Phew!

The Kiri is finished (yay!). It's been an incredibly quick knit - I only cast on a week last Tuesday - but I have been remarkably monogamous knitting-wise* (not that I'm not being monogamous in other respects also!).



The points are already quite pointy (even before blocking) as I knit the last row (as well as the cast-off) using 5mm needles.



Sadly I finished too late in the day to get it blocked tonight (the boyfriend would not take too kindly to the idea of sleeping on the couch whilst my knitting is blocking on the bed).

Aliki, very sweetly, offered me the remainder of the ball as a thank you for knitting the thing and I'm very excited as on weighing there is just over half left which means I have enough Aussie silk to knit another Kiri-sized shawl for myself (yay!). I may even have a go at dyeing it a different colour (after a bit of practice.

Listen while you knit

A quick plug for Librivox who are a group of volunteers producing free, downloadable audiobooks of works in the public domain (which is more or less equivalent to copyright over here). Works are read either as solo or collaborative projects and they have an ever growing catalogue of 19th and early 20th century classics (as well as books from earlier centuries). I've recorded a couple of chapters myself, both for novels by Elizabeth Gaskell, one for North and South which I've just uploaded this weekend and one for Wives and Daughters, which is now available to download at http://librivox.org/wives-and-daughters-by-elizabeth-gaskell. I love Elizabeth Gaskell's writing - North and South combines a great love story with keen observations on the class divide in the industrial north in the 19th century, Wives and Daughters is equally romantic and has touches of comic genius, especially the scenes between Hyacinth Gibson (Molly's stepmother) and her former employers at 'the Towers'. If that's not enough incentive then at least two of the chapters are read by Brenda Dayne so you can assuage some of those Cast-On cravings whilst she's away in Italy.


*I may have knit a swatch or two, but I swear it didn't mean anything!

** I know the link is to the BBC adaptation rather than the novel but there's a cute picture of Richard Armitage (who is, after all, the only reason to watch Robin Hood).