January is for slow knitting

I gotta tell ya, 2021 (December in particular) was a doozy. Between releasing my first sweater pattern, Christmas knitting to the last minute, a wedding and then some lovely major plumbing issues (NOT), I was happy when all of that was water under the bridge. Never mind the global pandemic and what that was doing to my workplace and its practices, of course!

Did I lose my knitting mojo? Well, a little, maybe. I have 2 more sweater patterns in the works that are quite close to being done–just need that final push. But…..I think they can wait for now. I have officially given myself permission to play around with my knitting this January. And knit slowly. And have fun figuring out little details. And not know for sure what (if anything) will come of it. It makes me feel good and that’s what knitting is all about, isn’t it?

So I had seen a few patterns of houses knitted into a blanket on Ravelry and really resonated to them. In dream symbology, a house represents you and your psyche and the different floors and rooms represent different issues.SO fascinating! Anyway, I was not 100% excited about the patterns available for one reason or another so I decided to knit some little houses myself out of scrap fingering yarn.And if you’re a sock knitter, there’s always plenty of that!

Here are my first 2 houses being blocked. I love’em! Trying out different window sizes and shapes and working out details for door shapes, you name it! Fun! I decided to keep them small and separate each house pattern into 4 16 row units so that they can be interchangeable for some fun mixing and matching. These big houses are blocking out to 4″ x 7″.

Here’s a couple more! The little house is blocking out to 3″ x 7″. You can see I’ve added some colored doors and am playing with different roof treatments. Since I’m drafting the patterns, knitting the houses and then correcting/revising the pattern, house production is sloooooow. Maybe one or at most, two houses a day. But that’s FINE.

Of course….there are lots of ends to work in. I try topknot them in as I go by various methods but there are still some to deal with. I just work on them a few houses at a time. It’s slow knitting and this is part of the slowness. With this many little bits and tiny areas of colorwork there are ends galore and I’m not letting them fuss me.

And then there’s good ‘ole mattress stitch to sew them together. Also a slow contemplative process. I only manage one or two houses connected a day.

Here are all of my houses so far. Looking pretty good–I guess they may well turn into a blanket some day after all!