Nesting has kicked in

Something in my brain definitely kicks in as winter approaches, and sends me on a knitting frenzy. It happens each year around this time, and I knit furiously for a few months, and then sometime during spring, without realising it turns off again. I usually don't even notice it until some time later when it occurs to me that I stopped knitting months earlier.

It's usually accompanied by a sudden urge to clean and purge through the house, decorate, and finish home projects.

Last week within a few days I knitted all the pieces for a toddlers summer cardi, Rowan's 'Blossom'. In the same week I also noticed (and am yet to rectify) a considerable amount of dust has accumulated on the 'unused' furniture and surfaces around the apartment. It would seem this season the knitting urge has come on with a vengeance but the getting the nest ready for winter hasn't appeared yet.

Strike while the needles are hot I think, the dust isn't killing anyone - yet.

I've been spurred on further by learning so much more about knitting lately. To date I've made it as far as I have with my knitting using the skills my Mum taught me many moons ago - and what a great knitter she was in her time too, and I think I can say from my past efforts, she was also a pretty good teacher. With the internet providing such a massive resource now, a glimpse of a pattern on Ravelry leads to reading other knitting blogs, leads to researching various terms, discovering more and more techniques.

With this cardi alone I learnt; a new cast on style, how (and why) to 'block', and that your tension square should be measured after laundering and pressing as the garment will be after completion (makes sense really). Not that the way I was casting on or finishing garments before was wrong, just that it turns out there are multiple options to chose from depending on the yarn and garment style. As in the case of this cotton, the different cast on, and washing the pieces, drying into shape before sewing up, should give it an improved finish appearance.

I still need to sew it up and add a picot edging;

All the pieces washed, dried and shaped to size. Cotton grows so much when its wet that when I first laid it out the back was 3cm too wide, a bit of a shake at the shoulders and re laying it conscious of not stretching and it's exactly to pattern size.

After washing the increase and decrease edges have settled in and look so much neater

I'm taking this tension square thing seriously now, knitted, washed and ready to measure. I also knitted an extra bit of the pink cotton to practise my crochet edging, and washed it to check it then sat flat. Results all round.

 

 

This seemed like a good spot to put up a photo of something my Mum knitted, a homage to all her skill and hard work - alas many miles from home and my old photos, this is the only one at my fingertips. My 'old poss' jumper (from Shirls Neighbourhood) and beanie for my first school ski trip. The photo just doesn't show its total glory, I loved that jumper, ooh and she knitted me leg warmers to match. Yep, I thought it was pretty cool at the time, but then it was the 80s.