So yeah, whilst I continue knitting small things for the crochet/knit garden of that ridiculous project, shall we go for a wander around outside?
Yes it’s possible to knit and walk. Trust me, I’ve done far more embarrassing things in public than knit. I realize that not everyone is this shameless, though: I was knitting in the pub with friends the other night – the rival knitting group wasn’t there, so all was peaceful – and one of my friends said she just couldn’t quite bring herself to knit in public. She did slightly undermine her own argument by saying this in public whilst knitting, but I can’t help longing to live in a world where knitting in public is just as unremarkable as reading in public or tagging your friends in weird Facebook goat videos in public. When I’m President-For-Life Of The Universe, there are going to be some big changes around here, let me tell you*.
But back to our walk-whilst-knitting. Let’s go. And yes, we shall ignore those people staring at us – they’re uncouth and their gauge is uneven. Do come along. You see, the best way to knit colourwork whilst walking is to put one ball of yarn in each pocket, like this. Excellent. Sorted. What’s that you say? You’re doing some complex intarsia? Ah, you might need rather a lot of pockets…
OK it’s been raining, but for a few days back there, we had a sort of spring-summer hybrid that was deliciously warm. Come back in time with me for a forest stroll: I took the twinnage to a lunch party at a friend’s house and on the way back, the boys asked to go for a walk in the bluebell woods. Well I couldn’t possibly say no to that, could I? Care to join us? 🙂
Deeper and deeper we went, the twinnage picking paths apparently at random. I tried very hard to memorise our route. (Don’t worry, this isn’t another post about getting hopelessly lost in the countryside.)
Aren’t bluebells lovely?
Carpets of ’em. Everywhere.
We just couldn’t get enough. The twinnage were enchanted (whilst pretending to be dinosaurs romping through the forest).
I love spring. I’d love it even more if it was as warm as summer, and for a couple of blissful days back there, it was. Nature is busy on the home front, too. A pair of great tits has moved into the nest box, and my goodness they’re busy fetching worms for their young. (How do they manage that? I can’t even persuade my children to eat offal.) Look!
Right, back to the knitting…
*In short, cheese will be made illegal, everyone will have to knit or crochet their own socks, and any countries threatening to go to war will have to first sit down together and cooperate on knitting some really complicated fairisle, to see whether they can just chill the heck out before being allowed to nuke each other back to the Stone Age.
Knitting in public is perfectly fine in my book. FYI, in the United States, bluebells are a totally different flower–sorry, I don’t have a photo–but yours are just as lovely.
Oh? I’m intrigued by US bluebells now. Maybe I should go and Google…
And ‘yay’ to a fellow knit-in-public-er. 🙂
I have quite often knitted socks (small circulars) on the bus or bus stop, or crochetted. Long needles are trickier. I find people often are quite interested.
A beautiful bluebell wood (I wish we had one near) but what do you have against cheese?
Everything. I have EVERYTHING against cheese. It’s just wrong. You may as well ask me to eat live cockroaches. Sorry.
And I’m very happy that you’re a fellow knit-in-public-er. 🙂
When I attempted my first sock I found out that my mum and friends used to knit socks on the way to and from school as well as during air raids :-0
Wow. Especially during the air raids. I guess that could have taken one’s mind off the sheer terror of the situation? Puts my trivial meanderings into perspective.
You’s on form lady! Made me laugh out loud re President-For-Life Of The Universe. I’m voting for you! xxx
YES!!!! I have a vote!!! Result!
Knitting and walking I get….but how the heck do you take a photo at the same time to????
It’s that extra third arm that I grew – very handy.
(Or I hold the knitting in one hand and look like an idiot whilst taking a pic with the other hand.)
Wonderful post as always Phil – Thank You. I would love to say that I will vote for you to be President of the Universe but..and it’s a BIG BUT.. I won’t be able to unless you modify your position re the banning of cheese! I wonder where you grew up and what experience you had to colour your view to such an extent as growing up in Somerset, the home of the Cheddar Cheese caves, I was brought up on cheese and I’d find life very sad without any cheese. Perhaps you could just ban certain smelly types?
Nope I’m sorry, but no cheese. I do realize that this will cause some distress to the otherwise good people of Cheddar, and Wensleydale, etc, but on this matter alone I will not be moved. Do I lose your vote?
Great post!
Thank you! You’re very kind. (And I’m very slow at responding to comments at the moment.)
Nice chuckle for the day 🙂 Always love the photos.
Thank you – you’re very kind! I aim to please…
You can knit and walk? I can’t even drink from a cup and walk. I bow to your multi-tasking abilities Ms T. I hear that cargo pants were invented primarily for those people who wanted to walk at the same time as they knitted complex intarsia. There are also wolves who predate little girls in red capes in forests. Just sayin’. The twins are obviously intelligent small humanoids that wish to reach their intelligent teenage (is that an oxymoron?!) years where all the fun begins. “Go Twinnage!” I don’t get why people complain about bluebells taking over their gardens. I would actively welcome them in my front acre (no double entendre’s were used in the making of that part of this comment…) to replace the forget-me-nots who have velcro in their nefarious futures. I do believe that I found some bluebell bulbs starting to sprout at the little football oval over the road from the tiny Sidmouth Store where we take our dogs to play dinosaurs when we can’t be fagged thinking of anywhere more populated to go. Whatever the little bulbs were, some “creature” had foolishly (most of the narcissus family are “POISONDANGERPOISON!”) up-dug them and attempted to snack on their tender bulby parts and I was able to predate them to bring back and stuff into random pots. I most probably stuffed Allum triquetrum (a garlic scented weed in our parts) in most of my precious pots of babies but whatchagonnado when bulbs are shooting eh? Surely it’s only those who live in cooler climes who have nice mild summers who lust for the heat of mid summer? Those of us living in the South, for whom summer is still burning holes in our mental alacrity, fear it’s deadly rays. I think we should pack all of your northerners up and do some kind of global house swap thingo whereby you are forced to live through 3 months of stinking hot summer. I bet we won’t hear “I’d love it even more if it was as warm as summer…” at least till the sunburn and heat stroke disappeared…
By the way, if you ban cheese you are going to spark the BIGGEST uprising any mini despot has ever had to endure. Your reign as ruler of the world is going to be in the Guinness world book of records as the shortest reign ever. You might want to save that decree for your first year anniversary just so that you can enjoy at least a bit of time at the top.
I crochet in public all the time and just try not to care about what everyone else thinks. And as for your rule about everyone having to knit and crochet their own socks, that might actually motivate me to sit down and finish the one pair of socks that I attempted to make but then went wrong, got annoyed and never picked them up again
Yay to another crochet-in-public-er! And I’m glad that my (ruthlessly enforced) rule will help you finish your socks. 🙂