Knitting

Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.

One of the things that has been keeping me sane over the last year has been my knitting. For those of you who aren't aware, I've lost two jobs in 2020 and have had to deal with the uncertainty of lockdown, which has been made worse by trying to find work in a time when a lot of companies are closed. I decided to teach myself to knit during the first lockdown but when I bought my first lot of knitting needles and wool, I didn't realise how difficult it can be for a left-hander to start knitting. This is down to all the instructions I came across, on YouTube, and online, which were created with the right-handed knitter in mind. I have written plenty about this. As you may (or may not) know that I have dyslexia, so one thing that I've really struggled with is trying to persuade my brain to mirror the instructions that I've learned from the YouTube videos that I've been watching. I'm very stubborn and determined to success when it comes to certain things. I'm a perfectionist. So when I started knitting, I wanted to prove to the world that I could knit and knit well.

My quilt is almost done. I did take a break from it at the end of last year but decided to pick it up again in January as I wanted to finish it. At the moment of my writing this, I have four squares to complete knitting and then sew into place. I want to make a border for it, as well as sewing a panel of cloth onto the back of the quilt to keep it looking tidy. The back looks like an absolute mess right now as I'm not much good at sewing. I've thought of using a sewing machine but I doubt that a sewing machine will be able to handle sewing pieces of knitted wool together because there's a good chance that the wool would tangle the needle of the sewing machine. So I'm still undecided on what I'm going to do about sewing the back panel into place. We'll see. I've got enough time to come to a decision by the time I've finished all the squares and the borders of the quilt before needing to make a decision on a back panel. I just need to make sure that I don't make things more complicated than they need to be.

If you're interested in seeing more of what I'm up to, both with my knitting and my day to day life, do check out my Instagram and Blipfoto* profiles as that's where I tend to post my progress on a regular basis. So It's something that helps me keep an eye on my own progress with making the quilt, in particular. It's also something that I want to share with you. So do feel free to follow me on both, if you have accounts on these platforms then feel free to follow me, however, if you don't have profiles with either platform then you can still visit both websites.

---

*Blipfoto is a platform that encourages the member to post a photo every day. Each photo is posted against the day it was taken and for many, it is a journal of their lives, one photo at a time. This platform is free but you can buy a membership subscription, which allows you some useful extras. The money from each subscription keeps the platform going. You can check my profile without needing to create an account.