Blog Week day 1: The House Cup

This year, the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is split into 4 houses and that means it's time to get sorted! But rather than putting on a tattered old talking hat that does all the hard work, I have to pick my own house. That's not easy, let me tell ya.

The 4 houses are:

• “The House of Bee: Bees are busy and industrious, but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest. “
• “The House of Manatee: Manatees are gentle, calm and cuddly. Relaxed and unflashy they represent the comfort and soft side of knitting and crochet. “
• “The House of Monkey: Intelligent and with a fun loving side, Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting. “
• “The House of Peacock: Peacocks take something good and make it brilliant. Buttons, embellishments and a bit of sparkle prove that perfection lies in the details – like a Peacock's Tail. “

Depending on how you interpret the descriptions of the houses I'd fit in any of the houses but the House of Peacock. But after much deliberation, I went with...

House of Bee.

The House of Bee, the way I see it, fits best with my way of crafting: I'm a process crafter. I enjoy crafting, I love having a hook or a pair of needles in my hands and I love making things, but I rarely really plan a project. I do pick up a lot of projects whenever something catches my eye, or when I'm in the mood for crafting. It often happens that I abandon projects (temporarily or permanently) in lieu of a newer, better, more interesting project because I like working on it better, not necessarily because it's more interesting, or more challenging, or even prettier. I have a bunch of WIP's scattered around the house as we speak:

This is a study in knitting lace. It's pink. It's acrylic babymelting yarn. It's not a project that will actually be anything but it's something that I pick up every now and then to practice knitting lace on, or bind-offs, or other techniques. Last time I picked it up, I bound off and started a new swatch just to practice switching between knit and purl stitches. There's going to be more lace when I'm done with the bumps, but will it ever be anything? I highly doubt it!

This? I have no idea what this will be. Will it be a blanket? Or just a pillow cover? Or nothing at all? Probably that last one, but it's a project that I can add to whenever I feel like it because it's all granny squares in leftover yarn of roughly the same thickness. (Okay, so it's partially because I really want to start making a dent in what I like to refer to as my 'Granny Stash', otherwise known as all the leftover yarn I inherited from my grandmother. I don't like buying new yarn because I feel guilty about having so much yarn in the house already and not really any space to put it, but most of it is tiny little bits and bobs! So what better use of my granny stash than to make granny squares? Plus, there's enough of it to actually make a blanket if I wanted to.)

This was something I had actually planned and what made me doubt my choice of house, because it's so ambitious that I could place myself in House of Monkey just because of it. It's supposed to be a Cecilia, a cropped cardi. A knitted, lacey cardi, in black, with black and red striped ribbing. Have I ever knitted lace? Nope. Have I ever made a garment? Nope. Have I ever attempted to knit something bigger than a hat yet? Nope. But the process of knitting something so awesomely ambitious really drew me into the project. Have I cast on yet? Nope! But I will. I might. I might change my plans and use this yarn for something else entirely, though, because that's what process crafters do: we flit from project to project, whenever something captures our interest.

So that's me! Proud member of the House of Bee! Buzz Buzz Buzz!