Someone in Kate Davies’
Ravelry group has suggested that we all occupy our time, until this year’s club
resumes, by knitting KD patterns. A simple idea, easy to execute. It was the push
I needed, so today I started the Dathan hap.
I’ve got 12 Millarochy
colours, unused since last year’s club. I ordered the missing three, which I
gather have been added since. Two of those three are bright colours, which the
hap certainly needs.
“Creativity”-wise, I think it’s
all been done in the blending of those colours which harmonize with each other
so splendidly. It doesn’t much matter which order they appear in. I am more
anxious about the width of the stripes – 2, 4 or 6 rows. It is strangely hard
to vary them.
The hap starts from the top
with 11 stitches, but increases briskly so that soon I hope to have long mindless rows
and less frequent decisions. The fringe of ends, as new colours are added, is a
problem. Stop every so often and weave them in, Kate says. I wonder if discreet knotting might not be employed, concealed by an edging of some sort.
As for the poor old
Stronachlachar, out there in limbo, I have decided to see what can be done with
a steam iron and a damp tea towel, instead of full-scale crawl-on-the-floor
blocking, But I haven’t done it yet.
Reading
I have been feeling much at a
loss today. I’ve got “Anne of GG” but it’s not a book I can lose myself in, at
my age. I found somewhere a Penguin list of 100 classics from which I selected
a late John Steinbeck and an Irish thriller, but a sampling of a few pages of
each has proved depressing.
Then I did what my husband and
I always used to do, when we had finished one bedtime-reading-book and hadn’t
provided ourselves with another: and that is, reach for Trollope. The one that
came to hand – in my bi-focals, I can’t read the titles on that top shelf – was
“He Knew He Was Right”. The type is uncomfortably small, but I solved that
problem by buying it from Amazon for 99p. We’ll see. The dust jacket says that
it ends sadly.
Have a good Lent, everybody.
A couple of books for you Jean. The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall and Addlands by Tom Bullough. Very different books but engaging, I found.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it can be hard to find the book to lose yourself in. Have you read the Louise Penny books? Not as elegant as Trollope, but fun mystery reads.
ReplyDeleteI hear some people roll a die to get the width of the next stripe.......
ReplyDeleteJennyS
And many use spitsplicing when joining in a new colour.
ReplyDeleteThe yarn felts well, and a little water in a cup works, too.
Inge
When ever I find myself at sixes and sevens for what ever reason, I pull out Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It never fails to draw me into it’t heart.
ReplyDeleteagain, I suggest A Gentleman in Moscow as a brilliant read, along with The Weight of Ink.
ReplyDeleteBoth are very well written and the stories engaging.