Blogtober 2024 : Day 7

Well, here we are, the first full week of October in 2024 – two more full weeks to go then another 4 days and it’s November!  (I’m basing this on starting the week on a Monday, just in case your calendar says different!)

Shall we finish off our tour of my October archives?  I think we were up to October 2020 and as we probably all remember far too well, the world had become a different place by then.  Earlier in the year, everywhere went into lockdown as the Covid virus spread wide and quickly across the world.  It’s easy to forget now, a couple of years later, how frightening those early days were; the first three weeks in the UK were bright and sunny and felt like a holiday for many people, but as the time went on and we saw more and more people fall ill and even die, the fun quickly faded and anxiety rose as we felt as if we were fighting an invisible enemy that might invade our homes from any direction.

By October that year, parts of the UK were back in lockdown, but one positive side of it was that I noticed a big rise in people coming to the blog to learn how to knit socks.  For many people, the enforced time at home meant a chance to take up a new hobby that they’d always wanted to try out, or to return to something that they had previously enjoyed but had had to give up as life got in the way.  I think that knitting, whatever you knit, is a wonderful way to help keep the anxiety demons at bay and I’ve been really glad to think that I might have been able to help someone feel a little better.

Looking back on the blog, I was sharing photos from an Instagram prompt challenge that I’d taken place in during September that year – there were actually four of them with lots of links to projects if you’d like to take a look: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.  My big news of October that year, though, was a new book of Christmas sock designs for West Yorkshire Spinners, featuring their brand new yarn for the year, Silent Night, plus updated patterns for all their previous yarns.

You can see the Candy Cane stripes in the centre of the bottom row on the book that’s why you can’t find the original “plain” pattern any more as there’s a new one – mock cables which twist like candy cane all the way down the socks.  I had such fun designing these and I do tend to get quite literal with the themes too, so the Fairy Lights socks pattern has cable which zig-zags down the leg and foot to represent lengths of fairy lights (but not in a tangle), and the Robin pattern has cables on it that look like paper chains.  Originally called “Christmas Robin”, this pattern has now been renamed “Blitzen” to match all the other reindeer names in the book and you can still get a free download of it if you want to give it a go.

There were seven patterns in total in the book and I very much like that they called it “Collection One” because that suggests there may be another one in the future and I am always up for that! 🙂

On to October 2021 and this was the first year that I joined in with Blogtober.  I decided to set myself a project to work on that I could write about as I was also designing commissioned socks – and in April 2021, the second collection of Winwick Mum yarns in Signature 4ply was released.  This one was called Seasons and looking back to Blogtober in 2021, I wrote a post all about the patterns that I’d designed for WYS up until then (there are a few more to add to the list now!), including the ones for the Seasons yarn.  You can read that post here if you’d like to.

 My project for October 2021 was to learn how to use a Shetland knitting belt as I was already starting to feel the effects of too much knitting in my shoulder and I wondered if learning to knit in a slightly different way would help me.  I really enjoyed learning how to use it – I joined an online workshop by Shetland knitting expert Janette Budge – and I decided I’d knit a shawl as it would be easier to learn on a long run of stitches rather than trying to launch in on a pair of socks.  My resulting shawl was this one, the Changing Staircases shawl (Ravelry link), and whilst I don’t think that I’m going to be a full-time knitting belt knitter, it is a useful skill for me to have and it does encourage me to knit in a slightly different way.

The yarn is HeartSpun 4ply by Woolly Chic which combined Blue-faced Leicester with Tencel – I bought it intending to try it out for no-nylon socks but couldn’t quite bring myself to cut the yarn as Tencel has a beautiful shine to it, so I knitted a shawl instead.  I’ve since knitted socks with Tencel blend yarn – they’re my Sofa Snuggle Socks – and whilst that yarn (West Yorkshire Spinners Elements) did make a good pair of socks, the tension was different to “standard” 4ply and I’m not sure that I would recommend wearing them for anything other than house or bed socks.  They do have a lovely sheen to them and feel very luxurious on your feet, but I think that Tencel yarn may be better suited to other projects than socks.

No mention of WYS Christmas socks, you’ll have noticed, and that’s because by 2021, they had started releasing their Christmas yarns much earlier to make sure that there was plenty of time to get the yarn sent overseas.

My Blogtober posts for October 2022 seem to have allll the projects in it! 🙂  I’d cast on for a pair of Carousel Socks – I don’t often re-knit my own patterns as I’m always looking towards the next one but I do love this one and I had just the yarn for it.

It was also the first year of Yarnstravaganza, organised by UK Hand Knitting and I’d been asked to create a sock pattern especially for the event.  I did just that and my Branch Line Socks pattern was released during October.  It was a free download and after the event, UK Hand Knitting and I agreed that it should stay on the charity knits section of their website and you can still get hold of a copy you’d like a new cast on for next weekend! 🙂  Click here to download it from the UK Hand Knitting website.

Also in that year, I reviewed a set of Addi Unicorn needles, a set of KnitPro Mindful Collection needles and updated my Split Mittens pattern to include more sizes, but I’ve just had an email asking me to check the numbers on that so if you can hang fire for a short while before downloading a copy if you don’t have one already, I’ll let know you when it’s been re-checked.

Phew, I was busy during that October!

October 2023 brought another new pattern as October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Last year, West Yorkshire Spinners produced a special version of their ColourLab DK yarn in collaboration with Future Dreams, a breast cancer charity based in London, but with plenty of workshops and information online so that anybody can benefit from it.  After a request from the charity, WYS asked me if I would knit a pair of adult and baby socks from the yarn which one of the charity ambassadors was going to use to promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month so I set to work!  WYS has since developed a range of ColourLab DK Sock yarn which contains nylon and is much more hard-wearing for socks, but as you’ll see, the person wearing the socks I designed wasn’t going to be doing much trekking in them …

Baby Summer is wearing what became my Hope Socks pattern and I still send money from the sales of this sweet little socks pattern to Future Dreams, and will continue to do so for as long as people still want to buy it and the money can help someone who needs it.

I also finished off a pair of socks that I’d started earlier in Blogtober … this yarn is Marine Rainbow by The Yarn Badger and I don’t think I could love these socks any more than I do!

And now, here we are at October 2024!  I’ve already talked about what I’m up to this month in my first Blogtober post for 2024 and I don’t actually have any progress to show you as I’m still focussing on trying to get the pattern right for next year’s Winter Haven KAL and it’s taking up all my knitting time.  I’ve got an idea in my head and I am this close to getting it right … I’m going to be making another brew and carrying on with my sample when I’ve finished chatting to you, but I’m hopeful I’ve finally got it now!

I do hope you’ve enjoyed wandering through my archives with me – I’ll be back tomorrow with a new post and I’ll see you then! xx