Hiatus

There has been a hiatus, and not of my own making. Despite the fact that the computer is anti-virused, firewalled, ad-aware right up to its eyeballs, I managed to get some spyware on here, which caused a right panic. All sorted out now though and not too expensively, either.

Just to tie up some loose ends: I don't think that was an Addi that snapped. I had never heard of Addis until fairly recently and this needle was one that I have had for years. In fact, its provenance is lost in the mists of time, so no, not an Addi.

Someone asked to see the front of the pink shoulder cozy. Here you go:



Front of the thing.


Side of the thing.

(You asked for it.)
Thanks to #1 daughter for her photographic skills.

The Garden Shawl has not really been doing very much lately, though she is growing slightly. She's just so darned fiddly. Usually I like fiddly but I don't find myself in a very fiddly mood at the moment. It is, I think, all part of my general unsettled feeling at this time of the year. I hate this period between Christmas and the New Year when everything seems to be in suspended animation. We don't seem to be able to get on with anything until we get the New Year out of the way. Can't come too soon for me.

It hasn't started yet, though I'm sure it won't be long - those interminable posts on the "Knitlost" detailing every, single charity hat; crochet baby blanket; pair of socks for Chuck; garter stitch scarf; pair of mittens and all what not, that each individual has completed this year. Yes, I do, in fact, have a list like that (for the first time ever), and no, I will not be inflicting it on you (not unless you offer inducements - yarn, chocolate, yarn, wine, yarn, yarn etc.)

Have a Happy New Year. See you on the other side.

Busy, busy, busy.

And when you are so busy this is just what you don't want:



Oh, yes. It's the circular needle that fell apart. Not too much damage done. The pink shoulder cozy is finished. The pattern says to pick up stitches all the way round the outside. She even tells you how many stitches to pick up. I'm sorry to say that once I get over about thirty, I can't keep count. So I threw caution to the winds and just picked up the stitches as seemed appropriate. I don't even know how many there were. It was a miracle that it was an even number, so the ribbing was perfect. Then she says to cast off and sew the hem down. Oh, dearie me. Give me a break! What is the point of casting off and then sewing the thing? It uses up more yarn (and at £8 the ball, 5 balls needed, we don't need to use any more yarn than is absolutely necessary), it adds bulk - this is lovely yarn but it is heavy, we don't need more bulk at this stage.

I did an Elizabeth Zimmerman. I took an executive decision. I am the boss of my knitting. I didn't cast off. I knitted until it was long enough (and I don't even know how many rounds that was) , and then I sewed the live loops:



to the corresponding stitch at the beginning of the hem:



and that was the end of that.

Of course, I needed a button. A big button. What with one thing and another, I didn't have a button. Big or otherwise. But I really, really wanted to wear the thing. Extreme measures had to be taken:



I just happened to have a pair of short pink needles. They all thought it looked great.



So did I.

I'm in the middle of making White Stilton Soup. It's our soup of Christmas Day. I'm also in the middle of working my way through a bottle of red wine (provided by a grateful punter) and I do have the rare red Bounty in the freezer. All's well with the world.

We brought out the crib the other day:



Yes, I made all that. It won a prize, too. It was the "presepio piu originale" one year when I lived in Torino. (I was informed by one adolescent boy that it couldn't possibly win the "crib of cribs" because it didn't include a palm tree. You win some, you lose some, I suppose.)

The Baby Jesus seems to have lost an eye:



but I don't suppose it matters if he looks like a pirate. It's His birthday -He can do what He wants.

Happy Christmas!

Pass that Frog.

There I was racing away on the pink shoulder cozy, when I suddenly took it into my head to check the stitches per four inches again. Yes, there we are, perfect. 14 stitches. Then I glanced at the pattern. I did a double-take. How many stitches in four inches? 18. What? 18; eighteen; one, eight; one ten and eight units.

You would never imagine in a million years that I have been knitting for over 40 years. You would think that I had never taken up a pair of needles before; that reading a pattern was a closed book to me; you would never imagine for the smallest nano-second that I could be so stupid as to mis-read the pattern and then dash on (using needles 4mm smaller than called for) until I had knitted up the whole of the first ball of yarn and a fair proportion of the second. Would you?

Pass that frog.

