Blogtober 2024 : Day 1

It’s October!!!!

We say “white rabbits” in our house at the start of a new month but you might say something different, and perhaps whether you have rabbits at all depends on the particular month … we’ve always avoided anything with pinching and punching as that’s just asking for trouble with small people in my opinion (despite this post suggesting it’s to do with a drink or witches), but oh my goodness, it’s that’s time of year again and October can only mean one thing on the blog … BLOGTOBER!

I LOVE Blogtober!  It’s a challenge amongst bloggers that has been going for some years now where you post every day throughout October; some people like to work to a theme or to prompt lists but I tend to ramble on in my usual way for more days than usual in the month, so if you can cope with a daily dose of me, then you’re very welcome to join me! 🙂

You can get a taste of what’s to come through my Blogtober archive, and I also usually have a project on the go as well during October … previously I have learnt how to use a Shetland knitting belt and knitted a shawl (2021), I’ve updated my Split Mittens pattern to include more sizes (2022), and last year, I released my Hope Socks pattern which I designed for baby feet using the West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab Future Dreams yarn that they developed to raise funds for the Future Dreams breast cancer charity.  I’ve been donating £1 from the sale of each pattern to the charity and I’ve raised £147 so far which is £147 they wouldn’t have had otherwise, so thank you to you if you bought a copy!

This year’s project is still a bit of mystery, even to me!

I’ve been making a start on next year’s Winter Haven KAL socks (I’m going to be doing that in January, it’ll be lovely to have you join if you’d like to – it’s free and it’s a great way to start the year! 🙂 ) and this is all I can show you at the moment.  No, this isn’t the sock.  This, believe it or not, is my research into the pattern that I want to use.  I know it doesn’t look like I’ve done much at all but I can assure you that this tube has offered me a lot of information!

So, finishing the pattern and knitting up these socks will be one of my projects but I will probably keep that secret for now … I still have my Kate Davies shawl to finish (I don’t think I’m going to be done by the official KAL (knitalong) cut off so it will get done eventually), and I want to finish my Polkacats jumper too.  I was doing so well working on this over the summer when not so small daughter was away in Nepal but then she came back and we had all of the moving-to-university stuff to sort out, the jumper wasn’t quite the size I had expected and I worked a few more rounds of cats on the length but then needed to try it on and that was a faff … I am certain that you will know exactly what I mean when I tell you that I put it aside fully intending to pick it up again within a few days … and here we are in October! 🙂

Right then, I’m going to love you and leave you for today … I’ve been back to see the chiropractor after hurting my back a couple of weeks ago and she’s really pleased with how it’s recovering (I have been doing daily stretching, walking and my Tai Chi class helped enormously), but I am finding that I don’t want to sit down for too long, so I’m going to leave the computer alone for a bit now!  Along with writing today’s post, I have finally got round to replying to all of your comments – I have so appreciated your company over the last couple of weeks – it’s so lovely to have these online conversations!

I’ll be back again tomorrow! xx