By my hand

"Robin's here in coat of brown
and scarlet breast-knot gay" (William Allingham)

I've been wondering for a while just why I chose to knit a hat in April when all around me the magazines and yarn shop shelves are bursting with cotton tank tops and little summer cardies. My good friend L, seeing me knitting it on the train, thought it would be perfectly sensible if she were making it, because it would take her until the winter to finish - but as you see, I have finished in time to catch the last breezes of spring - a Robin's final fallah before summer (hopefully) descends breathlessly on us.

My model (George) is apparently not averse to wearing girls' hats in a good cause although I am reliably informed that he would prefer a boy's hat, and could I please make one. I am also told that he likes oversized hats, about the size that would be just right for H. Hmmm - I didn't cast on yesterday so I think both H and George will have to wait! H's hand needs to get better soon - I miss my photographer.

The pattern is Robin by Kim Hargreaves and the yarn is the very first installment of the Socktopus Fibre Academy - 100g of Polwarth, spun into a 4ply-weight 3ply (there has to be a better way to describe that but you know what I mean), which turned out to be more than enough for the hat.

It is not getting a bobble. I have decided that at almost 29 I have (just) gone passed the age at which I can carry off bobbles. Yes, even though very few people would be tall enough to see it!

The only alteration to the hat (apart from the declaration of a bobble free zone), was to knit it in the round to save on seaming which is very easy to do and I highly recommend it.

My spinning wheel has not been idle this last week either - somehow it's easier to spin than knit when I'm really tired because you don't have to follow a pattern for spinning, you just make the fluff into yarn and all is well. It's also really tempting if you just happen to have been to Wonderwool and just happen to have some lovely fibre to spin.

This


Started life as 100g of superwash merino from Freyalyn.

I split it into three, spun each section almost as fine as I can with plenty of twist and then plied the three bobbins together. It was an absolute dream to spin; it just drafted so smoothly.

The mini-skein is the leftovers, navajo-plied as an emergency mini-skein. I must be getting more accurate at dividing equally and then spinning consistently because my mini-skeins are getting smaller all the time.

The colourway is Peacock but to me it's the ocean - can't you just see the curve of a breaking wave on a sunny day?

I have 404 yards which should be perfect to try one of the patterns from Cookie A's new book - now all I have to do is (a) decide which one and (b) manage to hold off from diving into the new Socktopus Fibre installment for long enough to cast on!