Squaring Up

Sometimes I really need instant gratification and I get that when I do blanket squares.  It's funny how when you decide that you will do something, a bit like a bus, another one turns up.  Originally I was going to work on a blanket for The Knitter's project for the Refuge charity - if you don't know anything about this, it is a charity that works with families that have to leave their homes due to domestic abuse, often they will arrive with their whole world in a carrier bag - the plan is to give everyone who has to stay in a refuge this year is given a blanket of their own.


However fast on the heels of this came an appeal for a Mumsnet blanket, made in memory of a mum who had died unexpectedly... non-knitters send a couple of balls of wool through to knitters and we knit up squares which are sent off to be made into the final blanket.

So as I blocked out the squares there was only one piece of music I could listen to... and here it is Dave Brubeck's - Unsquare Dance

So here are the five squares I have made up for the Mumsnet blanket, which are taken from a special e-zine  which can be bought for a charity donation to Refuge and a revised version of patterns from Nicky Epstein's book Knitting Block by Block

So I will be off to the Post Office tomorrow to send them on their way.

Cables are back (again!)

I started knitting when I was about five and my earliest memories of my mum knitting was her working on a moss green Aran sweater for my dad... it was the size of a small marquee, made amid much tutting and with the cable needle clutched between pursed lips... it took forever to be finished.  However it was the start of a love affair with  cables for my mum viz the amazing pile of Aran knits we found squirrelled away when she died.

I started my first Aran when I was about 10 and finished it two years later and have not stopped since... below are a couple of scarves which I made as Xmas presents for friends

Pistacchio cable scarf knitted across 24 stitches, simple cable with a moss stitch central pattern

Reversible cable worked on rib stitches

My sister very kindly lets me read her copies of the Knitter magazine and Issue 27 has some fab info on the history of cabling in the UK, especially in the fishing fleets and has some gorgeous up to date patterns.

http://www.theknitter.co.uk/category/magazine/

So get your chunky wool out and start to invent  your own cabling patterns!