Tuesday, March 05, 2019

Fat Tuesday


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.

6 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. Sometimes 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.

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  3. Anonymous6:08 AM

    I hear some people roll a die to get the width of the next stripe.......
    JennyS

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  4. And many use spitsplicing when joining in a new colour.
    The yarn felts well, and a little water in a cup works, too.
    Inge

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  5. 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.

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  6. again, I suggest A Gentleman in Moscow as a brilliant read, along with The Weight of Ink.
    Both are very well written and the stories engaging.

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