Two off, two on

Two off..

Mystery Stole 3 is done and blocked! The last few rows were very hard work (indeed I had to go and lie down in a darkened room at one point) but it's worth it. The Fiddlesticks silk/wool blocks out like a charm and dries very quickly, I will definitely be playing with this stuff again.



I used thick, strong Guterman thread drawn taut in place of blocking wires to keep my straight edges straight and my pointy bits pointy and my lovely bright coloured headed pins to make sure there were no nasty surprises when I got into bed later on that day!

The stole is still a little on the short side (I knit the truncated version) and I do have some yarn left over. After a little break I'm going to knit a rectangular insert in the cat's paw pattern (from Clue 4) using a provisional cast-on. If the yarn stretches to at least one full repeat then I will put in two lifelines separated by one row at the end of Clue 4, unravel that row and put the stitches on needles and then finally graft everything back together. There's a bit more grafting involved than if I opened up the stole first and knit on from the resulting live stitches but this way I can see if there's enough yarn remaining to make it worthwhile first.

I've toyed with the idea of doing something similar with the Breeze socks which were also completed over the weekend. However, due to the way the pattern has worked I couldn't do anything other than knit more rounds of 1x1 rib (and where's the fun in that?). It's a shame because I've got quite a bit of the yarn left but at least I'll know for next time.



two on..

This is my gauge swatch for the Wensleydale Longwool sweater. Knit up on 3mm needles it creates a very light, drapy fabric. Washing and blocking has evened out the stitches (which were a little on the wonky side) beautifully.



I've finally cast on the Anna socks from Rowan 40. These should whip up (despite being knee length) as they're knit on 3.25mm needles from very squishy yarn.



The pattern is very easy to memorise, especially as every other round is a plain knit round. The gauge looks pretty good at the moment, I'm going to knit about 4 or 5 inches and then have a try on to judge whether or not I need to go down a needle size for the ankle and foot.