from 12/5/23
It has been, whoo, a minute since I’ve written about knitting. I missed it.
I’m not sure if it was post-grief (or is that still grief?) or that I just needed to take time away, but it was necessary. We’ve all been through the ringer of life in the last few years, and I’ve accepted that my body knows better than I do regarding resting & replenishing. Knitting never went anywhere, but other things were there to share my attention. Cross stitch (the MFE stitchalongs are going to do me in, in a good way), my always-too-large stack of books, sewing, and video games came into rotation a lot more. I still made things, but I think I ran out of bandwidth to share, take pictures, talk about my projects, and I didn’t want to force it.
Whatever the reason for me wanting to open up again, I’ll welcome it. A sizable part comes from me recently trying some new needles, the Knitter’s Pride Zing interchangeable set. They’re new to me, I should say, and they remind me of all the nostalgia from learning to knit using an old pair of aluminum needles as a kid. I used them to make M’s hat. I grabbed some of the Brown Sheep Prairie Spun DK that I used to make that enormous, squishy cabled cardigan a few years ago. I picked this yarn up at Lancaster Yarn Shop (hi Wendy!) while visiting family and it’s become one of my favorites. It’s sturdy, but not coarse or stiff, gives great stitch definition, and offers a color palette with something for most people.
#AllCablesAllTheTime is a hashtag that seems to be proving true more and more, so I went with it. I wanted just enough cabling to keep me interested, but not so many that I couldn’t finish it quickly enough for him to wear it this year. (We won’t talk about the Radmere cardigan that I’ve been knitting for 2+ years now; at this point, I’m just going to take pictures and keep knitting.) He loves it and is calling this his “2023 edition”. Great, now he’s getting used to a yearly thing.
In any case, I’m Jen and I’m saying hey to everyone. Again. Off I go to play Stardew Valley and/or Cities Skylines and knit as if I’m really going to finish these gifts by the 25th (ha!).