Pam Alison Knits

Time is all askew this year. The summer seemed endless… and not in a good way. I don’t think September even existed, August simply went on and on and on. Now October seems to have teleported us straight from summer to winter; one week the only protection I needed all day was a cardigan, the next week it was full-on winter coat weather. Despite all of this, there are times when the year seems to have flashed by barely seen. I took a bus trip this weekend to shop for groceries at an out-of-town supermarket which I enjoy visiting, but it’s not exactly part of my regular shopping routine. I was quite horrified to recall that the last time I visited I’d been looking at Easter eggs, and now the shop was decked out with Christmas decorations. I was happy to be able to make a donation to the Poppy Appeal and pick up this year’s poppy which I will wear until Remembrance Sunday. Many people have commented on how difficult it was to find the poppies last year, in fact, I ended up making an online donation and re-using a poppy from a previous year. It was gratifying to get it sorted on my first look this year.

So, it’s nearly November and I am in full-on knitting mode, with the Big Blue Slouch coming along apace. I’ve been working quite hard on it through the past few weeks and the vast ocean of the back is almost complete. My aim is to have the garment finished by the end of November. I think that is achievable, but part of me is wondering whether it’s a realistic goal. I was worried that the back was taking too much wool and, despite having bought extra last month, it might still be a push to get the garment finished. With this in mind, I had a bit of a regroup and was relieved to find I still have four full skeins. I need to wind one to finish the back, although this will only take a small part. The left front used slightly under two skeins, and the sleeves will probably need one skein each so I should be spot-on. All in all, this is quite an expensive knit, but the John Arbon Knit by Numbers wool is exceptionally lovely and the finished garment is going to be quite a statment piece in my wardrobe. That being said, I need to find more budget-friendly options for the other pieces I aim to knit.

I am already thinking ahead to my future yarn-buying plans, which means much of my non-knitting time is spent browsing yarn on websites. I’m not at all sure what colours I am thinking of to complement the blue I’ve chosen for the Slouch. My heart draws me towards pink, but as I’m wearing my pink cardigans for work I’d like to avoid duplication in the clothes I am keeping for the “not-work” me. Of course, blue and grey is a classic combination and likely to be my final choice, with some pops of mustard yellow and perhaps a green or a nice cheerful red. Yet there’s part of me that would entertain a wild card as one of the main colours and in that case a really good red would top my list. I wouldn’t want it to be eye-searing, but neither would I want it to stray too far towards the burgundy end of the scale. In fact, the Beetroot shade of Rowan’s Moordale wool – the wool the whole pattern book was designed for – looks pretty good to me, although we’d be talking of blowing the budget. I will probably shop my stash for the next garment to give the bank balance a well-deserved rest and that will add another basic blue garment to my wardrobe, perhaps with a bit of colourwork to lighten the mood.

As if completing the Big Blue Slouch wasn’t enough of a stretch target, I also want to get a pair of socks finished in November. In fact, my aim is to have four pairs of socks knitted across the next four months which will go some way towards re-stocking my sock collection. Part of me feels like I need a whole new drawer full of socks to keep me happy. It helps that I have a pair already on the needles, in fact I have a whole sock done, so I’m ahead of the game heading into November.

With such major goals on the knitting front, I’m not expecting much progress in other areas of my life through November, but you never know. A resurgence of interest in one area could have positive benefits across the board.