In the rhythm of the needles
There is music for the soul
I am absolutely besotted with knitting things, I have to admit it's probably on addiction level. I cannot simply walk past a haberdashery without coming out with at least one ball of yarn, it's just doesn't happen.
This last week in between other things, I decided to pick up this pullover that I've been working on intermittently. I had completed the back and front and only had the sleeves to complete before starting to stitch it together and then knit the neckband.
It's an easy enough pattern with simple raglan style sleeves. To be honest the pattern is for sizes smaller than me, with thinner yarn and smaller needles but I calculated that if I knit it with larger needles, thicker yarn and slightly adjust the length of the sleeves, then I'd have myself a nice, comfy pullover for next season.
This yarn is super soft and only slightly fluffy. It is a three part mixture of textile consisting of 77% acrylic, 20% wool and 3% viscose making it a very easy yarn to work with as it glides through your hands onto the needles and knits up quite quickly and easily.
I find knitting very cathartic and soothing. It tends to take my stress levels way down, calms my mind and apparently is even good for blood pressure. What's not to love right?
Function over Fashion
I used size 6mm straight needles for this knit and I didn't use smaller needles for the garter ribbing stitch either as I want this to have a loose fit. Personally I can't handle cuffs that are tight around my wrists, it drives me nuts. I plan on this being one of my favourite winter slouch pullovers where it provides comfort and warmth on those rainy days when I want to sit on the couch for an hour and read a book or snuggle up and watch a film with a cup of hot chocolate. I'm calling it my forest pullover.
I know that it having different coloured sleeves to the front and back will probably kill someone who likes things to be uniform, but I was under the impression that I only had two balls of green and one ball of each shade of brown. I was wrong, but by then it was too late. So the back is knitted with two tones of brown, the front is lighter brown and the sleeves are green. There's every inch of imperfection in nature and yet, we still think of it as perfectly beautiful. I'm probably trying to justify my decision to myself more than to anyone else right now...but I'm happy to work with function over fashion any day.
Knitting is my superpower, what's yours?
This one should be done in the next week and then I will have a nice new soft jumper just in time for the wrong season lol.
While I don't get to knit nearly as much as I'd like to, I probably make at least one item of clothing per year and for me, that's all I need. I still get excited every time I start a new project and feel accomplished every time I complete one and get to try it on for the first time.
Don't tell anyone else, but I also might have found some gorgeous blue, purple and black yarn at a charity shop a few weeks ago that I simply could not resist! It cost me less than $1 per ball. I may have also bought some other ocean blue fading to light blue yarn for a gift to someone special. I'll only start knitting those once this one is finished as I don't like having too many half finished pieces of knitting on the go at once or they end up sitting in my knitting bag longer than they should.
How about you? What knitting projects do you currently have in the making? If this was you knitting, would you have pulled out the back when you found the other ball of wool? Let me know in the comments.