I have frogged the whole thing. I have started again using 6mm needles (only 2mm smaller than the needles called for - that's a bit more like it.) The drawback is I have wasted a bit of time. The advantage is that I now know the pattern inside out and I can use short rowing to make the curve smoother.

How did I do it? I cast on the total number of stitches needed, which in this case is 146. I used a separate length of yarn for this. I then placed markers to indicate: the central 34 stitches (this was the original cast-on number); 20 stitches on each side of that (for the cast-on 4 stitches at beginning of next 10 rows); the 22 stitches on each side of that (for the cast-on 2 sts at beg of next 22 rows); which left me with 14 sts at each end for the cast on 1 st at beg of next 28 rows. I then slipped stitches until I was at the beginning of the 34 central stitches and, using a new end of yarn, began knitting in pattern, incorporating an additional four stitches at the end of each row until I hit the markers, then I started working two more stitches at the end of each row until I hit the markers again. I think you will agree that this has eliminated the "steps" in the original:



Isn't that so much better? It is so often the case, at least for me, that the pattern as written could be improved no end. I don't know why the designer didn't write the pattern this way. It is not rocket science - the hardest part is doing the maths and if the designer had written the pattern this way she would have done the maths for you! Anyone who might have contemplated making this as written would be more than capable of working short rows (especially if they were well explained) and the added benefit would be that knitters who were unaware of the magic of short rows would have the scales fall from their eyes. Anyway, I'm pleased with it. I suppose tinkering with the pattern gives me something to do in my copious spare time.

"Happy Spider" asks if the pattern stitch has a name. In the book it's called "Slip Rib Pattern". I have never come across it before but that is not so surprising as I do not own Barbara Walker's Treasuries (except the Charted one) and have only a couple of stitch dictionaries (one ancient Mon Tricot book - "1500 punti", in Italian; and one collection of stitches, part of a Fabbri partworks thing, also in Italian).

That's enough for now. I have to go back to work and deal with Christmas parties. I'm afraid I'm a little bit "Bah, humbug!" at this time of the year.

Cheered up no end by the sky as seen from the rural backwater at 7.45am this morning:



"Red sky at night? Shepherd's delight.
Red sky in the morning? Shepherd's warning"

Oh, dear.

Yet another wrap

This isn't a wrap - it's a "Shoulder Cozy". It's another pattern from the "Wrap Style" book and I want it very much.



I couldn't help myself. I shot into the LYS yesterday and bought 5 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Super Chunky in a pale pink colour. I wanted to cast on immediately but I took the unprecedented step of trying a gauge swatch first. The recommended needles are 8mm. Well, I knew the loose woman over here would need smaller needles, so I started with 6mm. Too big. I tried again with 5mm. Again, too big. I ended up with 4mm needles. That's a massive difference. I have got the stitch gauge bang on but the row gauge is not quite right. I am hoping I will be able to fudge the thing, or even maybe get away with making the whole thing slightly shorter. I am not a tall person, so this solution might just work.

I went to see Great Expectations at the RSC last night and managed to cast on and make quite a dent in it:



We start by casting on 34 stitches and then working in the slip rib pattern, which is a four row repeat over multiples of 2 stitches and casting on four stitches at the beginning of every row a few times, then casting on two stitches a few more times and then casting on one stitch a whole lot of other times. As you can see, this makes "steps" along the bottom edge and I only wish I had been more sensible and cast on the total number of stitches required at the outset and used short rows to shape the curve. This would certainly have made the curve smoother. "Plagued with latter wit", as my Dad used to say. I am, however, already planning to make a better buttonhole than the cast off 4, cast on 4 that the pattern suggests.

Here's a close up of the stitch pattern, which is one I haven't come across before and it's not quite as painful as a lot of rib based patterns are.



The yarn is very soft and luscious but it is starting to pill and shed already. I do not know how it will hold up during wear. The Alpaca silk that I used to make Lara has pilled dreadfully - it's only just stopped leaving bits all over now, almost a year after it was completed. I don't have a picture of my Lara, as it was knitted before I got my digital camera, as a gift for my not-a-Barbie sister-in-law, but here's a link to a picture of Wendy (the UberKnitter) wearing hers.

That just about wraps it up for today. Tonight is #1 daughter's Christmas Play; she will be the Ghost of Christmas Past and I will be knitting.