Up Knit Creek



Sunday, March 13, 2005

The hunt for needles

I recently bought some chunky merino wool to make the "Lucy" bag from Blackberry Ridge (http://www.blackberry-ridge.com/) but I didn't check the needle size as I have a set of Denise interchangeable needles. When the pattern arrived I realised I would need some 6.5mm double pointed needles as well as a circular of the same size. This part of Sussex is not well stocked with knitting shops and I have found it very difficult to get hold of these needles. I eventually managed to get some today from a place about 20 miles away but I'm not sure I can bring myself to use them - they are a revolting shade of green (my least favourite colour) and have obviously been hanging around in the shop for a few hundred years. Anyway, they will do the job, and on the up side, I also bought some yarn for my 12-year-old stepdaughter who wants to make a monkey and a cone of "unspecified" yarn which looks rather interesting. It's a kind of pale bluey-green and is uneven in texture but I've no idea what it's made of. It feels quite soft and silky and breaks quite easily so I don't think it's man-made. A lacy scarf or shawl seems appropriate, but I'll probably change my mind about six times before actually knitting with it.
I also got some scraps of synthetic fabric which we will use at evening class tomorrow. Lucy and I are doing a course in "Experimental Textiles", taught by the magnificent Kim Thittichai (http://www.kimthittichai.com) and tomorrow night's session is bead-making using synthetic fabrics and a heat gun (note to self: remember fire blanket and bucket of sand!).

The belt/tie for Lucy's cardi is progressing quite slowly as I haven't done any today - I got rather disillusioned with this project when I discovered that one sleeve was almost three inches shorter than the other. I just couldn't figure out what had gone wrong until I counted the number of cast-on stitches at the cuff - one sleeve had 48 sts (the right amount) and the other had 54. Unfortunately, Lucy's arms are the same length and the same circumference so I had to rip out one whole sleeve and start all over again. I'm not a perfectionist by any means but I just couldn't bodge it enough to look reasonable.

On an entirely different note, is it just me, or is anyone else aggrieved that Edith won Comic Relief Does Fame Academy? I did think Edith made a lot of progress but Kim definitely had the best voice. I also thought Adrian Edmondson was brilliant - rubbish singer but soooo funny.

1 Comments:

  • Hi Annie - I'm a uk knitter who has been a long-time blog reader, so it's great to see some Uk blogs getting started. I'd love to hear more about your Aran chair cover and also what food colouring you used to dye that yarn.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:27 pm  

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