Hello everyone,

My post this month is about knitting. My mum taught my sisters and me how to knit when we were growing up and at school – not my brothers though…… I remember knitting jumpers (Aran patterns), socks and mittens. I have a vague memory of knitting gloves, and one sister remembers knitting gloves too.

That sister has continued to knit throughout the years, and she makes some wonderful items. I have not knitted since then; I also used to crochet at that time and enjoyed it very much. I think crochet is much easier to learn and remember, it seems much less complicated than knitting does these days, and I taught (assisted by YouTube!) oldest grand daughter how to crochet some time ago.

So when Christmas was over, and all the decorations put away, I decided that I would reacquaint myself with knitting and it’s language again. There had been a knitting show on TV before Christmas, and that also encouraged me ‘to have a go’. My sister gave me some of her needles – mostly circular ones, and some double pointed needles. I had used the DPNs with my mum to make socks, so they were familiar, but the circular variety were alien to me, and would have been to my mother also. My sister said I would get used to them ‘ in no time’, but with dire warnings about not twisting the cast on stitches when joining the circle. This was a struggle, and there was a lot of muttering, and some (in)appropriate words used during this battle.

Another dilemma was what yarn/wool to use. I had known 4ply and double knit when younger, but now there is fingering weight, spindthrift, lace and many other types. Totally confusing, plus pattern instructions are different – no longer many rambling lines of letters and numbers to lose your place on, and there are graphs showing the patterns. I don’t know if this is good wool or not – but it felt nice to touch.

What to make.

I decided on a hat, and it looked achievable and after a bit of reading I borrowed a couple of books from the library, and registered on Ravelry. There is a small local yarn shop in my town, and I paid a visit there.

I found one mistake when I was knitting, (too many stitches) but I left it in, and then corrected the stitch count – I did not want to undo it. There was  another mistake with the design graph – I corrected that with a pencil on the chart, I will erase it before I return the book to the library. Both photos above illustrate the errors.

I am pleased with the hat and how it looks when finished, and really happy that I did not give up. I found the pattern a challenge for the first half, but it became easier as I progressed. I don’t like pompoms, so I crocheted a flower shape and secured it with a button. I had 2 buttons to choose from and decided to use a red one.

I enjoyed my own challenge.

I cannot get my pictures any smaller, it is so frustrating! I use a MacBook Air, and it’s tools to ‘edit’ the photos. I use my phone to take photos, and make them about half a Mb to upload. Apologies.