Everything I have Ever Knitted

Last year when I finished knitting my WW1 Memorial Quilt – I was asked – what are you going to do next?  I thought about this for several weeks.  I am attracted to knitting simple garments which let the yarn to the talking and this started from when I first developed my knitting skills.  In the summer of 2019 it will be 40 years since I  knitted my first garment and then knitted lots of samples to try out various stitch patterns.

I learned to knit as a child but only knitted small squares and oblongs.  And then some time in the mid to late 1970s I worked on this patchwork quilt.  I knitted stripes for the first time and used very small needles.  This was my first colour-work project.  Unlike the majority of the other projects that I have knitted since – I still have access to it – it is on my mother’s bed.

This year I want to produce a piece of knitting which commemorates my experience of knitting.  This won’t mean much to anyone else but I hope the end result will be interesting and attractive.

When I mentioned my idea at a Knitting & Crochet Guild meeting – I was asked – can you remember everything you have ever knitted or do you keep a record of it?  This blog is a record of most of what I have knitted during the last 5 years.  Before that I have files of patterns that I  have designed, copies of patterns I have knitted and little bits of yarn that I kept to use for something else one day.  That day may have come because I will be able to use the yarn that I used originally.

Last Christmas I read a book called “A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.”  This provided the idea for my knitting project – because one person is symbolic of lots of others – that is the same with this project – I will remember the garments I liked, that I hated, that were significant in some way – and they will represent all the others.

I am surprised about what I do remember but it is because of how I think and how I design – I tend to go over what I have done or what I have learned and then produce a variation.  Some patterns have had about 20 variations, if not more.  I am thinking particularly of a jacket that I have knitted for an expected baby.  I have done it plain – in pink or blue or yellow – I have done it with a Fair Isle pattern – I have done it in tartan and I have done it striped.  The basic pattern is the same but the end results look very different.  

At the moment – I intend to be very casual about this project – I will knit whatever occurs to me in whatever order it occurs.  I will collect together lots of little bits of knitting and arrange them at the end.  I may then find that I need to knit some more pieces to persuade those I have already knitted to look like one piece of knitting that hangs together.

So far this year I have knitted nothing – not one stitch – not on this project nor on any other.  I have been suffering from a nasty virus which has left me feeling exhausted most of the time and too tired to knit (I must have been very ill indeed!).  Anyway – today I am feeling a bit more optimistic and have a bit more energy – so I might actually finish the Christmas present that I mentioned in the previous post.