Writing this New Year's Eve edition of Woolfully has taken me all over the philosophical map and then some. I wandered into deep, thoughtful and ultimately ridiculous waters but thankfully came to my senses. Using moderately ruthless (you heard me, I said moderately ruthless), editing I have tried to spare you from some of the blah, blah, blah of a typical New Year's post but why make promises?
The past 12 months have been excellent fun. I've made some great new friends with the Prince Rupert Library Knitters (and crafters of all sorts). With my friend Daisy I had the honour of teaching the local Pathfinders group how to knit. They are a fun bunch of young women and their leaders Jill and Coral get gold stars all around for just being terrific. Basking in the success of knitting with Pathfinders, I fell to the earth (you may recall our earthquake a few months back) when I tried to teach the gals to tat. Whoever coined the phrase "quit while you're ahead" may have been on to something.
This year I plan to continue messing around with modular knitting. To refresh your memories, modular knitting is about knitting basic shapes together one piece at a time. I had a great time making the Irish Chain Afghan and as a result I'm going to play with knitting another "quilt" in the coming year.
Stranded colour work and Fair Isle knitting are a couple of ways to accomplish a knitted quilt but I've never been a big fan of multiple bobbins of yarn dangling off the back of my piece as I knit. No, I prefer the one tiny piece at a time method. Why? Partly because my days of rushing to finish things are long over and partly because knitting tiny pieces together to create patchwork feels more akin to sewing bits of fabric together to make a quilt. Of late I have been messing around with the tumbling blocks pattern. After a bit of trial and error I've come up with a diamond shape that knits quite well into tumbling blocks. Most of the diamonds can be attached as you knit, but there is always one short seam that needs hand stitching with each block. I can live with that, but I know hand stitching is a fingernail on the blackboard for many knitters.
I haven't any serious New Year's resolutions, I seldom do. New Year's resolutions are why the swim lane is suddenly full and you can't find an empty bike at spin class. No, I will leave the new year sweating to others. I do want to thank those of you who provided me loopholes for last year's rather elastic resolution (no online shopping after 8pm) which held strong for 6 months - okay 5 months but I was rounding up. The best loophole was waiting until midnight because technically that's a whole new day. The down side to that is that fabrics or yarns that seem like a brilliant idea at midnight seldom make any sense at all in the daylight and that's assuming I can even recall the purchase to begin with. The upside is I get so many surprise packages in the mail ("No, I'm sure it can't be for me, have you ordered anything, honey?")
I look forward to meeting with the Library Knitters in the coming year and seeing all the nifty projects under construction. Feel free to join us every Thursday evening (except the 1st Thursday of the month - that's the Camera Club) at 7:00pm in the Prince Rupert Library multi-purpose room. We are not a knitting-centric group by all means bring your craft or your desire to learn something new and we'll be there to help you out. It's fun, it's free and it's never mandatory - what can be better than that?
Join us!
Happy and safe New Year everyone!
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ReplyDeleteCan you send me the pattern when you get the pattern figured out, please? I have been searching for a scarf pattern with the tumbling blocks. Thanks in advance.
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