Knit One, Purl One

Knitting is one of my favourite hobbies.  The rhythm of the needles seems to soothe me and I love the way I can make whatever I want in the colours that I love.  Sewing up the finished pieces is another story and sometimes they can be hanging around for quite a while before I get round to doing them!  Generally I buy yarn on special offer if I can and my local yarn shop, Kemps, is always full of bargains.  You can check them out online at http://www.kempswoolshop.com/. 

I've been trying dish/washcloth knitting as they last longer than the ones you buy so less to buy and less to go to landfill.



 This one is a washcloth, knitted in 4ply cotton. The colour was discontinued stock and cost me 99p for a 100g ball.  I could make at least 4 washcloths from this.  It worked well - this is my favourite.

This second one is knit in bamboo - again discontinued yarn, cost 69p and I made 2 cloths with it.  They were intended for washcloths as they felt so soft, but once wet they were so rough I thought they'd take my skin off!  So, dishcloths/floor cloths I think!

The third one is double knitting cotton and probably to be used as a dishcloth.  I love my pink washcloth so much I think I'll just use that yarn for knitting the rest.  Plenty more upstairs in my stockpile!

I'm also going to try knitting socks, although I'm not so good at knitting in the round with 4 double pointed needles..  I seem to have needles all over the place and get in a bit of a tangle!  But I hole so many socks I thought if I knitted them they'd be more hardwearing and I could darn them and they'd last me longer.  Cutting my toenails more often would help too of course - my boyfriend complains they're like veloceraptors claws sometimes! 

Well that's a couple of the ways knitting will play a part in my aim of  becoming more self sufficient.  Not very exciting, but definately functional.  I'll put up pictures of the prettier stuff later.