Fingers Crossed

Knitting
I still haven't tried on Rubble. Perhaps I'm in denial.

I've finished knitting and sewing Boxy. Last night I gave it a wash in hand-hot water - the yarn is oiled for industrial knitting - and then a wool cycle in the washing machine, and it is drying very carefully on the airer. I tried it on before washing and was very happy with it, so everything is crossed.

 The shoulder seam is a three-needle bind-off and while I was doing it I was worrying a little becasue the yarn is so fine in places. The idea of casting off live stitches with fragile yarn was not a relaxing one: if the cast off ever snapped, the whole thing could disintegrate very rapidly. When I got to the end I discovered that I had done the thing I so often do on a three-needle bind-off, which is actually to end up with the row on the right-hand needle. At first this seemd like a disaster, but I turned it around and cast off in the other direction, making it a double seam. It hasn't made for a lumpy finish so I think it's turned out to have been a very beneficial mistake, and I did it deliberately on the second shoulder.

I don't particualrly like working with a short cicrular do I didn't knit the sleeves in the round. I worked them on the flat and then sewed up the sides and the sleeves at the same time.

When I tried it on, it was the lightest and warmest cloud. I hope I'm still happy with it when it dries and that it doesn't have to be turned ito a blanket.

I think I'm going to knit another Boxy very soon. I'm in a slight toil about the yarn. I had a very bad accident on eBay the other week: a nice woman in Austria was selling some madelinetosh Merino Light in different shades of blue. Europe means no tax, and no outrageous Royal Mail charge. Nobody else was bidding, so what could I do?

That's Denim, Mourning Dove, Stovepipe and Ink. I already have a couple of other madelinetosh blues. Very tempting. I think graduated rather than stripes. But on the other hand, I have some very nice light turquoise Wollmeise. Decisions, decisions.

I really like this Sweatr-r-r  but since I have decided never to knit anything with fitted armholes again, I think I might just steal the idea of the coloured patches down the front and apply it to another Boxy. Perhaps I could do that with the blues.

I've lately become obssessed with a shade of light green which is begining to show up everywhere. I bought a black and cream tunic which came tied up with ribbon in this shade, and I've seen it everywhere since. I thought a Shag might be good and found a ball of Jaeger Matchmaker on eBay in a shade called Hop. This is a very good name for the colour; it has the zest of spring shoots. I need to track down another ball of it.

It turns out that Frau Wollmeise does a beautiful Spring green, called Fruhling, appropriately enough. She does some fabulous light greens, with names like Wasabi and Pesto and Pistazie and Lowenzahn (dandelion?) and Petersilie and Spinaci and Mistelzweig. Lots of vegetables in there.

The photograph isn't quite true: imagine a little more yellow. I wonder if I would have the nerve, or the complexion, to wear that.

Perhaps the matching nail polish is as far as I will go (Essie, The More the Merrier).

One of my neighbours has had a baby and I was wondering about knitting a hat. I didn't think she was a pink-and-white girl and I was very glad to see that Baby, when I met her, was wearing a black knitted hat with little white scottie dogs all around it. So I made her a flying helmet with some Cherry Hill Possum Worsted that I've been hoarding for a while. I have a few skeins of this. It's very warm but it's too soft to show up a stitch and the colours disappear so I have trouble finding uses for it. The colours show up very well in photographs but not so much in real life.

It's too big so I'll have to knit another one for this winter, but it's cute and as always so easy and quick to knit.


I think the last piece of knitting I have to report is this.

One of my loved ones asked me if I would sponsor him to shave his head in November, for a good cause. I said I would rather sponsor him not to shave his head, but either way he's going to need a hat. This is some lovely squidgy Malabrigo in a shade called Blue Graphite. Here it looks like black and in reality it's usually a subtle grey but in some lights it's a beautiful dark blue grey. This time of year the light in Ediburgh isn't good for seeing colours: my flat is on a corner, half facing north and half facing west, and I can sometimes be seen scurrying from window to window trying to make out what colour something is. The rooms are painted the same colour but look totally different: I once nearly had quite a bad row with a  friend who would't believe that the bedroom is painted green because it looks like baby blue. She's a designer and knows about these things so professional pride was on the line, but nothing changed the name on the can of paint, Jade White.

The pattern is Stephen West's Dustland Hat and I bought these smart new needles because I didn't have any 4.5mm dpns.

I pronounce the 'K' and the 'Z'. They're nice and light and slick.I got the wrong size but  the yarn isn't falling off the needles all the time.