the knitting addiction

Today is one of those cold rainy rainy Sundays where you have very little motivation to go outside your house ( I must have a very low resistance to cabin fever). I am even making up excuses to try and avoid going to the supermarket. This is however very good for my new crafty addiction- knitting. Rain and knitting seem to go together quite well.

I have now finished my luminous sunshine mustard yellow scarf- the picture does not do it justice I'm afraid. I still have to motivate myself to wash it though (very difficult to do when you want to wear it straightaway). It took me a good seven weeks of knitting to complete it, and by the time I had decided to finish it on Friday, I had realised that I was well and truly over knitting that scarf! I was inspired by a print design that I found on Print and Pattern to mix up the colours on the tassels- this stops it from looking too flat.


I am not yet over knitting completely, and have begun a larger project to keep me occupied over the winter months: an oversized throw rug. This is from a very quick and easy pattern that I found in one of my Mum's Australian Women's Weekly's, which had a great 'learn to knit' section. I have managed to complete one square already, and am starting to understand the satisfaction that granny square crochet people must get when they work on a project like that- short and sweet, but progress none the less. I aim to get this rug roughly the size of a single bed rug, even though the pattern is saying to knit 9 squares, which I don't think is big enough to drape over the end of your bed. I am using an earthier, more homespun colour palette, with a mix of browns and soft greys offset with cream. I am limited by the range of wool colours that my local craft shop has, but am happy that they stock such a sumptuously soft felted wool such as the one that I am using. The wool is sold in hanks, so you have the fun job of winding the hank of wool ino a ball before you knit- a soothing process in itself. I like how organic a hand wound ball of wool looks.

While I was visiting the craft shop I spotted a sign advertising beginners quilting classes, I decided to sign up. I have recently wanted to learn how to quilt, and to be able to create a quilted bedspread. I think it starts off on a American Country Craft style quilt, which isn't really my style at all, but I'm sure you can learn alot of skills from a slighlty more complicated piece before moving onto your own style.

Last but not least for this post is my new favourite top- I brought a new woollen jersey knit top (to ward off winter chill and wardrobe angst) which I then decorated with a selection of buttons- it makes me smile everytime I wear it.