First world problems

I’m having a couple of real first-world problems today.

• I’ve started a lovely pattern – Christina Wall’s Ginger Leaves Shawlette – which has been in my queue for months but kept getting usurped by other things. But I’ve started it in a really tightly plied merino, and I know from experience that no matter how hard you block merino, sometimes it doesn’t want to play along. I think the tightly plied yarn isn’t going to look great in the pattern – I think a single ply would be smoother – and although I’m using lovely Cherry Tree Hill green yarn, I already have one green shawl. (See what I mean about first world problems?)
• I’m also using a slightly larger needle than the pattern calls for and now I’m worried the yarn overs are going to gape and the texture of the lace is going to be poor.
• I really don’t like knitting from charts. There, I said it. Knitting heresy. But I don’t like them and I don’t think I ever will. It just adds an extra layer of complexity. If I see “k2, sk2p, yo, k1”, I know exactly what to do – the command just enters my brain and is processed – but if I see a chart, I first have to convert each symbol into a command and then process it and all of a sudden I’m lost and I don’t like it.
• I don’t know where to go on holiday this year – I’m stuck between Cyprus and Slovenia. Julian Alps vs. Mediterranean beaches. Like a true Brit, I want to go somewhere hot, but not too hot.
• Every time my long suffering boyfriend tries to talk to me about whether we should go to Cyprus or Slovenia, I lose where I am in the chart and get grumpy.

Life is so tough right now.

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New books, presents and a sneak preview

I’ve had a few blogs in my life. I can’t remember what most of them were about – I seemed to just complain about life in general. Occasionally I dig one of them out and either have a bit of a laugh (aged 21, I was quite funny!) or cringe (aged 17, I was not).

However, none of them have been as seasonal as this knitting blog. Knitting is not necessarily a winter occupation, but I just can’t get into knitting with cotton. So I need, if not cold weather, at least the anticipation of cold weather.

I don’t know if you have been following the weather here in London but we had the hottest April in decades and try as I might, I just could not pick up my needles. May came and went – and with it my birthday – and knit I could not.

But two things changed. The weather, sadly, has taken a turn for the worse and reminded me that actually, it’s not all that long until the date by which I’ve told myself I’d have turned out a collection of patterns. The other was that I came into a couple of books:

Best in Show is on a semi-permanent loan from a friend at craft club, who crochets like a demon but doesn’t know how to knit. It was a gift to her, and until she learns how to knit sufficiently well to do short rows, I think I’m hanging on to it as long as I keep her regularly supplied with knitted dogs. I think that’s a good deal.

Knitted edgings and trims was a birthday present from a very dear friend and fellow crafter, if not knitter. It was such a great present and full of inspiration (more on that later!). For her birthday, I got her a book of craft projects from Jane Austen’s era. But that lovely book of lace stitches wasn’t all!

Click the link below to see my other birthday present (hand crafted) and a sneak peek of a forthcoming design…