Social Media Day

Today - 30 June 2023 has been decreed as World Social Media Day and I thought it was worth a few minutes reflecting on my use of social media and how it’s changed recently.

And of course I wanted to say a big thank you for being here - on social media - as otherwise it would just be me writing to my mum, my sister and a handful of friends.

But anyway - back to Social Media with capital letters. It’s really hot news right now but I would have to say that the tone is overwhelmingly more negative than positive. Bots, algorithmns, spam and the constant pressure to stay up to date mean that for many of us, social media is increasingly seen as a chore rather than a pleasure.

We talk about social media detoxes, as though it’s something harmful to us. And don’t get me wrong, like anything in excess, social media has the capacity to cause us harm but I thought it might be helpful to think about how much good it can do too.

I had cause to reflect on this recently, sorting out Uni Accommodation and general life stuff for my eldest son. It’s all very different to when I was a student - everything was paper based (yes, I am showing my age). You filled out a UCAS form - on actual paper, made your choices. You looked at a few grainy photos in a prospectus to decide where you wanted to stay and if you were lucky you did an in-person visit.

Now every aspect of the process is online. There are walk-through videos, 360 degree tours. When deciding on accommodation you have the power of Google maps, street views, transport timetables all at the tap of a finger. It truly is amazing how far we have come and it’s undoubtedly a far cry from when my parents dropped me off at a student halls I’d never seen before with an unfeasibly large teapot (Mum had an idea that it would help me make friends) and a couple of suitcases.

Social media is something I use every day, and I wouldn’t want it any other way to be honest. Just looking around my desk, most of the items on it have been purchased from independant small businesses that I just wouldn’t have found through conventional advertising methods.

Yarn, mugs, books, tarot decks, notebooks and pens all from small indie businesses that I found through Instagram.

On a recent trip to a nearby town I sought out a farm shop and cafe that a local friend had shared photos of on Instagram - inspiring me to go and verify that yes, they did indeed stock heavrnly donuts.

All of these things make my life better in tiny but immeasurable ways. But none of them would have filtered through to my awareness were it not for the power of social media. I don’t watch ‘real’ TV or buy newspapers and I rarely travel to big cities where there are billboards and hoardings. The big companies still manage to filter through to my conciousness due to their all-pervasive market power, but the little guys wouldn’t stand a chance.

Yes, social media has its annoyances for sure, but for me the benefits vastly outweigh the downsides.

One thing I have struggled with recently is the concept of the endless scroll, and of course it’s important to remember that the various social media platforms are designed specifically to do this. To hook us in and crucially to keep us there for as long as possible until we suddenly find that half an hour has elapsed and we are onto our second video of dancing baby goats in sweaters.

When I sit down for a nice juicy scroll, coffee in hand I’ve started setting a timer for 10 minutes or so. When it goes off I ask myself how I’m feeling. Am I happy, uplifted, inspired? If so, maybe 5 more minutes of scroll and chat. If not, I know it’s time to put my phone down for a little while and do something else.

What about you? Do you have any strategies to stop the scroll or do you do regular ‘screen free time’ I’m always interested (read, nosy) to hear about other peoples browsing habits.

How much yarn do you need for a Mitered Square

If you have ever contemplated the size of your leftover yarn bag and thought of making a mitered square blanket, then this is a post to bookmark and come back to for reference.

Ever obsessed with using up my leftover yarn - which mysteriously keeps replenishing itself when my back is turned, I took it upon myself to do a little investigation and work our how much yarn I needed for mitered squares of varying sizes in both DK and sock weight yarn.

The results I present below for your knitting pleasure because as we all know, the only thing more frustrating than running out of yarn with just a few rows to go, is ending up with lots of slightly smaller balls of yarn (that are too small for the square size you’ve chosen).

I have to add the caveat here that YMMV - your mileage may vary.

I weighed these squares on my digital scales which only go down to 1g increments so there may be some rounding up/down. Also your gauge and specific yarn weights might give different results, but hopefully the amounts below will serve as a guide.

Yarn amounts for sock weight yarn:

Using a 3mm needle and at a gauge of 28sts per 4”. In the list below 10x10 is shorthand for 10 sts by 10 sts.

10x10 1.5" less than 1g
15x15 2" 2g
20x20 3" 4g
25x25 3.75"6g
30x30 4.25" 8g
35x35 5.25" 11g

Yarn amounts for DK weight yarn:

Using a 4mm needle and at a gauge of 21sts per 4”

10x10 2" 2g
15x15 3" 4g
20x20 3.75" 8g
25x25 4.5" 14g
30x30 5.5" 18g

You can find all of this information along with my in-depth tutorial for creating your very own Mitered Square Blanket in my e-book, which is for sale at the link below.

If you’d like to read more about Mitered Square Blankets and their construction - I have a blog post and tutorial here that might help.

