I still have a few projects I worked on over the summer to catch you up with. I’m not sure where the weeks are going at the moment. We are nearly at my trip of a lifetime to Rhinebeck (whoot!), and I’ve no idea where September went. But before I give you the inside on what else I’ve been working on, I wanted to talk about what happens when a project is so perfect that you can’t put it down…

Have you ever been in that position? You pull out some stash yarn and a pattern that you’ve had an eye on for a while, and the time has finally come to get knitting. You cast on, and the stitches just flow. The knitting flies off your needles and you think, ooh, I’ll just work another section before I do whatever it is that I’m meant to be doing. The next thing you know, half the project is complete and you’re in the grips of an obsession.

Readers, that’s what happened to me in early September. But let’s rewind a bit so that you get the full context…

Earlier in the summer I had the absolute JOY of meeting Jimenez Joseph (JimiKnits) for the first time. We bonded over our love of knitting techniques, and a shared joy at smiling! I think it’s fair to say that I’m quite a smiley person, and so is Jimi.

We did a bit of a book swap, and I have been very keen to work my way through her book, JimiKnits Volume One (dismiss the cookie warning to see the PayPal buttons), ever since. The summer was filled with socks and unexpected deadline knitting, so it wasn’t until the kids went back to school that the stars aligned, and I was able to cast on my first project.

I started at the beginning of the book, with the Aggregate Shawl, which calls for 2 skeins of DK yarn. Happily, I had a pair of skeins from River Knits sitting in my stash, waiting for this opportunity. I wound the yarn, and headed off on a day out with the family. By the end of the day I couldn’t put it down. Something about the simplicity of the stitches combined with the interest of the short rows just HAD me. I couldn’t put it down. So much so, that I didn’t make a Ravelry page for the project until it was almost finished. That’s unheard of for me!

I’m pretty organised about recording my projects on Ravelry – I doubt I have the sort of project notes that are madly helpful to other people – but I keep track of needle sizes, gauge (sometimes!) and when I cast on and off. I enjoy looking back at how many projects I complete in a year (it’s often indicative of what else is happening in my life!), and sometimes it comes in handy to know what size needles I used to work with a particular yarn last time. It is VERY unusual for me to make a project page an immediately put the progress bar across to 70%!

How beautiful is that?? Before I could blink, the shawl was complete. Start to finish in a week! And since then it has been firmly wrapped around my neck, keeping the early autumn chill at bay. I was going to wear it at Yarndale last weekend, but I realised on my way up there that River Knits was going to be there AND was stocking copies of Jimi’s book, so my shawl made a guest appearance on their stand instead. Aggregate was literally so good, that I couldn’t put it down.

I’m planning to wear it at Rhinebeck, as a Rhinebeck sweater is a bit beyond me at the moment. It hasn’t stopped me day dreaming about casting on and cranking something out over the next fortnight, but I don’t think that pressure is what I need on my needles at the moment, so a Rhinebeck shawl is what my Aggregate will be. And it will be perfect for that!

Aren’t they lovely? My Skystone Armwarmers pretty much flew off my needles over the summer months too. Here’s the tulip photo from my back garden that inspired the colourway. If you haven’t already watched Felix and me talking about choosing colours for stranded projects, you can catch up on my YouTube channel here. We worked through her process together on the two colourways that are shown in Boost Your Knitting, and then I had a go on my own, putting together the green and pink combination above. It is without doubt the most successful colour combination I’ve ever put together, so I’m looking forward to using Felix’s process again in the future.

Oh look! I also made a bit of progress on my Briochevron Wrap over the summer… I’m nearly at 40cm which will allow me to joyfully update my Ravelry progress bar to 20%. PARTEEEEE!

And I have also been working on my Flying Leaves Scarf as well. Sadly it didn’t get finished by the end of September, but as anyone who has taken part in an ACKnitwear KAL knows, it’s the taking part that counts, and finishing is absolutely optional! I will get plenty of time to work on it this month…

So that’s me pretty much up to date with chatting about my knitting projects. I’m really looking forward to having some extra knitting time this month (multiple train journeys, flights and a road trip should all yield a good number of stitches!), so hopefully I’ll be back before too long with some more pretties to share. What about you? When is the last time a project took hold of you so hard that you couldn’t put it down? Do let me know in the comments. And happy knitting in the meantime!