Nearly there

Could have done with a bit more light on the subject but it is clear that all I have to do now is keep going until it is long enough, and since the owner will be home this weekend, she can tell me when I have gone far enough.

Vivienne - I don't think you will have any trouble with your unbacked buttons: yours is a much finer, firmer knitted fabric. I only felt that mine needed backing because this is worsted weight knitted on 6mm needles, and when I looked at it, and the buttons, I said "This is just too flollopy"

Ping!

Another bright idea!

The Cascade Cardi is coming along, and I had started to think about the buttons. The ones she chose have small holes, and this is worsted yarn. I shall have to sew them on with cotton. I didn't think that was going to do very well, unless I backed them with something. What have I got that will not show too much if the button band turns outward?


I have just felted my swatch. It is drying on the line. It will be quite large enough to cut out six little circles.

As I said: Ping!

Coming along nicely

The Cascade cardi is going well. Since it is a long garment, I decided to stop knitting the body once I got to the underarms, and do the sleeves next. Then I can gaily knit onwards, and make it as long as the yarn will allow. So far, she can have one and a half warm arms this winter! I am surprised just how far the yarn is going. (I nearly wrote 'stretching' - that was really not what I meant.)



I am also on something of a mission. Above is a large photographic print, dating from the late 19th-early 20th century. My parents bought it in the early 1960's, as part of a job lot at an auction sale when they went to buy something else entirely.That's the sort of thing they did! When Dad had put it in a frame, they took it to the village where it was taken, and asked the locals until somebody recognised the old fellow and told them who he was. In the course of my meanderings, I have now happened upon a book that was written by his Granddaughter, but it appears that neither the book nor his Granddaughter are around any more. The book is "Porthgwarra" and it was written by Christine Gendall. I would so love to be put in touch with a copy, and would be very grateful if anyone could help.

The reason I have always liked this picture so much is that the fisherman is wearing a beautiful guernsey. Back in my teens, when this picture was newly hung on the dining room wall, I used to look at it and think 'I could copy that sweater' - not "guernsey", because at that time I knew nothing of them - not even that they existed, let alone the specialised methods of construction. I still hope to do it, one of these days, and when I do, I will be able to count the stitches to write out the pattern. The print is so large and clear that even my elderly eyes can manage that!

No pictures

I didn't take my camera. The pictures in my head are good..

To London for I Knit day, and to see The Yarn Harlot. What a lady! In her quiet, self deprecating, wryly humorous way, she made a huge hall full of knitters realise that knitting is not a quaint girly pastime, but Important, Life Enhancing, and Life Affirming. Which we all knew anyway, but it is such a treat to hear it said in such a charming way.

I am glowing with the compliments on my Print o' the Wave stole, which I wore - it can only give you a high when a woman walks through the door of the venue, and comes straight up and says "What's the pattern, and where can I get it?".

I didn't buy a single gramme of yarn - but I brought home better things that didn't even need a bag to carry them in!

This is a knitting blog.

You could be forgiven for thinking that I had forgotten how to do it! But this is not so. There is quite a lot going on.First there is the Half Hap shawl, otherwise known as the purply heap. This has reached the stage of having completed the "centre" and the Old Shale border, and I have worked off the stitches so that there are loops all round for picking up to put on a narrow edging. I think I am going to have to reduce the number of loops on the curved edge, as there seem to be wildly too many - a bit of reading up needs to be done before I decide on that.

I have a semipair of socks. Araucania bought in Bungay. I am so impressed at how random the colours are - there is nothing in the colour distribution to tell you where the heel flap is. I do like yarns that stripe, or pool, or even swirl, but if you want true random, this is the one. Feels lovely as well.

More Aruacania. Who saw the Winter Twilight Mitts in Knitting Daily? I already had the orange sunsetty colour, and got the darkish green single colour from Get Knitted - I asked them to find me the most consistently dark skein, and they did me proud!


But everything else has been abandoned for this. A top-down, hooded cardi in Cascade 220 , all the way from sunny Californiay. This for the daughter that doesn't knit. I am trying to put on a bit of speed so that she gets it before the cold weather sets in. It is growing remarkably fast.