Done is better than perfect

I've been doing a lot of thinking about perfectionism this week - partly as a continuation of last week's Tuesday Tip where I talked about the one piece of advice I'd give to all knitters.

Handknits are meant to have imperfections in them - it shows they were made by a human being not a machine.

That being said, it reminded me of when I shared a photo of my mitered square blanket - back in the day when I thought it was finished - and someone helpfully popped up to point out the square where the line runs in the opposite direction.

Luckily I'd seen it already, and decided that I could very easily live with it. But if I hadn't, or I was of a more fragile disposition I'd have been really upset.

But people of course love to point out others mistakes, it's a real human trait and well recognised psychologically.

In fact brands/companies will sometimes include an intentional error in their social media posts - as the slew of people pointing out the typo or the flaw will boost engagement.

Essex Is United - is a community FB page which started during the pandemic and they are past masters at this. They usually include a tiny error - in a jokey way - and then stand back and watch their comments section explode as people fall over themselves to point it out. It doesn't even matter that 120 people before them have done so, they still want to add their comment.

Why do humans do this? I've no idea

But in knitting terms, it's probably best that if you see a mistake in someone else's work that they are proudly sharing online - that you pretend you didn't

Embrace imperfection

This week's Tuesday Tip is less of a tip and more of a mindset shift, and it's around the idea of perfection.

If I could offer knitters - both new and old - one piece of advice it would be to let go of the idea of your handknits being perfect. If we want something to be perfect and to look as though we bought it in a shop we can just go ahead and buy it.

Machines make the same thing, in the same way each time. They churn out endless, identical items untroubled by fatigue, emotion or thoughts and feelings.

Human beings aren't like that and thank goodness.

Think about it in terms of an average adult sized sweater. It will contain 1000s of stitches all of which you have created perfectly. There might be a couple of stitches that aren't - why on earth would you chose to focus on the 1 stitch that's wrong, rather than give yourself credit for the 1000s and 1000s that are absolutely perfect?

Embrace imperfection - life's way too short to focus on the tiny imperfections, especially as they are the things that show our humanity.

Two ways to a neater ssk

A short and sweet tip for you this week. If you find that your ssk stitches look a little loose or distorted this is for you.

SSK is the abbreviation for a left-leaning decrease. Two stitches are slipped knit wise, separately to the right hand needle, then are knit together. This introduces a twist into the stitch though, which can be irksome and stand out a little in the finished piece.

Alternative 1: Slip the 1st stitch knit wise and the 2nd stitch purl wise, then knit them both together.

Alternative 2: Work the ssk as normal but on the next row purl through the back loop (or ktbl if working in the round)

Both of these methods help to untwist the stitch and produce an ssk which lies flatter in the finished work.

Anything you'd like me to cover in this series? Please let me know in the comments.

Where the magic happens

It was a long time coming, but this past weekend I finally got to go to an in-person yarn show. My first in over three years, since Covid intervened and overturned everything.

And oh my goodness, was it worth it. A really well organised show - thanks to Laura (aka The Lonely Knitter) - the East Anglia Yarn Festival, Norwich was a real treat to attend. There was plenty of space, stalls were thoughtfully set out and loads of seating too.

I did set out with a bit of a shopping list - the grey yarns from The Little Grey Girl are for a Love Note sweater, and the set of browns/speckles from Lay Family Yarn is destined for a colourwork sweater. The rest were all pure impulse purchases - and very happy ones at that.

Whilst the shopping and yarn squishing was fun by far the best bit was being able to chat to people. Real live people.

It was lovely to catch up with old friends but I was also able to talk to people who previously I had only ever chatted to online. It’s quite bizarre really when you think of it. Some of these people I feel as though I know really well, we chat online most days, certainly most weeks and I share things with them that I probably might not even tell my family. But until now our entire relationship had been via my phone.

Very odd. But the perfect testament to the positive, powerful upside of social media. It’s easy to focus on the negatives, but without social media I wouldn’t have known any of these people at all - I wouldn’t even have known there was a yarn show going on in the first place!.

And there’s the energy! I had quote forgotten the buzz and the excitement of a yarn show. So many yarny folk packed into one space creates their very own hum of activity. It’s impossible not to survey the hall, stuffed full of woolly goodness and not smile.

It’s such a joyful experience. Chatting to vendors it seemed that for a lot of the visitors it was their first ever yarn show experience - partly a reflection of the fact that many people either took up knitting or returned to it during the pandemic.

If you haven’t yet been to a yarn show I would urge you to have a go. There is a comprehensive list here - do have a look and see if there is one near you.

Start small - maybe leave the huge shows until you are a bit more confident - and also check out my top tips for attending a yarn show that I shared over on my Instagram account. And if you are hesitant maybe rope in a friend to come with you, that way you’ll always have someone to chat to and to help with those all important yarny decisions.