It is a morning of Saturday. Rebel knitters, striking from a hidden base behind the stash, have won their first victory against the evil Empire of the Hook.
During the battle, Rebel knitters managed to acquire skills to recreate to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Granny Square, an armored afghan with enough power to destroy an entire planet's interior decorating tastes in the early 1970's.
Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents (thoughts of entire crochet projects) , 'Princess' Carie (Fisher?!) races home aboard her starship, custodian of the knowledge that can save her knitting and restore edgings to all the Rowan patterns....
Dum-dum-dum-de-de-dum-de-de-dum
It is true, I have fallen victim to the dark art of crochet! Web of Wool run a series of fantastic workshops throughout the autumn and this week it was Basic Crochet. As Foxglove requires a few crochet flowers and leaves I decided that it was high time I learned properly rather than fudging things as I am wont to do whenever crochet has been required in the past.
Despite all the Star Wars jokes it was a fantastic day and having a small group meant we got a lot of individual attention. It sounds daft but the most useful thing was learning how to hold the yarn and the hook and which way to wrap the yarn. Having forced myself to get used to two-handed knitting for fairisle it wasn't too alien a concept to have yarn in my left hand and I think that helped a great deal. We worked on a little bag project, edgings, circles and the ubiquitous granny square and at the end of the day I had produced:
Half a bag - one side and one handle to be precise
and a strip of lace edging and a granny square with a colour change.
It was a lovely relaxing day talking knitting and crochet and rugby with everyone and I was sorry when we ended. After a little bit more practice this morning look what I have:
I asked H what we could use a small green string bag for and he replied "keeping green string in" - right then!!
Least you feel I may have entirely embraced my inner vader (what do you mean, why am I wearing all black and suffering breathing difficulties?) I can announce a massive bout of startitis which I have wallowed in. Work has been a bit tough this last week and will continue to be that way for the next couple of weeks at least so I dove into the stash and brought out a treat:
This is the start of Argosy using some wonderful hand-dyed and handspun pure silk which H and I bought in Paris in the spring. The colours are beautiful, and it's luxury knitting. I have no idea how much I have in yards - I have two skeins, I've added another pattern repeat widthwise and I'm going to knit until I run out of yarn. It's going to be a lovely snuggly autumnal scarf.
In Kauni news I have knit the neckband:
As you can see I followed Melinda's route and unpicked the cast off steek stitches to have a neckline steek - it is a million miles easier to work corrugated rib in the round as I am now discovering - I cut the centre steek this afternoon and I am very slowly going back and forth on the button band.
Finally, I finished a sock. This is a singular sock at present but deserves a mention because it took ages - the Travellers Sock from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road - the cuff pattern takes ages.
In the immediate future I have plans towards a pair of baby socks, baby booties and I have another small pile of cream baby Cashmerino signalling that it is now BLANKET TIME!! Baby number 3 is due in early October and I'm warming up my fingers as we speak.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend
Ahh now. You could have totally taken that Star Wars thing farther and shown us the cutting of the steek or the aftermath.
ReplyDeleteYou know there are some people who are living vicariously through you while we wait on our yarn.
Not that I know anyone like that.
;)
Very lovely crochet! Way to slip into the darkside.