Purls of wisdom
Amy Lavell laments her dwindling attention span and explains how little hearts are keeping her going…
Amy Lavelle explains how a new baby can seriously a ect your attention span!
Oh dear, it’s finally happened. I’m sorry to have to tell you this but I have lost my attention span. Please, send your thoughts and well wishes for its safe return because at the moment, I fear it will never come back. My last proper knitting project is bearing the brunt. There are a lot of cast on stitches, several completed rows and two needles stuck in a skein of yarn sitting in a basket across the room from me, which I am looking at as I write this. They have been sitting there for quite a while now. There may even be a fine layer of dust gathering on it, but I can’t tell you, because I haven’t made it close enough to find that out. I feel incredibly guilty about this, but what I lack in completed project, I make up for in what I am thinking of as abstract art: all that wool.
SMALL KNITTING STEPS
Creativity for me is being meted out in small parcels at the moment. My preference has become for small projects that can be made and completed quickly, o ering instant gratification. There is a valid practical element for this, too. There is a baby in the house now; yarn becomes something to unravel and chew on and needles pose a health and safety issue. For a while, this led to knitting block. I didn’t have the energy to do my usual trawl of sources for vintage patterns, let alone start working on one. But now, it’s come to represent a fresh challenge in itself. What can I make in the space of a single nap time? I have to be focused, exact—I don’t have time to unpick and correct. I speed-knit.
BROOCHING THE SUBJECT
My latest challenge has come in the form of the knitted brooch: big in the 1940s; making a return in my home in 2021. They’re the perfect option for dressing up an outfit after months of dressing down. Most of the vintage patterns I have found are for knitted flower brooches — miniature corsages— but I did stumble across patterns from the 1940s for little doll brooches, which may be my favourite (I may have to revisit the Santa Claus for a special Christmas knit). What I have gone for instead, though, is a simple heart brooch. I can knit one or two each time and, in the process, turn any leftover yarn I have from other projects into something useful. The pattern I’ve been using calls for added lace around the edge of the heart to finish the brooch, but I think I might go one step further with my hearts and experiment by adorning mine with a pair of little pearls.
HEARTFELT KNITTING
Last year, there was a charity appeal to knit hearts for the NHS which would to go to patients and their families; sadly I missed that challenge, but perhaps I can make up for it now, if only in my own circles. My friend is finally getting married this summer; I’ll be starting by making her one as her traditional something blue. I’m considering a 2021 take on the knitted brooch with mask pins, but perhaps not. However limited my creativity feels at the moment, knitting remains a distraction from life. I’m not sure I’m willing to taint that with anything approaching reality. Instead, I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve. Or, you know, my lapel.
Have you got a creative story you would like to tell us? Perhaps there’s an anecdote just waiting to be told. Share your knitting world with us by getting in touch using the contact details on p31.