It’s been very cold and frosty in the UK this week and as a result I’ve been wearing all the knitwear - with a certain amount of smugness it has to be said. My recently finished Love Note sweater has been getting a lot of wear as it’s both light and warm. It’s easy to layer over dresses or a top with jeans, without making me feel too muffled up indoors.
In fact, it’s so versatile that I’m considering making another one in a slightly longer length. It’s also made me think again about resurrecting my ‘cost per wear’ database - something that I dabbled in a while ago. It’s a lot less fancy than the name suggests but basically I keep a log of every time I wear something handknit. To try and get an idea of my most worn items and see whether the investment in time and money has paid off in terms of whether I actually wear the thing.
I definitely have a few pieces that took ages (and consumed an awful lot of expensive sockweight yarn) that I have never worn and they sit at the back of the wardrobe guilt-tripping me every time I look in their direction.
I think I know, deep down, that the answer to this is to be less drawn to impulsive FOMO driven cast-on’s of the latest knitalong but hey - I’m a work in progress here :)
Apricity - my new favourite word and one that I came across just the other day. It means ‘the warmth of sun in winter’ and I saw it in action earlier in the week in a really lovely moment glimpsed while I was shopping in town - I talked about it here. I designed a shawl around my love of autumn a while ago - the Autumnity Shawl but now I’m thinking that an Apricity Shawl might be a really welcome addition to my seasonal offerings.
Reading - I’m really enjoying our Everyday Knitter bookclub book for this month: The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. I’m almost at the halfway point and I still don’t really have a clue where the story is leading. But the writing is so evocative and magical that actually I’m happy to just go along for the ride and see where it takes me.
My new Fitbit - my old one met a sad demise (involving a bucket of hot water that we shall not speak about) and so my lovely husband treated me to a new one. Having been ‘making do’ with the step counter on my phone for the last few weeks it’s been nice to be able to check my stats again. Although faintly depressing when I realise just how sedentary some of my days are. It’s surprising that some of those days I’m actually on my feet a lot, but as I’ve been working as an exam invigilator my actual steps have been too slow (and silent) to register. I am trying to up my daily step count though, so if you are interested in being a step buddy in my quest to get in my 10k per day please do let me know.
A new Substack find for me this week has been
when her recent ‘Back to Basics’ article was shared by a friend. I love Hannah’s style of writing and her list of simpler things to try really struck a chord with me. I often lament that I want to go back to a quieter, simpler way of doing things completely forgetting that a lot of factors in that are very much within my own control. No one is forcing me to pick up my phone and scroll through Instagram for example. And it should be perfectly possibly for me to flump down with a book and a brew on the sofa without feeling as though I need to snap a photo of it with my phone. As with so many things - it’s still a work in progress but it’s been a great reminder this week to slow down a little and not to automatically reach for my phone when I sit down.
I know we are still in January - and yes, it is feeling as though it’s a million days long at this point - but in knitting terms February and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. If you are thinking of knitting anything
of the ‘A Good Yarn’ Substack has a pretty knitted hat pattern with a fabulous heart motif on - perfect for the love in your life (or heck, knit it for yourself). Please do check out Sandi’s lovely yarn-filled Substack while you are there - you can find the link below.Wishing you a very warm, and very woolly weekend
I definitely want to be a step buddy! It's a difficult combo stepping and knitting and I really am working on getting my steps back up!
My user name is Kiersten F. and my email kierstenfigurski@gmail.com. I look forward to stepping with you!
"Apricity" what a glorious word! A shawl design sounds like just the thing to bring about the warmth of sun in the winter in your knitting pattern. :)