That's a wrap.

I pottered off to my LYS yesterday, not to buy anything (oh, no! not me!) but just to ask Nicky to save me a copy of the January issue of "Simply Knitting" (out Dec 8th, I believe) if, and only if, the article about blogs that I "helped" with is in it. I don't normally purchase said magazine - I find the patterns a bit too, well, simple really. The ads in the back are the best bit but as the same ones tend to appear time after time, I find it is sufficient to buy the thing about every three or four months.

The best laid plans of mice and men...I managed to stop myself buying yarn but succumbed to a book. This book here:



All the usual suspects: Jo Sharp, Debbie Newton, Lily Chin, Teva Durham, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all are included. There are several things I want to have a go at in here and I have already cast on for Norah Gaughan's "Twisty Turns":



Of course, there is no question of using the recommended yarn. (Classic Elite "Lush" 50% angora, 50% wool), so I started with two strands of the wool/mohair mix from Phildar, that has been in my stash for years and still not decided what it wants to be. It definitely didn't want to be this used double on 5mm needles, so I started again with one strand on 4mm needles. The recommended needle size for this yarn is 3.5mm and the loose woman here would have to use smaller but I decided to go bigger to get a nice drape. I took a picture of it but it's so dark and unpleasant looking that I'm going to keep it to myself.

I'm not sure what gauge I'm getting - it's a 4x4 rib, so you can just about get whatever stitch gauge you want. The row gauge is not so important - basically you knit a long trapezium (which you folks across that pond call a trapezoid) and then sew (!) it together in a fancy way to make the wrap work. I like the drape of the fabric and that's all that matters to me. The only difficulty with the sewing up is that the designer tells us to count the rows and place a marker here there and everywhere. Two things: couldn't you tell us to place the marker as we are going along? (which is what this knitter is going to do) and couldn't you give the distances between markers? (as this knitter is going to have to work out.) I never was all that keen on Maths (nor much good at it) but I feel that if they had set puzzles about where to place the stitch markers rather than all those baths filling with water and men digging holes, I might have made a bit more effort.

I haven't done much more on the Garden Shawl - my KB has been unable to start for various reasons which we won't go into here, and she doesn't want me to get too far ahead. I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself but I have promised to try.

A while ago I posted about the odd things I have knitted, among them a Hasselblad camera. Tari said she'd like to see it. Well, I don't have it any more because it was made for a present. However, I had a root through my pattern stash and I found the pattern! Published in "Amateur Photographer" in 1979 (before some of you were born, I bet) this is the picture that accompanied it:



and that is pretty much what mine looked like.

A knitter has asked that I post about Pandora form Rowan #38 if I should decided to make it. I can't see that coming off any time soon but I did have a little play to help her out and here are some pictures of the results.



You can't really get the idea from this but it's a slip stitch pattern using two colours and a two row pattern alternated with two rows garter stitch and then the two row slip stitch pattern again, off set by one stitch. I just used some odd double knitting merino that was clouting round the house and 3.5mm needles. Here's a closer view:



The pattern calls for 4-ply and 5mm needles, so it should obviously be fairly "holey". I might give it another go with bigger needles. However, you can see the large "V" shapes - these are the slipped stitches. It's quite attractive, I think.

So much to do, so little time.