Will it never end?

That seems to be the question which is forever on my lips at the moment. The one thing that I wish would end is the rain. I honestly cannot remember the last day on which we had no rain at all. At the moment, while it is not actually raining, it is dark enough to make me think the Apocalypse cannot be far off and requires the light to be turned on (it's just past mid-day.)

The other thing I wish would end is the "Anne" cardigan. If you have been following, you will know that the yarn is beautiful and the pattern is fearful. Vertical intarsia stripes, if you please, with the whole thing being knitted in one piece, thus requiring twelve balls of yarn to be hanging off the bottom. It seemed to take me an unusually long time to reach the eighteen inches required before dividing for the armholes. I measured it - seventeen and a bit inches. I did two rows and measured again - seventeen and a bit inches. I did two more rows and measured again - seventeen and a bigger bit inches. I swear I knitted ten rows and it never got any bigger. Black hole knitting, obviously.

I finally decided enough was enough and divided for the armholes. I'm not quite sure how long it is. Round about seventeen and a bit inches probably. Next step? "Continue in the same sequence on the first 57 stitches for 7 inches." Simple. Only three balls of wool at this stage (so only about a quarter as annoying). Seven inches? I knitted a bit, eyeballed it and measured.

I suppose you all know what's coming ?

Eight inches. Not six and a bit for ten rows. No. Eight. Straight off. Just like that. Black hole knitting, with a vengeance.

Here's the fearsome thing:



all scrumpled up. (Note cycling magazine in the background - it is "Le Tour", after all).

Another picture where you can sort of see how I've finished the right front and am working the back on the next six stripes:



Six balls of yarn now, so twice as annoying as what I've just done but only half as annoying as the first part.
The colours are slightly lighter in real life. Another function of the constant rain is that there is very little light, so it's almost impossible to get a decent picture.

I'm so fed up with it that I've rattled off a small doily from Marianne Kinzel's "First Book of Modern Lace Knitting". No picture for reason given above.

I have even taken out the Wedding Ring Shawl and done a row or two - which just goes to show how truly ticked off I am by the Anne Cardigan, if the WRS is "light relief".

Finally, Saturday Field. In a new departure, this is the front field:



Not raining there (it did later in the day, though.)

Life in the rural backwater is not all bad.

Do I really want to do this?

I thought it was about time I got on to the "Anne" cardigan - with the lovely yarn from Shilasdair I was writing about the other day. There are four colours. One colour is used for the bottom band and the button bands (worked in moss stitch, one of my favourite stitches, NOT). The other three colours are used to make vertical stripes on the body of the cardigan (it appears the sleeves are plain, though as I noted before, the pattern is very sketchy and doesn't actually mention this). The garment is worked in one piece to the armholes and then divided for front and back. The upshot of this is that there will be twelve (yes, that's twelve) balls of yarn hanging off the work most of the time. Something I'm not really looking forward to.

However, I have said I will do it, so I will do it. Of course, we had to start by winding the yarn into "balls". I have a swift and there was a ball-winder somewhere in my past but who knows what black hole the thing went down, so normally, I put the hank on the swift and wind the yarn into a ball, trying to keep the whole thing as loose as possible. This time I couldn't bear the thought of twelve balls of yarn rolling round the place while I tried to wrestle them into some semblance of order. I cast about for a better method and came upon Jackie Fee's explanation of the Japanese yarn cocoon in her excellent book "The Sweater Workshop". It wasn't long before I had one of these:



A nice, soft yarn cocoon that's going to stay where I put it. Another eleven followed, all of which look very similar to the first. I searched about for more info on the yarn cocoon technique and came upon this blog where there is a video of the technique (if you scroll down and get past all the spelling stuff).

Here's a shot of the very start of the cardi:



Looking like exactly what it is - nine rows of moss stitch. Stand by for cat's cradle as the weeks progress.

I really can't help myself, can I? I just popped in to Shipston Needlecraft on Saturday because I happened to have used only one of the two skeins of Appleton's wool I got for the dark border of the Romance Shawl and I was pretty sure that I could get a credit for it. It just so happens that they have a sale on knitting kits at the moment. It just so happens that there is a kit I have been looking at and wondering at the price tag of £89 - wondering if someone was pulling someone else's leg. It just so happens that the self-same kit is now reduced to £15.75. It just so happens that with my credit of £2.25 the kit is now only £13.50. It just so happens that I am weak-willed and a sucker for a bargain. It just so happens that this is now cluttering up the living room:



not worth £89 but actually a net saving of money. I have been a good girl. (I think if I keep saying this long enough I will come to believe it.)

Back field?



At least you can see it now (last week it was under water).
As someone remarked, "Aren't the greens green?"

Lookee here

Still thinking about how to use the variegated lace yarn, I have been cheered by Ginny, who left a comment about this very thing. She called my attention to "Tricotomania", and the interesting discussion of knitting lace with variegated yarn to be found therein. This knitter is using some variegated yarn to knit the "Concert in the Park" shawl (available from Blackberry Ridge). She has some pictures of the beginning of the shawl and others of the finished article. As Ginny says this yarn appears to work very well with this pattern. None of the things I've tried with this yarn has been a square shawl from the centre out, so this may be something to bear in mind for the future.

However, I do not know how much time there will be for messing about with lace and variegated yarn in the near future, for yesterday this arrived:



"This" is yummy yarn - 20% Cashmere; 40% Angora; 40% Lambswool - you can imagine how that feels - from Shilasdair. It came to me via London, to be made into a cardigan with vertical stripes, at the request of a non-knitting lady, who had my telephone number from the woman at Burford Needlecraft.

There is a pattern with a "sketch" to show the finished article and very sketchy it is, too. The pattern is not on Shilasdair's web site so I cannot show you what I am aiming at (even if I knew myself).

The decision on the border of the Romance Shawl has been taken. At the suggestion of Jane in my LYS I plumped for Appleton's Crewel Wool in a sort of raspberry shade for the dark border and I am going to leave the body of the shawl in the original white. I took several photographs of the shawl but the colour bore no relation to the reality in any of them, so I thought it was pointless to post them. I searched high and low to find a representation of the colour (946, if anyone is remotely interested) but failed. Can't say I'm really surprised given my difficulty in getting a decent representation of the colour. I'll try to get some more pictures later.

If you wish to see one of our raw materials in the flesh (so to speak), do not miss the new BBC cartoon "Shaun the Sheep" - he is hilarious.