Siobhan_knits

I’ve started making an afghan for my cousin as a wedding gift. I asked his sister if the had a colour scheme and she said everything was beige. Understanding the aesthetic, I resisted other temptation to go with a vibrant accent colour like burnt orange or sea blue. Cream seems safe and they are a safe couple. Risks and extremes happen outside the home. Home is for serenity and peace.

This project has taken much longer than necessary. It is wholly due to the voice in my head that says the piece isn’t good enough, which lead to unravelling what I’ve made and starting over again.

I’m letting go and accepting that the project is good enough. The blanket is fluid and gorgeously soft. It was a risk to try a different yarn but it was worth it. The feel of it is more important than the look.

This is a gift for a colleague who is expecting a baby in the next six weeks. As she loves red and it’s part of her cultural tradition, I used this cashmere cotton blend. The rabbit was done in monotones because I remember hearing once (Cheers, Season 8, episode 24?) that these colours were more stimulating for infants.

À happy accident perhaps is the stuffing I used (tangled yarn) when squeezed the rabbit oozes purple worms. It is my small hope that this will delight the child when it’s older and inspiring explanations for this ailment as well as the delight of pushing the ‘worms’ back in.

black has always drawn my eye even as a child. I picked the blackest puppy in the litter, i asked my mom to make me an abaya after seeing two niqab-wearing hijabis on summer holidays. blue was my pink. but, damn it’s a tough colour to knit with. this is a cowl for a woman who lives and thrives in winnipeg. she loves purple in her environment but wears only black.

this woman was my world. she’s my canadian grandma and she taught me about finding joy in the little things. it’s because of her that i craft with curiosity. she’d give me bits and pieces to experiment with. she’s also the reason i keep coming back. there was no good or bad, just play. she knew better than anyone how to delight a child probably because she never had a chance to be a child herself. she had a fever when she was young that damaged her heart. then the family needed her support at home. she spent her free time playing the piano and writing wonderful letters. i’m sad to say I don’t know what books she read and more importantly which authors she loved.

she was a fiend for crochet. we still have the afghans that she stitched. i wish i still had the poncho she made me when i was ten or so, before she died. it was red, white and blue. the yarn that trimmed the edges was red as were the pom-poms and string. every winter from kindergarten to grade two i wore the mitts she made for me that stayed connected by a long crocheted strand. a marvel to me even then, a solution to my forgetfulness that was a million times more effective than any admonishment to ‘be careful’.

colour mixes

marl

when i was a kid, my mom had this mohair cardigan she wore every winter. it was kind of a sea foam colour. she still has it. i wish that there was anything that has lasted that long in my wardrobe. I deeply resist my maximalist tendencies and purge my possessions a lot.

obsessed

lite-brite

when I was a kid, i got a lite-brite for x’mas. I remember being really small and working on it in a corner of my brother’s closet because it was the darkest area I could find. I think I liked the glow of it almost as much as putting the little pegs into the soft black paper.

plus it has a little bell

blues of sea and sky

I am obsessed with the seed stitch. I was knitting another pattern and realised it has become my default. And this mohair really softened the blue of the merino, making it kind of dreamy. Another gift for the recipient of the Afghan. I also want to make her a cardigan. Too much?

not knitting but oh so fab

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/t-magazine/boucheron-question-mark-necklace.html