Haven't we been here before?

Just when we thought we'd had the last of the snow, back it came. They went to school; I went to work - we were all back by lunchtime. I wouldn't have wanted to leave it any longer. This was the "main road" in my village yesterday:



The Church:



and the back field:



Nothing to do but sit and knit.

The sock yarn blanket is up to 410 squares - I would say it is about a third done. My pair snuggled up under it:



More pictures:



(I think that might be upside down - some of you may wish to stand on your head for a proper look.)

Close-up of one of the squares:



(Right way up - stand normally now.)

I've also been knitting a Cabled Waistcoat (or "Vest"). A friend of mine asked if I would knit something for her. She then produced a small, dark image of a waistcoat. I have done the best I can to reproduce it.

A front:



The cable is the Celtic Plait from the Harmony "Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches"

The Back:



I know it looks quite small but it's 2 x 1 rib, so very stretchy. It also looks short; that is because there is a deep (like six inches deep) band of rib around the bottom of the garment.

The yarn had to be: aran weight; natural colour; 100% natural fibre and machine washable. I settled on Rowan Pure Wool Aran because it ticks all the boxes. I'm using 4.5mm needles and I used Knitware Design to give me an outline of the pattern but I changed it quite a bit because it's shorter, double-breasted, has a much longer collar, is much lower in front and has that band of ribbing round the bottom - just about the only thing that remains from the original is the armhole shaping.

I'm slightly stalled now because it's time to start the button holes on the other front and I want to get the buttons first. I haven't made it to the button shop yet - see first picture, above - but I'm hoping to get there this afternoon.

I leave you with a sunny back field:

Long time, no hear

Yes, I know, I know. It's been far too long. It's a bit like when you don't write your thank-you letters, there and then, on Boxing Day. The longer you don't do it, the harder it becomes.

Here I am now, though and rest assured there has been no lack of knitting here in the rural backwater.

I finished the Wrap Me Up wrap and there has been a request for more pictures. Here are a few:

The front:




The side:



Close-up of the pink bobbles:



I didn't add any beads in the end - it just seemed that to make any impact at all the beads would have had to be huge. I added a few buttons for ornamentation but, strangely, there don't seem to be any pictures and no prospect of any in the near future - the camera has gone to Spain with the offspring and will be back later this week.

I am still working on the Sock Yarn blanket (174 squares at the last count.) I have received yarn donations from Jan (aka Wibbo)



and Alex (aka Little Lixie)



That little lot is certainly helping to keep me going. It's a great TV watching project and offers some well needed light relief from all that lace, which I seem to have on the needles all the time.

In fact, the green lace "tablecloth" has been languishing on the piano for the last few weeks, although I did pick it up and do a couple of rounds this afternoon. No pictures - the camera's in Spain, remember?

You know I died in the Yarn Smackdown? Well, all is not completely lost. There is a prize draw for the fallen in each round and I won a prize! I never win anything, ever, so this was a lovely surprise. I have won a book, which is good - I love books. It's a book about hats, even better - I love hats and never leave the house without one, ever. The only slight fly in the ointment is that it's a book about crochet hats. I don't love crochet - I can crochet but I don't. However, never look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say. Maybe this book will be the thing to spur me on to greater effort in the crochet department. It hasn't arrived yet and I'm thinking it must be somewhere on the high seas (or swallowed by the good old Royal Mail, never to be seen again.)

I have been tagged by Annie and I'm well aware of the fact. However, I need some time to mull over the questions (and any answers I may want to share with you), so that will be for another day. I promise that that day will not be too far in the future.

The weather is so grim at the moment (hasn't stopped raining for what feels like days); life is slightly odd since the offspring are away and that always makes the house seem strange; my place of work is closed for a week while the new owners "take over" - I live so near that I can hear them chucking things in the skip and tearing up the car park with a digger. I'm hoping there will be something left for me to go back to next week. Really, the only thing left to do is knit and that's what I'm going to do right now.

I'm obsessed

I'm obsessed with the sock yarn blanket. It's growing like Topsy. I keep thinking, "Just one more square and then I'll go to bed/do the washing up/cook the dinner/go to work" (delete as appropriate).

We are up to ninety-seven squares. It sounds a lot but it doesn't look much:





I did say that I would just go and buy the sock yarn but I went whizzing into my LYS the other day, only to find a very limited supply of Regia and plenty of ultra-costly Araucania. Needless to say, I didn't bite. Jo's shop, Crafty Cottage, in Warwick has closed down (boo-hoo!), so no joy there. It's ordering on-line or begging from my readers. I'm not above begging, so if you really can't help yourself - send sock yarn!

I am taking the green star shawl very slowly, possibly because of the aforementioned obsession, and am at round 54. No picture - it's the usual lace knitter's photographic nightmare - a pile of dental floss. In this case it's olive green but to all intents and purposes, it's dental floss.

The Wrap Me Up Wrap is blocking even as I write:

Here's the picot hem:



This is the ruffle:



and here's a lace rib panel:



It's taking much longer to dry than a lace shawl, so it's good that today has been the hottest day of the year to date (69F). I'm sorry I can't do the temperature in centigrade- I had my head round it perfectly when I lived in Italy but when I bought 'im indoors a fancy thermometer with indoor and outdoor readings and he set it to Fahrenheit - well, that was it. I don't know if I'm coming or going. Suffice it to say that today was hot and the wrap is drying nicely. It should be dry by tomorrow and then it's just a case of putting an edging on the long sides and a dragon's tooth edging on one of the short ends and I am done. Just in time for it to be too warm to wear.

Spring appears to have sprung here in the rural backwater - I leave you with the back field "in the green".



(Later in the day my "friends" were lurking but I gave them a very wide berth.)

I'm so dead

I am speaking to you today from beyond the grave. The Yarn Smackdown has smacked me down. I am dead.

Killed, on my own doorstep by a beautiful lime green hat from lisalaraine. I thought all was well, as the postman had passed me by in the morning. Don't be fooled. Three thirty saw the Parcel Force van at my door and there I was - laid low.

The kids came home.

"How are you, Mummy?"

"Well, since you ask, I'm dead."

Wails from both.

Then they saw the hat, lying on the table in one of those re-sealable bags (the ones that I can never get resealed).

#1 daughter snatched it up - "Here's the evidence!"



#1 son said, "Here's the murder weapon."

I think they've been watching too much CSI (and if that Horatio Cane isn't the hottest redhead on TV, I don't know who is.)

The Sock Yarn Blanket is starting to take over my life. I started by making it five blocks wide, just to see if I liked the idea of it. Well, I like the idea of it. So now I'm thinking twenty squares wide, so it can act as a "throw" on the sofa. I don't know how long it will need to be. Let's just say, "long".

Shelly Kang (who made the original sock yarn blanket) asked for yarn donations. Then she got the Yarn Harlot involved and soon became buried in sock yarn. I was thinking of applying the simpler expedient of going to the yarn shop and buying the stuff but, hey, if anyone has spare sock yarn...

I'm up to forty-three squares now and I'm still not fed up with it, which must be some kind of a record.

I need to go and knit another few (squillion) squares.