Knitting In Hospital

I recently blogged about how knitting isn't so great for your mental wellbeing if you get stuck with the pattern and have to keep pulling rows out. Now I'm looking for for the opposite - a pattern that's quick to knit and simple without being dull.

Tomorrow I'm going to hospital for an exploratory operation and will probably be in for a couple of nights. In the blurb I received about preparing for an operation is this advice:

"You may also want to bring something to do while you wait to go into theatre. For example:

• a book/magazine/newspaper
• crosswords
• knitting."

Toft's giant beanie

The only crosswords I'm any good at are about celebrities and names of TV shows. Anything cryptic and my eyes glaze over. For someone who has the patience to spend hours and hours knitting a complicated pattern, and has a father that does The Daily Telegraph's crossword religiously every day, it's odd that my eyes glaze over at the mention of them.

With regards to books, I'm a voracious reader but what if I get to a cliffhanger and have to put the book down to be wheeled off to theatre? So knitting it is then. 

Looking through my hefty stash of yarn and patterns I wanted to something to knit that's relatively compact and that I could realistically complete during my hospital stay.

What I came up with is Toft's giant beanie. It's knitted with two strands of chunky yarn together in the round, meaning you can put it down at any time and there's no rush to finish a row. I have in my stash enough yarn to knit two, just in case there's a long wait! One will be in brown and the other in cream and these will be, dare I say it, be the first gifts I've knitted for Christmas 2015.

Here's hoping that knitting will work its therepeutic magic and keep the heebie jeebies at bay during my hospital stay!