So who is knitting again? Not me – I never stopped knitting, though I’ve definitely slowed down as I got distracted by other crafts. My mother, though, hadn’t knitted for 20 or 30 years, but she is in hospital and one of the occupational therapy activities is knitting.

On the day after she was moved to this hospital (a rehab facility), I saw the woman in the next bed to her was knitting a garter stitch square in thick yarn on straight needles. That led to a conversation about knitting socks, which used to be her favourite knitting. I happened to be wearing socks knitted with Opal faux-fairisle yarn, which really impressed her, even though I explained the yarn did all the hard work. I’m going to take in my current sock project (Opal again, but striped rather than faux-fairisle) to show her, and perhaps some of my fancy sock yarn stash. Perhaps she will want to try socks again, but I think my mother will stick with garter squares. The row of rib in the middle was unintentional, but it’s now a decorative feature. :-)

I’ve not been making much this week as I was very sick over the weekend and I’m still not really recovered, so I’ve nothing of my own to post, but I just want to draw attention to a friend’s work.  Opal spins and knits but she also makes lovely jewellery, so of course she also makes stitch markers for her Etsy shop. She has a giveaway for a set of similar markers on her blog.

Another small journal, for a friend this time. I think I am on a black & white & bright kick after using that colour scheme for quilt blocks for a swap. This one is 3″ x 4.2″ x 0.5″. It is coptic-stitched, with 7 5-sheet signatures of 5.6″ by 3.9″ 90 gsm printer paper (well, 3 sheets are red paper of similar weight). The cover is stamped Tyvek again, and the thread is Anchor #20 crochet cotton.

Well, the block isn’t very special, but the reason for making it is. On swap-bot, some of us are making blocks for a quilt to donate in memory of Cheryl LaVon, a member who died a year ago. The theme is “nature”, and she liked deep rich colours, so I hope she would have liked this Churn Dash block: