This is the current state of PotW play: the border of one short side and half of one long side complete. Surprisingly, attaching the border turned out to be as simple as everyone had claimed, but it's taken a long time to get here. Long and unhappy and involving ripping.First of all, in an attempt to increase the width of the shawl, I increased the stitch count of the border, inserting two lines of double faggotting separated by a column of stocking stitch (this [cough] expertise courtesy of much pouring over the back pages of Victorian Lace Today). After a few pattern repeats, I was satisfied that I had achieved my aim, and congratulated myself on my ability to adopt new techniques so successfully.
But with each repeat, I disliked the result more and more. The additional columns did indeed increase the width, and were perfectly nice to look at, but the hard lines broke up the soft flow of the pattern, and the wave border was too far removed from the centre panel. Time and time again, I looked at the border, tried to imagine it round the entire shawl, and fought the desire to rip.
I also revisited the library of tips I'd accumulated in my research, and of course found a post from the PotW KAL, that perfectly explained why I had more stitches in the eyelet rounds than specified in the pattern. I shoulda just read Eunny's instructions as written. Anyway, it inself, it wasn't too much of a problem, it just required some fudging, but as I got to the first corner, the required fudging on top of the ugliness of the border, well, you can probably see where I'm going with this. I ripped.
Initially, I wanted to rip right back to the centre panel, and pick up 768 border stitches again, as it was SUCH FUN the first time round. But the prospect of losing stitches at the two live ends made me too nervous, so I ripped only the border, counted the stitches on each of the sides and corners, put them on a crude diagram on a spreadsheet and calculated where adjustments were to be made. I then felt comfortable enough to restart the border.
I still wanted to increase the width, but contented myself with one column of double faggotting and an additional two stitches of of stocking stitch at the side of the wave pattern......... and I am really pleased with the result.
Now, did you all notice the large holes at the corner in the first picture? I don't know what the hell went wrong there, but I only noticed them today when I removed some scrap yarn used as a marker. I'm hoping that after blocking and draped around my shoulders, they aren't going to be that visible, otherwise, I foresee some fudging ahead...
It's a bank holiday weekend, and it has rained non-stop. Seriously. Non. Stop. But I don't care, I have the rest of the week off, yipee! That makes nine stress-free days away from the office. On Friday night, I actually fell asleep smiling.
For reasons that I won't bore you with, tonight was the first evening in several weeks that I left work without having to continue the day's toil later at home, or dreading the next day. It was such an odd feeling, this light-heartedness, it reminded me of school or university, that feeling on the last day of exams, the knowledge THAT I DIDN'T HAVE TO REVISE EVER AGAIN EVAH,............. or at least until the next semester. Ok, maybe it wasn't quite like that, but really, I was so unexpectedly light-hearted, I didn't quite know what to do with myself, and at such short notice, had no-one to play with. How sad.
Even though I still left a good couple of hours later than the norm, it was a fine evening and I was in a Good Mood. I didn't want to waste it at home. I toyed with the idea of going to I Knit London's group meet, but bizarrely felt a little inadequate with only a sock-in-progress with me. In the end, I treated myself to a couple of glasses of expensive wine al fresco, worked on a geeky personal project on the laptop and knitted on said sock.
Back at home, I had the choice of working on the PotW or winding a skein of the PY Sophia to prepare for swatching. I turned on the telly, and Notting Hill was just about to start. Ok, ok, not the best film in the world, but still one that makes me laugh and makes me cry - in short, the perfect film for me tonight. I reached for the Sophia et voilà, one ball ready for knitting.Which brings me to the Actual Point of this post: which is that I forgot to say last time how amazing this yarn is. So, so soft; so utterly, gorgeously beautiful to touch. I love this yarn.
I often wonder what my neighbours think of the constant steam of mostly squishy packages laid at my door. On Friday, one such package in bright, pink plastic was delivered. In fact B found it when he went up to leave some shopping, while I waited in the car, on our way for a quick drink. This time, postie had left it under the doormat, which does little to conceal it from would-be burglars, but presumably allowed one to see beyond the glare of the package! Anyway, B stepped out waving this neon pink package; clearly he has come to understand the importance of uniting me with my yarn as quickly as possible.
