A fun idea for knitters

Apologies to all the knitters!  I realised that I have been sharing my ideas from my own crochet journey and forgotten about all the knitters.  So this posting is for you!

Knitting like crocheting is a soothing activity.  More research around about that than for crocheting. If you are new to knitting, trust me, that as you build up your confidence and your frustration diminishes, you will feel calmer and enjoy what you are doing. 

The beauty of project twiddles is that you don’t have to do fancy stitches or use quality yarn.  Use those leftover balls of yarn to create a mat or muff.  Invite a friend or two over, or meet in a café, and knit small mats together.  Have a laugh together as you create your mats. 

There are lots of learn to knit videos on youtube.com, for example this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCgEUwESYZk&t=0s  

This pattern is lots of fun.  It is knitted on the diagonal in garter stitch, often called C2C (corner to corner).  And it fits in well with Project Twiddles principle that size is not important.  Here is my attempt:

• I used double knit yarn and size 4.00 m knitting needles.  You could use bigger needles and thicker yarn, and lots of different colours.  
• I started with one stitch on my needle and increased one stitch at the beginning of every row until I had 120 stitches.  To increase, you knit into the front of the first stitch but you do not slip the stitch off the left needle. Instead, knit into the back of the same stitch and you should end up with 2 stitches on the right needle.  You can vary the number of total stitches but you need at least 120 for a small mat.
• I knitted one row without increasing.  
• Then I began decreasing one stitch at the beginning of each row by knitting two stitches together, until only two stitches were left.
• I knitted these two stitches together, and then cast off the one remaining stitch.

I was surprised how soft and squishy the finished mat was.  Knitting C2C allowed me to revisit an old technique I had forgotten about and provided me with lots of fun.  If you forget to increase or decrease, drop stitches, make holes,  it does not matter as it will be decorated and mistakes covered up.