Aria All Done

I finished Aria last night. I made it to the end of the sixth ball of Natural Silk Aran: it's 64 inches long just now but I expect it will stretch. I've hung it up so that it can.

The drapeyness of this yarn is just heavenly: it's soft enough to fold over double so that you get twice the frills on one edge. (My spell-checker didn't like 'drapeyness', but doesn't suggest anything else. It doesn't really like 'spell-checker' either, but I insist on hyphens.) It's worth clicking on the photograph to get the full glory of the yarn, and the frills.

I caught the end of My Cousin Vinnie, when I was finishing off the ends. It's one of my favourites; if I catch a bit of the courtroom scenes, I'm hooked. I always forget that it was directed by Jonathan Lynn, after he'd written Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, and then I look it up and remember again. It's difficult to come up with quotes from it because most of the funniest bits are exchanges rather than one-liners; the scenes between Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei are a joy, even although they consist mostly of them bickering. Vinnie on being given breakfast on his first morning in Alabama - 'Sure, I've heard of grits. I just never actually seen a grit before.'

Blugger won't let me load any more photos of Aria tonight: it must be doing something more important. I'm not here tomorrow, but I'll post again properly on the weekend. Meanwhile you can go over to the Knitting New Scarves KAL and see what everybody else has been doing.

Noro Rip Out

You know that thing I said yesterday about making sure the yarn wasn't twisted when I was doing the first row of Mavis? Well, I had another look at it after I finished that post and I noticed that it was actually twisted. I don't know how I'd managed to do that. So I ripped it.
Once I took it off the needles I was able to measure it properly and discovered that it was a bit too big too, so I'm not too bothered about the ripping. I think I learnt enough on the first cast on to be able to do a better job this time, and I won't have to worry about that mistakette that I was trying to ignore. So everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

These rosewood needles are the ones I get from Scottish Fibres, a German brand called Susanne's. They are available in ebony too and the wood is the left overs from the manufacture of musical instruments, a cheering thought and as close as I am likely to get to playing one. I have tried the ebony needles but the ebony didn't seem to become as polished through use, but I love the rosewood, especially the dpns. Classic Elite distribute them in the U.S.

There's a new jigsaw in the sidebar, showing Lorna's Laces in Bittersweet again.

Noro Cast On

I started my friend's Mavis on Saturday night. I cast on and did part of the first row. On Sunday I finished the first row and got a few rounds done. The first row was excruciating, because of trying to do YOs and K2togs while counting and making sure the yarn wasn't twisted, and allowing for the thick-and-thinness of the Silk Garden. The first row so often is excruciating and it must really put off new knitters because they think the whole thing is going to be like that and don't realize that the rest will be so much easier.

On Saturday and Sunday I was working on it in artificial light and it was only when I saw it today that I realized how lovely the colours are. It's shade 226 and it's not as bright in person.

I didn't really think what I was doing about knitting it in the round and I ended up with a slight mistakette, but I think I've resolved it. I've done a few more rows since the photo and am nearly at the end of the first ball of yarn, which seems a bit fast. I think I'll leave it for a while now, because I want to do some more Christmas knitting, and I just wanted to get this started so that I could be sure of how the stitch worked (a very simple chevron) and to see what the colours looked like. And so that I could tell my friend I've started in case she begins to panic.

I'm on the sixth and last ball of yarn for the Aria scarf so that should be done soon.

I forgot to show you this. It's the third Daisy Hat I've knitted from Itty Bitty Hats and the fourth hat for this baby. She turned out to be a girl and she's called Ellie.

It's made from Rowan Handknit Cotton in Sugar. I gave it to Ellie's aunt and uncle to take to the U.S., where Ellie lives, because they were going for Thanksgiving. I'm hoping to meet her at Christmas when she may be over here making an exchange visit.

I am missing my Kauni very much. I want so much to pick it up and see how the next colour change in the pattern works, but I must do some more other-people-knitting first. I just hope they appreciate it. But meanwhile, do go and have a look at this Kauni Christmas stocking pattern. It's the cutest thing, and there are a couple of other Kauni patterns too.