Knitting Through It

RRP: $17.95

ISBN 10- 0760330050
Knitting Through It is a book filled with inspiring stores for “Times of Trouble”. This book has short stories and excerpts about knitting and how it has been, and continues to be used during Polictical agendas, War and poverty and heart warming stories of personal times of despair where knitting has lifted spirits, helped with rehabilitation and eased pain and anguish.

You do not have to be a knitter to enjoy this book, it has short chapters making it a perfect book to pick up during morning tea or a cup of coffee in the afternoon. It’s not only inspiring it’s educational and leaves you feeling the urge to pick up your knitting.

It will make you stop and appreciate all that you are giving to your knitting. It’s not just about yarn over and under it’s about lifting your hands, using your heart, focusing on the recipient, deep breathing, relaxation, calming your racing spirit and knitting an item out of love, hate, fear, happiness or pain.

Sitting down to knit will never be the same again…..

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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