Progress

After that pause for reflection, I stormed on a little bit.

I chose a border for the Pinwheel Shawl. It's not as fancy as the last one I did, a little more modest.


It's the border from the Karen Shawl by Amy Swenson. I kept doing it back-to-front at first, but I got there in the end.

And I cast on for a Jyri cowl. I'm stiil not sure whether this is a swatch or the real thing: I'll decide when I've finished a repeat. I'm using markers just now but I expect the pattern will become readable shortly (I mean the pattern on the row below, not the pattern as printed on paper) and I will cast them aside.

The yarn is finer than it looked on the hank so I think it might be suited to a lacier style and the mountain peaks pattern may work better in something heavier, but I won't decide until I can see it properly. The Malabrigo Silky Merino is, of course, heaven.

I can't cast on for the front of Kaari until I find my 4.5mm Addi Turbo again. I had it when I cast on for the back, so it can't have gone very far. Can it? I feel I should point out that all my frogging and re-knitting with Kaari has been entirely my own fault. The pattern is simple, at least so far, and it's clearly written. It's just that I tend to speed-read, which is not a good technique for amything that's concisely written, and sometimes I jump to conclusions. I remember once as a very superior teenager being reduced to helpless laughter by a Wayside Pulpit that read 'Jumping to Conclusions is a Poor Sort of Exercise' so perhaps this is a judgment on me, being condemned endlessly to rip and re-do my knitting.

Christmas Movie Quotes Quiz tomorrow.

Defintely Sunday

I don't think I will rip Kaari and do the next size down; I'm going to stick with it for a while longer. The thought of having a Kaari that's too small is worse than the thought of having one that's too big.

The Pinwheel in white Jet is racing on. I'm on the fourth ball.

In order to give my brain some activity after all these miles of stocking stitch, I spent some time with Reversible Knitting today.

Can you tell what it is yet?

It's pattern 45, in some grey All Seasons Cotton Mélange.


I think I need to make one of my knotted row counters so that I don't knit any more elongated circles. My excuse is that like most of Lynne Barr's work, this is one of these patterns that makes you want to race on breathlessly to see what happens next. It's great fun.

The BBC is starting a dramatisation of Andrea Levy's Small Island tonight. I'm in two minds about whether I'll watch it: I liked the book so much that I'm not sure another version of it could live up to my expectations... but I might miss something good. More dithering.

I friend of mine in New York has started a fabulous blog, Idiosyncratic Fashionistas: it makes me feel so dull.

I Must Read the Pattern, I Must Read the Pattern

I finished the Red Sandstone Jacket and I still like it. It is cast off along the right front and I didn't want the usual cast-off edge, which I felt would be too inflexible, and too visible, so I did Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind off. I remember using this once before on something and thinking, I really must remember this and use it more often, but of course I had forgotten until I went looking.

I had bought an extra ball of yarn just in case, but I needed to buy a further one and used almost all of it. I don't understand this, and it doesn't seem to have been a problem for other people who've knitted it. I got a sore shoulder while I was working on this, either due to excessive mousing or excessive stocking stitch, or perhaps a combination of the two.

When I came to the seaming everything fitted together like a dream. It's a well-shaped garment and the shoulders fit more neatly than I expected. This is a good thing. I will try to find some red sandstone to photograph it against for you.

I swatched for the retro tank top but I haven't been given any further instructions about what size is needed, or what colours are wanted, so I can't do much else. I wish I could find a tank pattern that would knit up in Felted Tweed Aran, as my shallow and impatient nature makes me reluctant to knit with Felted Tweed itself, which is double knitting weight.

I wanted to carry on knitting with the Jet but I couldn't decide between Kaari and the latest Pinwheel so I made the pocket band for Kaari while I thought about it. I then cast on for Kaari but after a couple of days mysteriously found myself casting on the blanket as well. Perhaps the YOs on the blanket will stop me getting Stocking Stitch Shoulder this time.

Sorry the photo is so dark; my copy of Photoshop Elements is on the fritz and I can't brighten it up. You know what it looks like anyway.

After I had done about four inches of the back of Kaari, I thought it looked a bit wide, even for something that's meant to go over my hips, and when I checked I discovered that I had a) cast on too many stitches, and b) failed to notice a rather significant row of decreases. Sigh. I've ripped and cast on again.

There have been various signs of winter here. First of all, it's been bl**dy cold. Then on Sunday, the heating broke down which never happens in the spring. I rang the engineer on Monday morning and then, as I put the phone down I touched a radiator and lo, the heating had come back on. So I waited a few hours to make sure it wasn't a fluke and then rang again and arranged for the boiler to be serviced. Alan Ayckbourn maintains that central heating systems have a symbiotic relationship with th major religious festivals, and I don't want to tempt fate at this time of year.

On Monday I got my first Christmas card, from my Buddhist cousin. She always sends a card around this time of year but it's usually a plain one, not a Christmas card. This year it has robins and holly and snow, and reads 'Season's Greetings' so I think it has to fall into the category of Christmas Card. She just signed it with her name, no 'Love', or 'Best wishes for 2010', or even a 'from'. As I have explained to people from time to time, she's a rather Presbyterian Buddhist.

The best sign of Winter is that my bougainvillea has come into blossom, pouring out bright pink flowers on the 26th of November and ever since. I don't know why it does this, why a tropical plant should bloom in an Edinburgh winter, but all the ones I've had have done it. You're meant to give them a tropical night and put them somewhere dark at 6 p.m. every night but I never do and they sit in the glow of all my lights, and televisions of increasing size and then burst into flower when the frosts loom.

ADDED: The Red Sandstone Jacket is from Paton's pattern book 1250, Jet, and is knitted from Paton's Jet in Lolly Orange. The pattern is listed on Ravelry here, and my version is here.