Inside the pink plastic was the same colour tissue paper. I refused to expose the yarn to too much pubness, but all this pink made it difficult to see the colour of the yarn, which surrounded by the packaging, seemed apricot, not what I was after at all. Thankfully, the colour is closer to red and is very, very pretty. Red is a notoriously difficult colour to photograph, and combined with this weekend's poor light, these pictures don't reflect the colour at all well, although this one taken with a flash gives a slight indication of the different hues.
The yarn is Posh Yarn's Sophia, a pure cashmere laceweight, in Red Admiral. For some time, I've been on the look-out for bright red laceweight for a friend's shawl; a few weeks ago, PY had the perfect pillar-box red, but of course it was snapped up by the time I remembered. The Red Admiral is probably not as bright as my friend would like, but I'm still confident that she'll love it.
Another recent delivery was from ColourMart, whose cashmere yarns and service receives only the hightest praise in blogland, forums and lists. This is their sample pack, isn't it good? Enough of each yarn in their range for a decent swatch, against the labels describing them, plus 250 yards of DK cashmere. Once I've got my head around the washing instructions (the yarns are oiled) I definitely hope to be using some of the laceweight in the future.
Finally, on a tenuous knitting-related theme, I took my shiny new iPod, the Nike + attachment (what a fantastic gadget) and Lime and Violet for a brisk walk this week. Back in the day, when I used to run regularly, I would listen to music, but now that I'm so unfit and lacking the motivation and routine, Miss Lime and Miss Violet are the perfect companions, and the thirty minutes not only raced by, but I had so much fun too. This week, I shall be starting a walk/run programme, and with 35 plus back episodes of L&V to catch-up on, am thoroughly looking forward to it!
This weekend was a bank holiday weekend, which means, for those of you not familiar with the term, that Monday is a public holiday, a long weekend. On Saturday I drove down to the Kentish coast to visit my father, who left the big smoke a couple of years ago for the wide open spaces and fresh sea air.
Cliff-walking
We had such a fun day. We started with a pot of tea at the National Trust centre on the white cliffs, where I whipped out a sock (appropriately enough, a new pair I'm making for mon père) and knitted quite happily watching the ferries come and go. Then we walked along the cliffs; the sea was quite grey, but as you can see from the photos, everywhere else was beautifully green, and there were pretty wild flowers growing in the chalk, something you definitely don’t see in the city.
Overlooking the docks
We drove westwards along the coast, stopping to eat fish and chips on the beach and feel the calming influence of the sea. Then, in the evening, I accompanied my father to his bowls club for their annual prize-giving ceremony followed by a dinner and dance. I am extraordinarily proud of him, not only for receiving a medal in something he has only picked up in the past year or so, but for assimilating into and making new friends in the local community.
During the day I had felt quite sleepy, but we had put it down to the sea air. However, in the evening, I started to have brief giddy moments, and when I drove back to London later, I got lost coming off the motorway, a trip I have made countless times, but my normally reliable sense of direction failed me completely, and I took several wrong turnings and for a while drove further away from London, before I finally got back on track. Turns out I wasn’t feeling too well, and I spent the rest of the weekend in bed. On Tuesday, I called in to say I would work from home that day, but as it turned out, I slept until mid-afternoon! Anyway, all this rambling is to explain why, despite a luxurious four-day weekend, I have no knitting to show you, because a) my camera batteries are dead and b) it's remarkable how sleeping for three days and nights can ruin your productivity.
For the record, I have picked up all 768 stitches of PotW and completed the eyelet rounds, in so doing, increasing the stitch count. This does not appear to accord with Eunny’s instructions, but I have read and re-read them till my head hurts and I still don't see how you can NOT increase the number, so I shall forge ahead and start the border. Hmm, I see much fudging ahead. [This dreadful picture was taken with my phone, and the colour is way, way off the deep ruby red in real life.]
Finally, when I opened the door this evening for some pizza delivery [!], I found a package from Amazon containing the iPod I'd ordered on Friday. It was a wonderful, marvellous surprise, and I'm very excited and now looking forward to going back to work tomorrow to start downloading (since it will take forever and a day on my home dial-up).
Actually, I'm writing as though it's Tuesday night, it is in fact Wednesday morning, and I need to be up in three or four hours, so I'll sign off for now, and hopefully return soon with some actual knitting content!
