Wednesday 26 September 2018

Dressing Up at Night

In the daytime is is pretty rare to find me without a sweater or vest or shawl on around the house.  When I go out, there is always a sweater or two, seasonally dependant.  I wear socks almost every single day.  I think that is pretty normal for an ardent knitter.  

What is a lot less norml about me is the wool I wear to bed. Gotcha. 😇

Socks are a pretty regular thing now that the cooler weather is here. They are getting to be such a regular feature of my night wear, that I am thinking of knitting some socks just for wearing to bed.  They could be a little bit looser than I prefer to wear in my shoes, and it wouldn't really matter what kind of yarn I use since they wouldn't need the constant washing that ordinary socks do.  I usually wear socks for a couple of hours and at some point in the night, push them off my toes and out the side of the covers.  It might be a really good way to use up some of my pile of worsted weight left over bits.

Frazzeledknitter discovered a really interesting Drops pattern, Jupiter 167-34 and I think these look like a really great pair for bed socks.   I know there are two patterns in Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks,  the Heelless Sleeping Socks   and Bed Sock in a Lemon Fancy Pattern.    Any of these look like great socks to knit to beef up my currently non existent wardrobe of just for bed socks.  If you are interested in more patterns a search for Bed Socks on Ravelry, gives me 4 more pages of bed socks in every imaginable weight and size of yarn. 

I also have a shawl that I wear to bed about half the time.  It is one of my oldest and most beloved shawls.  Truly Tasha's Shawl from Nancy Bush and still available on her website, the Wooly West

  
And in my old busy messy sewing, and laundry room too. I learned a lot about backgrounds of photos in that room and try to be much more careful now!  But I do love this shawl. It is such a plain ordinary sort of thing, and yet it is the perfect size for covering chilly shoulders that may stick out of the blankets at night. On the nights when I just cannot get warm, I grab this from where it hangs off the side of my headboard. 

My most recent addition to my nighttime wardrobe is wrist warmers.  Last winter, in my desperation to figure out and resolve my hand troubles, I started wearing the little black set I knit just after Christmas, to bed

  
to see if it made a difference at all.  And it did.  It does. With something on my hands as I sleep, I don't seem to grip my hands into fists or fold them at odd angles. Why I do these things in the first place, I do not know.  I wasn't really aware of it till I started wearing wristers to bed, but I now wake when my hands get too bunched up. It is possibly a reaction to them being cold and if it is, the wristers are working.  My hands don't ache nearly so much now through the day. 

Earlier this summer, I knit the very pretty and fun to knit Log Cabin Mitts

   
  and these have become my most precious things.  I love they way they feel on my hands at night.  I know that for many people, the feel of these yarns, Briggs and Little Regal, Custom Woollen Mills Mule Spinner Two Ply, and a little bit of Patons Classic Wool, would not be the kind of fibre they want next to their skin as they sleep, but oh my how I love these.  I wear these all the time.

I had thought that Martina Behm's Tough and Toasty pattern might work after I added a bit of a cuff to them, 


They were ok, but I found them a bit short and though the 1824 Wool is great around the house during the day, it just isn't enough for a night.  

So I have known for some time, that there would be something simple in the Brigg's and Little Regal that was still hanging around my knitting chair.  


Just  quick and dirty tube of knitting in a 2 x 2 rib with a slit for the thumb.


Just a few rows past the thumb to hold everything in place.  These work up so easily and took only a few hours to complete the pair.  There is enough yarn left in the skein to knit another pair and that will probably happen.

It is time now, to swath myself in my nightly wools, and to crawl into my cozy bed, and tuck me under my wool filled comforter.  I will dream of bed socks yet to be and of all the possibilities of tomorrow.  I am warm.  I am comfortable. I am lucky.  And that is enough.   




           

No comments: