Friday roundup 19 May 2023

It’s been a week of very little knitting this week as I managed to drop our sharpest heaviest knife on the middle finger of my dominant hand at the weekend. Luckily my husband is a whizz at first aid (after a long rugby career and being dad to our two boys for 18 years). There’s very little he can’t do with a few steri-strips and a lot of gauze pads so I was spared a trip to the minor injuries unit. It did mean that I had to spend two days with my finger splinted so I couldn’t bend it - making knitting impossible.

And let me tell you, there’s nothing like not being able to do something to make you want to do The Thing immediately. In fact so much so I might try that the next time my knitting mojo goes for a wander. Bandage my right hand for a few hours and feign injury, until my inner toddler wakes up and says ‘But I want too…’ in a loud and determined voice.

My midweek I was able to bend my finger a bit and so I immediately cast on for something simple - I went with the EasyPeasy beanie hat by TinCanKnits. If you haven’t got this free pattern in your files please do check it out. It’s a great standby, available in sizes from baby to large adult and it’s perfect for those moments when your fingers itch to cast on something… anything.

In addition, we are deep into exam season now, as my eldest son embarks on A levels so my time at home is spent ferrying tea/biscuits around the house and providing gentle hugs/destressing walks as required. Sending huge hugs and solidarity to all of those parenting their kids through exams - not to mention the brilliantly hard working teachers who are always on-call to help with last minute panicked questions.

Mitered Squares

My finger injury curtailed my mitered square knitting unfortunately, but up until that point I was having great fun knitting up a range of mitered squares of different sizes - you can see the results so far in this week’s blog post. I’ve used DK weight and sock weight yarn so far and I’ll definitely be adding larger 40x40 and maybe even 50x50 squares to this at some point as well - purely for the joy of knitting larger and larger squares. I’m easily pleased, obviously.

Making me smile this week

This post on dandelions from Twitter. It talked about how dandelions are the only UK flower to represent all three celestial bodies - the sun, the moon and the stars - and that just blew my mind a little.

Getting ready for my new KAL - the Sassy Stripe KAL which starts on 1st June. I’m rummaging through my stash in search of the perfect yarn pairings. You can find all the details here if you’d like to join. There’s a sale on selected shawl patterns too.

My new sock ruler - from My Mama Knits - because sometimes you just need something new, pretty and useful.

Have a lovely weekend, whatever you are up to.

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