Life is complicated, knitting doesn’t have to be. In Episode 53 of my knitting podcast I share finished sock knitting, muse on unenjoyable colourwork, and discuss the woes of sewing in the ends of crochet scrap projects.
Whilst I’ve continued to be busy tying up loose ends, I’ve found myself wanting to just knit simple, relaxing projects. Apparently this is quite a task for me, since I seem to like to make things difficult! Can you relate?
Can you recommend a favourite simple, relaxing knitting project? Let me know in the comments 🙂
Show notes
Featured projects
Oregano Socks, a knitting pattern designed by The Crimson Stitchery. I knit a new pair using Novita Nalle yarn*.
Ice Pop Socks a knitting pattern designed by The Crimson Stitchery
Warm Hands edited by Jeanette Sloan & Kate Davies was kindly gifted for review by Jeanette. I knit the Blue Interference glove pattern by Claudia Fiochetti using Tukuwool Sock, Jamieson’s of Shetland Ultra & Holst Supersoft.
Watch my video tutorial series about knitting with Holst Supersoft, a yarn sold with spinning oil.
See the Vogue.co.uk article about designer crochet bags, which inspired my crochet project.
*Contains affiliate links, meaning that I may receive a small commission upon your purchase. This allows you to support The Crimson Stitchery at no extra cost.
Honourable mentions
My cardigan is the Diagonal Rib Cardigan, a vintage pattern from the book ‘A Stitch In Time, Knitting and Crochet Patterns, 1920-1949 Vol. 1’ by Susan Crawford & Jane Waller.
Watch my Sweater Tour video – cardigan edition – for more cardigan knitting goodness.
My handmade ceramic mug & matching coffee filter is by Tim Fenna on Etsy
Conversational Threads
Donate to the Red Cross fundraiser for Ukraine here.
I chat about responding to the war in Ukraine as a maker, and as a citizen. This has been on my mind lately as I’ve been reflecting on my family story during World War II. In the 1940s they were forcibly removed from their home in Poland and put in a concentration camp, eventually walking from Siberia to Tehran (Iran) before travelling to the UK as refugees. I have struggled with how to respond to this story, especially given that a lot of research and stories published about surviving concentration camps and inter-generational trauma takes the Jewish community as its case study. This article has a line about silence amongst Holocaust survivors, which spring-boarded my thoughts. Whilst the events affecting my family run concurrently with the Holocaust, and concern the same perpetrators (the Nazi and Russian armies/governments in the 1940s), my family are not Jewish. I struggle with the ethics of comparison in light of the history of the Jewish diaspora.
Yet despite that, knowing my family’s story offers me the chance to extend compassion towards the innocent people suffering needlessly due to political games. It also allows me to remember how important the act of making and creating is, and how we shouldn’t take our freedoms and joys for granted, instead, experience them fully and wholly.
