Capsule knitting

The football season kicks off on Saturday so I'm up off north tomorrow to watch the Wanderers' first match of the season against the mighty Stoke City. Tomorrow is also the second day of the Festival of Quilts at the NEC and I'm going along with Katie, Ellen and Katie's mum and sister. On the one hand this means that I get a lift as far as Birmingham, on the other hand it means I have to pare down my packing to something that I can tote around the exhibition centre all day without putting my back out.

Thankfully I am a past mistress of this arcane art (plus I'm going up to my parents' which means that things like PJs, shampoo and my spare toothbrush are already in situ) having in the past succeeded in fitting the contents of an overnight bag into a regular sized handbag and those of a weekend bag into a bag that would fit under my seat for the boyfriend's latest degree ceremony (he's a repeat offender). Given that most of the seats in the Sheldonian Theatre don't have legroom, let alone room for anything else, this is some feat.



Clockwise from the top: ipod (stuffed to the gills with listen again Agatha Christie), toiletries, spare tops, underwear, lucky Bolton shirt, socks, knitting, printout of sock pattern.

Seriously, what else do you need?

The socks in question are the Cedar Dancing socks from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Aliki remarked a couple of weeks ago that it was slightly odd, given how eager we all were to get our sticky mitts on this book, that none of had actually knit any of the full size socks yet. Anyway, I'm going to be knitting these in the lovely lavender yarn from the Artful Ewe.

By the way - do you notice anything odd about the pair of socks below?



They're not a pair - I've got one Monkey and one Elfine's sock! I thought that switching to all handknit socks was meant to stop this happening.

Progress on the raglan cardigan last night was patchy to say the least. I had to reknit the right button band (the one with the button holes) about 3 and 2 halves times (i.e. three times in its entirety and twice when it was half knit) and I made a similar number of starts on the first sleeve. I think it was worth it though - I'm pretty pleased with my two-row button holes and the sleeves are looking OK now. I'm knitting them back and forth rather than in the round in order to avoid jogging in the stripes and holes in the underarms.



On the minus side this means I have an extra 32 ends to add to the gazillion and one ends that I already have to weave in.

Non-woolly minded illiberalism (or yet another reason not to read the Guardian)

Aliki* pointed me in the direction of this somewhat vitriolic blog post on the "pointless" Ravelympics. Skipping over the inaccuracies, mindless hate, and sweeping generalisms (apparently all knitters are humourless and overweight - that's just like saying that all Guardian journalists can't spell*) this guy just doesn't seem to have got the point. Whenever there is a major sporting event, people who enjoy sport often like to do something to be more involved either with the participants or with the other fans. That something can be wearing team colours, having your once-a-year punt on the Grand National, joining the office sweepstake during the World Cup, or just discussing your new-found love for synchronised diving in the kitchen at work. In the case of the knitting community we celebrate (the same way we celebrate every other day with a Y in it) by knitting. I don't see what's so pointless about using a set period to focus on a particular project, or about using knitting and the Olympics to meet new friends. After all, if I'm going to be sat on my "fat arse" watching over 100 hours of sport (or at least I will be when the telly comes back from the shop) I might as well produce something warm and beautiful at the same time. You go, Ravelympians!

After this brief polemic we now return to our regular scheduled knitting content. I was so excited to find out that Aliki is knitting a pair of Hopscotch socks in a gorgeous blue shade of Oxford Kitchen Yarns. They look fabulous and we spent lunchtime cooing over how neatly the cables intertessellated (though I says it as shouldn't).

Despite a minor flirtation (if you can call casting on 236 stitches in the round a flirtation) with a tank top in an attempt to ascertain whether I could knit up my handspun alpaca and the last of the Jaeger Matchmaker 4 ply at the same gauge (I couldn't) I've made good progress on Clara's raglan cardigan.



I'm just ready to start the ribbing at the bottom then there's just the button bands and the sleeves. It's all looking very cute and well-proportioned, the fabric is lovely and soft and it's not too yarn hungry. I think if I was knitting this in a single colour it wouldn't take much over three balls.

* she knows I just love a bit of righteous indignation and impotent fuming.

** Sorry, I tried not to be cheap but that one just slipped out. Nice use of the less common double-L spelling of "civillisation" btw Steve!