Learning to knit.

This post is a very long time in the making...knitting a blanket is time consuming! When a friend offered to help me learn how to knit, I snapped up the offer and decided to make my own little baby blanket for the pram. Knitting is something completely new for me so I was keen to get some help.

I choose 4 colours of baby wool (4 ply) for the blanket- pale grey, light yellow, white and a white,yellow, mint green mixed wool. I also bought a row counter and some 3.25 mm needles.

Having never knitted before, the whole starting experience was full of mistakes and restarting again and again. Each of my squares were 25 stitches across and 45 rows long. I  originally thought I needed to knit 20 squares (which would take this new knitter a very long time) but after researching good sized cot blankets, I realised I was going to need 99 SQUARES!- 11 squares x 9 squares.
But thankfully the more I knitted, the faster I got and it wasn't too long before I had a big old pile of squares, although let's be honest, it really took forever! Knitting is far more time consuming than sewing but I was feeling determined to have finished as much as possible of the blanket before the baby comes.

Once I started to get enough squares, I then had to learn how to sew the pieces together. This wasn't especially hard but quite time consuming. I used the excess leftover wool on each of the square ends to sew it together and hoped the colour I was using worked okay against the different colours. It wasn't perfect but it still looks good, just with a homemade edge :)

And this labor of love was finished. I actually  have ended up with a blanket that is 7 rows x 9 rows but there is always the possibility of extending the blanket to the originally planned 11x9 squares in the future.

My dear Mum saw me knitting lots and decided to knit me a scarf for this winter in my favourite mustard yellow colour..something bright and cheerful to wear over the long, cold months ahead :) This was very sweet of Mum and she just used wool from my wool stash. For interest sake this scarf was 55 stitches across and the length was two balls of mustard wool I had sitting in my craft room. However Mum decided to knit it one row purl, one row knit and unfortunately this ended up with the scarf curling up. This resulted in me consulting google and eventually finding the solution...
Wet the knitted scarf with warm water and then pin it on a towel to dry. It still curls a little but is much more wearable than before.

 I think it will be a while though before I attempt anymore knitting projects. I've really grown to value the craft and the intense amount of time (and skill) it takes to knit things.I'm impressed with all you knitters out there!
Lisa x