Sunday, June 10, 2007

Shades of Cashmere visit

Well, it was Sunday morning and I fancied a drive. "I know where it is!" said the Cog, "Don't tell me!"...

We got as far as Brinklow before he admitted he needed help. We found it eventually. Wendy P tried to sell me more machine knitting gadgets, but I was stoic in the face of much selling. She has no idea how many I've already got! :)

However, I did succumb to 300g of hand-dyed cashmere (shade "sweet pea") and the lovely pashmina pattern - a simple length of FNR. I've never knitted with cashmere before - being a beginner MKer with oodles of donated yarn I've not really been able to justify the price, but I fell in love with the colours and the softness. And every girl needs a pashmina, no? One skein is already wound into a ball, looks a bit less impressive like that. Must do a tension swatch this week, and see how it washes.

They were also serving home-made cakes, tea and coffee, which was lovely. Went on to the Blue Pig in Wolvey for a damn fine baguette - must go there again for a proper meal. I had a nightmare about the road from Hinckley into Wolvey once - a long hill with a "Give way" sign on it. No, I've no idea why, either! I had a nightmare once about that funny little roundabout just north of Millison's Wood, too. I think I had to walk home, it was about 3 miles, and as I got home I ended up back there again. Strange!

It's been too hot to do much machine-knitting, so I decided to have a go at the Peaches N'Creme ballband washcloth (also featured in Mason-Dixon Knitting). It's basically three rows of stocking stitch, and three rows of reversed stocking stitch. On the last row of stocking stitch, you slip every 6th stitch, and continue to slip these sts whilst doing the rev. stst part. It's really, really addictive, and almost too pretty to be used as a dishcloth. Knits up really fast as it's on 4.5mm needles. I sense an early Christmas present idea coming on! :) Pity it can't easily be done on a knitting machine, I'd be churning them out! You're supposed to do it in two seperate colours, but I didn't feel like it. This took me about 3-4 hours yesterday.

Oh, and this (right) is the neon yarn I gained on Wednesday, alongside the neon stuff I'm already knitting up. Loud, isn't it?! I've been cursing Mandy, trying to wind the neon yarn into something useable in a small upstairs room with no ventilation! I think it's Patons Fab or something - comes in lots of lovely shades, pity it's acrylic else it would have made excellent socks!

Oh, and the Lizard Ridge has kinda stalled - I made a square with two adjacent dropped stitches, and although they're repaired, I think I may have to frog it. First time for everything. I'm just putting it off - it's on the fluffy side and not strong.

Current mood: mischievous

No comments: