In the space of a week, I have done more than this – honest.

In truth, I’m quite enjoying my newfound knitting skills, though I use the term “skills” loosely because after making two small knitted squares I can hardly be described as expert but I think nonetheless this marks some sort of victory.

My Mum showed me how to cast on and to do a basic knit stitch but I’d not got far enough to be able to get her to show me how to cast off before she went home. At that time, I’d decided that instead of a patchwork blanket, which had been my original intention, I’d have to make a scarf because I didn’t have the wherewithal to cast off without instruction.

Parting words to my Mum were “I’ll knit the scarf then when you come back you can show me how to cast off and then I can try something else”. Then I got to thinking…..the point of doing a patchwork blanket was to give me lots of practice at casting on and off so I could “fix” these important bits of knitting into my mind quickly. Also, for a girl with a short attention span, something that can easily be made in an evening or two is to be considered good!

So, I knitted a square, then relieved my Mum of the onus of showing me how to cast off by looking it up online. I found numerous sites with instructions, though they were not all comprehensive in content as several I looked at didn’t tell you what to do with the last stitch. Eventually I found this one, which went through the steps a bit laboriously but DID include that last vital bit of info. Hurrah.

So, this is a nearly finished second square (also now finished and cast off), which I managed to cast on, knit and cast off alone, unaided and without the use of a parachute. Yay. Both of my efforts contain flaws, the first one has a small hole in the centre – it’s not a dropped stitch but it’s there alright and the second has a strange stitch in it somewhere, which I’m completely baffled as to how I did it.

Now I’m well on my way to that blanket, only around another couple of dozen squares to go….but there is a new fly in my ointment. When I told my sister what I was doing, she said “ergh – what one of those horrid old-fashioned things like you used to see in the 50s” (dunno how she knows that since she wasn’t born until 1964 but there you go). So now I feel like a fuddy-duddy and that my blanket will be an object of ridicule. Pah!

I’m a bit chuffed with this shot though – it’s my first studio shot in yonks and I reckon it’s darned good! (Even though I say so myself.)