Fold up scissors - they take up less space, and if left in a bag with knitting will not snag or cut accidentally. A tapestry needle. I also include in this case a small measuring tape, two stitch holders (not pictured, as they are currently in use on a project I will be talking about on the blog in the next few weeks), a few stitch markers and a pencil. I can then grab this case out and put into a small project bag knowing I have the essentials.



My preference for pencils are these mechanical ones. They do not require a sharpener, draw a precise clean line and have a retractible tip.

The final thing in my bag is the cute little container pictured below. I think of this as my mini notions kit and is perfect for throwing into an "on-to-go" sock project. Light, compact, and useful. In it there is a length of yarn for a lifeline or afterthought heel, a locking stitch marker and a few elastic rings to use as stitch markers.

So, these are the essentials for my notions bag. What do you keep in yours? What tool can you not do without for a project on the go? I think I am at the point that I have the contents of my notions bag set, but interested to see what other people use as there are always new ideas and different ways of approaching things.

knitrospective - socks

For this knitrospective I wanted to look at my journey in sock knitting.

When I first started getting serious about knitting I read quite a lot of blogs, I did not (and still don't) have a knit group so everything I learned was what I found out for myself online.

My current "vanilla socks"

I really didn't have any fear when it came to trying new things or starting a different kind of project, after all it is just yarn and the worst that can happen is that you rip it out and start again. I did that back then and I still do it now. I have even put terror into a group of people at work, when while knitting at lunchtime I decided that the socks I was working on were not right, so I just pulled out the needles and ripped. Why continue if you know it's not right.

Quite early on I decided that I wanted to knit socks, because it seemed like the thing to do and the idea of hand knit socks really excited me. Everywhere I was reading about "plain vanilla" socks and I thought that this was some magical universal pattern, a secret amongst knitters. I searched the internet, looking for the plain vanilla sock pattern, but nothing had that name. So I found a pattern that sounded simple enough and gave it a go. Only after knitting those socks and more internet research did I actually find out what plain vanilla meant, and that for each person these can end up being completely different. I now have my plain vanilla's - 56sts, 2.75mm magic loop or 2 circs, toe-up, short row heel (knit from the other end of the ball if I don't want to break up the striping pattern), short cuff.

But it does take a while to get to that point with socks, discovering the preferences of the toe shape, cuff length, heel shaping is all very personal and only becomes right with trial and error. I also like to explore new techniques and heels to see if there might be another way I would prefer.

Below are my very first pair of socks. They are pilled, have a hole in the cuff and are not even the same size. But I love them and I use them as bed socks. I don't know what pattern they are knit from (done before Ravelry), I know I knit them on double points, but I clearly had inconsistent gauge, maybe even different stitch counts and didn't understand that I needed to alter the stitch count in order to get socks that fit.

I have since knit eleven pairs of socks that I have listed in Ravelry. And I think at least another four pairs that were knit prior to Rav and gifted. I would not call myself a pro sock knitter, but I do like to always have a pair on the needles and will continue to add to my sock drawer.

knitrospective - most worn/reliable knit acccessory

Recently I bought a wooden chest for the end of the bed, and now all of my knitted items are stored there. As I moved each piece from their previous homes I took time to look over what I have done and the progression that I have made as a knitter. This gave me a renewed look at my knitting as a "body of work" and accompanied with my Ravelry Project Page brings back a lot of memories.

I thought it would be interesting to focus on pieces that I have knit previously, tell their story, how I feel about them now and hopefully get some inspiration from other knitters.

For this knitrospective I am focusing on the accessory (excluding socks) that I wear most regularly and think of as a "go to" piece.

Cowls are definitely my favourite accessory pieces and my most worn/reliable of my cowls is the Fresco Basket Whip Cowl. Interestingly, it was the first cowl I ever knit. And the only reason I knit it was because it was part of a knitalong I joined.

Project Breakdown:
Pattern: Fresco Basket Whip Cowl
Designer: Laura Patterson
Started: 1 November, 2011
Finished: 16 November, 2011
Yarn: Heirloom Easy Care 5ply
Colourway: Blue (No.740)

To be honest, if it had not been for the knitalong I may not have even considered knitting this pattern. But now I grab that cowl to put on more often than any other. It is warm, but not too hot; can be casual or more formal/corporate; and goes with a lot of different outfits and colours.

For the knitters out there - what is your go to knit accessory? Share in the comments or join in on instagram with #knitrospective