Tuesday 18 March 2008

Done and Posted

I parcelled Mavis up today and sent her off. I had another look at the neckline in bright light and still couldn't find the end, so I decided that this was a sign that I shouldn't do any more to it. Thank you very much, Zippiknits, for your encouraging comment too. It was just what I needed. The yarn softened up even more in the blocking and I began to wonder how much wear Silk Garden stands up to - should I knit elbow pads?

I had to buy an extra ball to finish off the scarf (having started it in order to finish up left-over yarn, ho hum), which I got from Jannette as usual, and I noticed that she has this - black and grey Kauni. How cool is that? You could knit words in it. If you drew up the charts.

And here is a prettier picture of the Scaruffle, as promised. It's very dainty, and I keep picking it up to play with it. For those who are new to the party, it's the Scaruffle from The Knitter's Book of Yarn, and it must be the easiest thing ever, if you can just master knitting with air (Kidsilk Haze) and barrage balloons (8.5mm needles). One of my uncles did Highland dancing when he was in the Army (he was a bandsman), and they were taught to dance in their Army boots so that when they put on dancing shoes they simply flew into the air. I think a similar effect takes place here. Knitting with matchsticks would be easy afterwards.

I've started Chrissy in the Organic (that's the colour, not the method of production) All Seasons Cotton but it's not really worth photographing. Imagine some string on an Addi circ and you've got it. I had the usual dither about what size to knit: the largest size is to fit a 40" bust, but it measures 60 inches. I don't think I actually want it too oversized, although I want it quite oversized, which is no help at all. The other ASC sweater I knitted grew with washing but it grew sideways - one expects cotton to stretch lengthwise but this has 40% microfibre so it grows sideways instead. I'm doing the ribbing at the moment, which has some curious pickup-stitch -between-needles, slip-stitch sort of tomfoolery at the ends, so I'm curious to see what that's in aid of.

Chrissy is intended to be totally thoughtless knitting, so I will need something a little more challenging to do as well. I got a an email at the weekend telling me about this sale and decided that it would be too great a shame to pass up the duck egg blue cashmere at this extraordinary price. I didn't really buy it; I just put it on my credit card and that doesn't count, does it? Not another bleeding scarf, I hear you say - I can hear you smiting you forehead too - but this one is going to be for me. You wouldn't deny me a duck egg blue cashmere scarf, would you? My very favourite colour? If all else fails, it will just be a single rib, but I'm secretly hoping I might manage to do a Drifting Pleats - be still, my beating heart.

5 comments:

Emily said...

No smiting here - looking forward to seeing the duck-egg blue cashmere become a scarf - I, too hope you manage the Drifting Pleats, but perhaps I have more faith? Of course you'll manage it!

Managed to resist the orange cashmere (even cheaper as I'm in Oz - but I couldn't find the shipping details...).

Can't wait to see you knit it!

Lynne Barr said...

There's a drifting pleats support group. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it includes only the founding member at the moment, but I'm here if you need me!

Knitting Linguist said...

You will hear no smiting from this quarter -- you most definitely *do* deserve a duck-egg blue scarf, of the design of your choosing :) I may have to try that scaruffle, as I have most of a skein of blue kidsilk haze leftover from Icarus, and an older daughter who is begging for a shawl (which ain't gonna happen -- what 10-year-old wears a shawl in the real world?). BTW, my younger daughter is taking Irish dancing (not clogging) until I can find her a Highland dancing teacher locally (she fell in love at the last Highland Games we went to and demanded to be allowed to "dance like they do").

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