Frustration

The UK is busy having one of its usual mediocre summers - overcast, no breeze, no sunshine, but muggy. As most houses don't have air-con over here - with such poor summers, what would be the point? - it makes for sticky times when one is crafting (or attempting to craft).

Saturday was spent running various errands - the car needs a pair of new tyres and decided to start demanding an oil change on Saturday, both of which are booked in for this week, the food shop had to be done, sandwiches bought and delivered to himself etc etc. Sunday I decided to revisit the Dream Week challenge item, the first attempt of which was almost completely hanging off the machine (it's now circling dangerously around the circular file). Made a start on a simpler garment, which had similar problems. The challenge yarn is a pretty boucle which hangs up on the gatepegs every. single. time. it is used. So anyone knitting this with a gatepegged machine (about 90% of us I guess) is going to be tearing their hair out.

Whilst I was pondering said challenging item, I thought I'd quickly rewind the Knitpicks sock yarns and make a few pairs on the CSM. Ha, folly! The yarn is nice enough but it's quite soft, and pulling the centre out of the ball resulted in three of them making such tangles of yarn vomit it took me the best part of the day to calm down enough to detangle them (and two I ended up snapping the yarn out of sheer frustration). Soft yarns produce fluff when various strands rub against each other - a student of mine called them "flufflinks" which works rather well I think. I am thinking of writing an article explaining about how I make my CSM socks, and the biggest time suck can actually be the yarn preparation itself. If I could locate lovely space dyed yarn on cone, in the correct 80-20 wool-nylon, I would do. Alas, Texere went pop, taking Jura with it (and that was a single colour anyway) so I must needs rewind balls of yarn into cakes before I can even start a sock. So it's never a case of 3 hours for a pair of socks, however effortless the fast bits (ankle and foot) might at first appear.

I managed to get them all rewound eventually, and in between I made a stripey pair of socks which I've completely forgotten to photograph. So much for the sock marathon I had planned though - by the time I'd grafted both toes it was pretty much tea time and I was all out of patience. I've ironing to do tonight, and we'll see if the current DW is going to be big enough or whether another piece needs to be knitted. My money's on the latter, alas.

Current mood: moody