My name is Rain and I'm a knitter

I really do think they should have some form of Knitters Anonymous. I jokingly call my favourite yarn seller my 'dealer' as he supplies my usual drug of choice - acrylic in 100g skeins. The trouble is knitting really is an addiction, I just can't stop myself. My biggest problem is that I like knitting, but i'm not a big fan of sewing up, sewing in ends or putting buttons on. Despite a growing pile of unfinished items there always seems to be something that I simply can't wait to start. Today is a case in point.

I went out this afternoon to get some chunky yarn. My mother has been eyeing up my muffler and has been proclaiming what a good idea it is. Before she could 'borrow' it I decided to make her one of her own. We've been looking around for something different and interesting in a few different yarn shops, but she just wanted plain bright red as it will go with all of her coats. Typically as soon as I got home I had to get started.

This is such a quick knit. On 6.5mm needles and only 22" long it simply flies together. Despite being acrylic it's really soft, much softer than mine in fact. I thought that might have provided my knitting fix for the day, but inspired by how quickly it went, I couldn't resist starting my other chunky project.

I'm making Tassle Tops from Kids Knits by Leslie Ann Price. It's another quick project that could be done in an all day session. The construction is inspired with very little sewing to do (always a winner with me). The body is worked in one piece and then the sleeves are picked up from the shoulders and knit downwards, the hood is picked up from the neck and then sewn at the top. Normally I wouldn't dream of doing an all garter stitch project due to the boredom factor, but in chunky it doesn't take long and looks really effective.

This is the fourth time i've done this pattern in the past few months. It seems to be the one thing that everybody really likes. I've made two in natural and dark brown and one in pale blue and navy. I couldn't decide what colour to do the trim on this one, but went for navy again as I think it looks good with white. This is another pattern I wouldn't mind making for myself, I can just see it in black.

I've been working on the cape too and have finished the back. The patterned sections are 18" and seem to take forever despite the stitch pattern being easy to do and interesting. The yoke and hood are all garter stitch though, so they shouldn't take long once I get there.