I think that finally the nesting instinct must be starting to take over. Many of the people I’ve spoken to about being pregnant mention the dreaded ‘C’ word before long: cleaning. Apparently, this urge to clean every surface, wall and floor in sight starts to kick in prior to the baby arriving. As of yet, this hasn’t happened to me (no surprise to anyone who knows me in real life); but the slightly more enjoyable ‘K’ word has started to appear: knitting. I am feeling the urge to knit everything and anything I can!

Let’s be clear about this – I’m not a very good knitter. Until I got pregnant, the only thing I’d ever knitted was a scarf for my sister Megan, which was pretty rubbish and resembled a draught excluder by the time I’d finished. But now, with the help of the modern wonder that is t’internet, I’ve managed to make a blanket and a little cardigan:

I used this pattern for the Super Easy Baby Blanket from the Purlbee website  and this pattern for the cardigan. Despite being the simplest knitting patterns on the planet, I still managed to make lots of mistakes… I was accidentally adding stitches on to the blanket at first, until I realised that I was pulling the wool over the needle incorrectly at the end of each row. I wish I’d realised this BEFORE I’d added on nearly 40 stitches obviously… Numerous holes and dropped stitches appeared at points in the blanket. I managed to sew the cardigan together incorrectly with some pieces inside out. However, I’ve also learned how to fix most of these errors, the basics of casting on, off, knit, attaching buttons, weaving in ends, changing colours, ‘tinking’ (I think it’s called), which ‘feet’ stitches are supposed to have forwards on the needles and probably a dozen other little things that three months ago I had no idea about.

It’s compulsive though. Now that I’ve realised that I can actually knit a bit, I’m feeling the urge to make anything and everything. One of my twitter friends, @knitstixnstring who runs a knitting group in Glossop, told me about a website called Ravelry, where people can upload free knitting patterns and share their projects. That’s it. I’m hooked and I’ve spent far more time than I should have trawling the projects on there to find things I can have a go at next. My current project is this little tank top by the Thrifty Knitter. I’m doing it in the same wool as the cream colour of the blanket, then I’ve got ideas to make something in the yellow as well.

As much as anything, I’m enjoying learning a new skill. I love learning new things and whilst I can’t really do much DIY around the house (funnily enough, not something I enjoy learning how to do…), this is a hobby to keep me occupied on the big countdown. We’re off on holiday next week to Suffolk, and I’m pretty ginormous now and not particularly mobile. Therefore, I’m envisioning days spent in front of a log burner, knitting away…