Twirling yarn around knitting needles

I'm becoming a tiny bit obsessed with knitting. Well, okay, maybe more than a tiny bit, I'm thinking about knitting at least a few times an hour. It's such a wonderful way to relax and yet be productive at the same time. I feel knitting goes hand in hand with my simple life and so, here is yet another knitting post. LOL!!

I am by no means a competent knitter. Oh, I get by, but I'm working every day to improve my skills and every new project I start now pushes me just that little bit further. For those of you who don't knit, knitting is just twirling yarn around knitting needles. What you knit depends on how you twirl and how much you twirl. About 90% of knitting is just a combination of two stitches - plain and purl, but you also need to know how to cast on and off. Knowing those four stitches will make you anything from a dishcloth to a jumper (sweater). It's not easy, but it's not difficult either. It just takes time to practise your stitches and tension so that what you produce looks neat. Knitting dishcloths is the perfect way to learn to knit. You can instantly see what each stitch produces and in the end, whether you did a great job or not, you've got a dishcloth you can use for many months in the kitchen.

(BTW, to Ramona in Sweden, did you use 100% cotton in your dishcloth? You may be able to make your cotton more absorbent by either boiling it in a saucepan of water for five minutes or soaking it in a bucket of water to which you've added a table spoon of Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate). You can generally buy that at the pharmacy but we also have it in supermarkets here.)

The red fingerless mittens above are the ones I made for my sister, Tricia. They are the same as the mittens I knitted from Heather's pattern at the Co-op, with the addition of ribbed edges. Again the ribbed edges were just another combination of plain and purl. I really like these mittens and have started knitting another pair using a machine washable pure wool 5 ply by Cleckheaton. This is a thinner and lighter wool, perfect for where my sister Kathleen lives, but they will take a little longer to knit.

These mittens take less than a ball of wool to knit up and will take an average knitter about two days of on and off knitting to complete. If anyone would like the pattern, let me know and I'll post it later.

I recently bought some linen and cotton blend yarn called Linen Mode by Moda. I love how it knitted up but it's composed of tiny threads that tend to fall apart when you're knitting and I had to look at my knitting while I was doing it. I don't like doing that. I like to socialise while I knit, or at least look around. Here below is the dishcloth I knitted with the linen yarn. I haven't finished off the edges yet - I had to go on to another project immediately. I told you I was obsessed. :- )

Here are some really lovely links to knitting sites or to articles about knitting. I'm adding The Thrifty Knitter to my side bar too. I hope my northern hemisphere friends have a wonderful winter of knitting by the fire and for those of you not yet bitten by the knitting bug, I hope some of this will inspire you to take up the needles.

My Learning to Knit post - it has a link to my favourite waffle weave dishcloth pattern.
A wonderful knitting blog - The Thrifty Knitter.
The Daily Green is having an alternative knitting fibres book giveaway for residents of USA and Canada here.
New York Times article about knitting and Lions first retail store after 130 years as a wholesaler.
In Australia - Bengido Woollen Mills, who sell beautiful yarns online.
UK - Laughing Hens.
Ravelry - a wonderful knitting community.
Knitty - a free online knitting magazine.
Posh Yarns free pattern for socks and a lovely shawl.
Free pattern for a stash shawl
Free dishcloth patterns.

Knitting abbreviations. Don't be put off by these. They'll make sense to you after you've been knitting for a while.
Knit for charities in Australia.
Check out Kim's knit along mittens blog. There are some lovely mits there.

I want to add a word about awards. I've been lucky enough to receive many awards while I've been blogging. I appreciate very much the thought and friendship these awards represent but I can no longer accept any new awards. So to Rhonda at Ravelly1 and Bevb who gave me an award recently, I sincerely thank you but please give the award to another blogger. I don't have enough time now to check out other blogs on a regular basis and I don't have enough time to pass the awards on.

I have written about this in the past but obviously not everyone reads every post. I might put a note in the side bar but if you have any ideas on how to let people know I don't accept awards, I appreciate hearing them.

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