During the month of August I will be participating in Blaugust, a month long blogging challenge.
From what I’ve read about this week’s challenge, it seems that this was originally aimed at giving appreciation for games developers. Well, I don’t really play games or like them, but I have a huge amount of appreciation for anyone who creates things that I do enjoy. Often I’d use this type of post to wax lyrical about DS106 and the Daily Create, but with my whole month of Blaugust being spent blogging my responses to the TDC I wanted to take this post in a different direction.
As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am an avid knitter. I always have at least one pair of socks on my needles – this is my current pair (they’ll be an Xmas present for my sister, the Rev Polly):
Socks flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
Knitting socks like these are great for times when I just need to keep my hands busy, but they’re not challenging. So as well as socks, I always like to have a bigger project on the go. Every year I’ll make my OH an aran jumper – the same pattern every year, as he likes it a lot. Here’s the Xmas 2025 version:
Aran Jumper flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
And, over the last few years, I’ve started to really enjoy knitting Shetland Lace in very fine yarn. Here’s a hap that I made for a colleague’s first baby recently from a traditional patterns:
Hap on stretcher flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
And a stole I made for myself, from a pattern by a Shetland designer called Elizabeth Williamson:
Roerwater Stole flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
So my creator appreciation is for the Shetland women who knitted the haps and handed the designs down to us, and to the modern designers who keep the craft alive.
And also to my OH, who made me the hap stretcher.
