The mittens will have to wait

I may have set myself up with too much to do...

At the moment, I feel like I have three jobs, one full time and two part time. My degree is effectively a full time job, I'm working two days a week at the hospital, and if I don't do at least an hour of knitting a day, I feel noticeably less sane. (How do people who don't knit not end up in mental health clinics being taught to knit?) So yeah, I may have taken on a bit much.

With that in mind, I'm challenging myself by taking part in the Ravelympics.

I know, doesn't follow, does it? Well, I hate being idle, and I know I work best when I'm nice and busy, so why miss the opportunity for a challenge!

The other day I was working on my sweater (pattern to follow, I'm mega proud of it!) and Hubby and I were watching Psycho. I'm not very good at horror or thriller films, and Hitchcock's the master. I was getting a lot of comfort from hugging my Big Silly Pink Shawl, and had a flash of inspiration for The Hitchcock Blankie.

The idea of The Hitchcock Blankie is that it should be a nice simple stitch that one can easily memorise, and thus knit the blanket whilst watching scary films, that it should be squishy (technical term) so that if you need something to hug, it hugs you back, and that it should have two eye holes on one of the edges or corners so that if you are watching the shower scene from Psycho for the first time (as I was the other night) you've got something to hide behind, but you can still watch.

Of course, because it is called a Blankie, it will be knife-proof, bullet-proof and vermicious knid-proof.

I will be swatching between now and the 12 Feb start date, and will then be knitting the first blankie and writing the pattern in the appropriate designer event, and publishing on here by the 28 Feb end date.

At least that's the plan.

Now, I probably ought to go write that essay...

What a girl's gotta do

There comes a time when you have to accept the inevitable. I started knitting about a year ago, and it has since become a major passion addiction. I have started designing my own items and adapting existing designs. I rather enjoy this and would like to start distributing my designs and seeing if anyone else likes them too. Also, given my memory, I would like somewhere where I feel obliged to update and post the details of my projects so that I don't forget them.

The reason this blog is called FearlessKnits is that I will attempt anything, no matter how hard it says it is. I also have yet to place a lifeline and will almost invariably deviate from the pattern. Whether this is bravery or an advanced form of stupidity I leave to the reader, but it's worked out pretty well so far.

Yesterday I started a pair of mittens. Over the weekend I whipped up a blanket for my prematurely born baby cousin. I'm currently working on a jumper I designed, a cardigan / wrap adapted from a free design on Ravelry. I have a sock and hat design which will need writing up at some point. I really should write these all down before I forget them.

So, here goes:

Hello, I'm Mary Hallam and I'm a knitwear addict designer. I have started this blog as a place to write out and publicise, and perhaps eventually sell, my designs. I hope you enjoy them.