After a long time (over 20 years) I decided to take up knitting again. I learned when I was little, my Great Aunt had the patience of a saint and taught me the basics. We also did some knitting in primary school making squares for blankets and vests to go to Ethiopia.
I still had some yarn left over from my Great Aunts stash: a
baby pink which she had left over from making my baby niece a cardigan and a
baby blue from making a cardigan for my nephew. These yarns have been sat in my sewing bag for 30 years. The other yarn I had was a
school grey which was left over from my ex-boyfriends mum making me a very baggy and long cardigan for school. This one is over 20 years old.
So, having chosen to make the plunge I hunted for something to knit, and found the wonderful world of
Ravelry and also another website where I found a pattern for a
Slytherin scarf which I decided I must have - even though getting the right yarn was going to be a challenge. In the meantime, I would get the needles for that scarf and practise knitting with them hence my 1st project:
Beginning Stitch Sampler.
- basket-weave
- garter
- rib
- seed
- stockinette
- C/O
- B/O
Now, I hate pinks, I was glad I only had a limited amount of my great aunts pink stash, and the blue which was better is still not me. So, I decided that as it's a sampler scarf, it can be stashed and have other sampler scarfs and panels/squares, which will eventually end up being made, added to it in a novel if weird log cabin effect throw. I have also realised I can over dye the yarn to make it more of my sort of thing. Will have to see if that happens.
I found the needles I needed for my Slytherin scarf in my local charity shop and made myself a basic rule - straight needles (unless super special) come from charity shops - so does random yarn. I have since brought more yarn and more needles. Though, I did treat myself to a set of crochet needles (which I have been unable to find in the charity shop) and an adjustable circular needle set (which is better sourced as a set). I also grabbed a nice needle cosy roll to store my pointy things - my long suffering partner would hate sitting on something I didn't put safely away.
After project 1 I decided to up it, as I had found my local yarn shop and this cool kit :
Edina mitts. Which will need me to do more than knit and purl. So, project 2 was another
sampler scarf panel which taught me more:
- bobble-or-popcorn
- cables
- chart
- chevron
- cr2f
- eyelets
- k2tog
- lace
- one-piece
- repeats
- ribbed
- skkp
- ssk
- textured
- twisted-stitches
- worked-flat
- written-pattern
- yo
Not a bad list of techniques learned or relearned for two projects which have used yarn stashed for decades.
Combining these techniques and
my 3rd project was born - I needed new
warm slippers as my old ones were falling apart.
This time it was new yarn - well, charity shop yarn. Nice and snugly.
