Third Annual Knit & Crochet Blog Week: Day 4 - THURSDAY

I am participating in the Third Annual Knit & Crochet Blog Week (my second year). This week, each day will have a topic and those of us that are participating will write about said topic. The higher powers that be (i.e., the organizers) have thrown in a "Wildcard" topic, just in case there's a topic that just doesn't appeal to our tastes.  So, without further adieu........



A Knitter or Crocheter For All Seasons?
As spring is in the air in the northern hemisphere and those in the southern hemisphere start setting their sights for the arrival of winter, a lot of crocheters and knitters find that their crafting changes along with their wardrobe. Have a look through your finished projects and explain the seasonality of your craft to your readers. Do you make warm woolens the whole year through in preparation for the colder months, or do you live somewhere that never feels the chill and so invest your time in beautiful homewares and delicate lace items. How does your local seasonal weather affect your craft?



For those of you that are not avid readers of my blog or know me in real life, you're probably unaware that I live in southern Wisconsin. This means that I'm in the northern hemisphere and we're headed into spring right now...of course, if you're at all familiar with the unusual weather in the continental United States this past winter, it really doesn't feel like much of spring. Seriously, after our non-winter where Husband only had to drag out the snow blower once and I shoveled once, it really doesn't feel like we're headed into spring. Winter usually translates to at least 10 snow blower events and maybe a handful of shovel events. This winter was so weird. For crying out loud, it was 53°F in the middle of January...when we're normally lucky if we see 25°F. Anyway, let's just say that it seems like spring has been relatively uneventful because our winter was so weird.

With that said, let's get back to the topic at hand: the seasonality, if you will, of my crafting.

I spent most of this past winter working on socks, hats, and baby blankets. Since January, I have finished three hats, two pairs of socks (one was a pair of baby socks, though), a dishcloth (for a swap), and Little Man's baby blanket. I've also got six or seven projects currently on needles: two or three pairs of socks, a hat, a shawl, and a toy for Little Man. Nothing overly big........the shawl is probably the biggest and I haven't worked on that much. The winter before that, I was making a lot of hats (baby and otherwise), working on Little Man's baby blanket, working on a couple pairs of socks...nothing huge. I made my one and only sweater during the winter months a couple years ago. If you look at my projects page on Ravelry, you'll see pretty much everything I've made since I found out about Ravelry (which, sadly, was after I knit 10 scarves for our groomsmen and 10 dishcloth scrubbies for our bridesmaids)...that I've remembered to photograph. Most everything I've made has been a winter item (hats or scarves), a baby item (hats, baby sweater, blanket, toy), dishcloths, or socks.

Apparently, my knitting lives for winter.

That's not to say that I don't think items for summer wouldn't be any fun to work on. I've got some items in my queue that could be construed as "summer" knitting, including Campfire Socks, the Optic Waves Shawl, Inamorata, Sandra's Stole, the Camp Smock, and of course Shaun.

Then again.......I'm one of those people that knits what I want, when I want. Now, am I going to be knitting a heavy sweater outside on a hot, summer day? Um....no. That would be dumb. Socks, hats, maybe even scarves are okay for outside on a hot, summer day. But a sweater? No frickin' way! Inside in the air conditioning? Oh sure. That's fine.

I think something else I have to contend with is that my knitting time is extremely limited. It took me almost 18 months to finish Little Man's Cobblestone Baby Blanket. It took me a little over 5 months to make my Devon Sweater. Some things take longer than others and I kind of have to anticipate that things are going to take awhile, especially larger projects. So, while it's all fine and well for someone to say that they work on their "summer" objects in the late winter and early spring and their "winter" objects in the fall, I just can't operate that way. I'm a slow knitter with limited time to knit. It's not a good combination. With that said, I just knit whatever I feel like knitting. It's worked out well so far...

I would like to knit some items for the house but I haven't found anything that has really struck me in a "wow-I-need-that" kind of way. My grandmother used to crochet doilies. Seriously, there were a ton of doilies around: under plants, over chair backs, over couch backs, under appliances, under coasters...I could go on. With that said, there doesn't really seem to be any household items I feel compelled to knit, except perhaps blankets (which really do seem to take forever). My grandmother seemed to concentrate on only household items....or, at least, doilies.

So, most of my knitting is functional clothing (hats, scarves, socks, sweaters) and I guess I don't really pay attention to the season.

That's just how I roll, I guess.