Plan B

So I was knitting merrily away on the sleeves for my next short-sleeved lace top, just about to finish the second one, when I looked at my remaining yarn. Suddenly the ball from which I was knitting started to look very small, there wasn't nearly enough yarn remaining to knit the yoke and saddle shoulder, let alone the picot bind-off.

Hence, Plan B. My short-sleeved lace top is now going to be a sleeveless (or at leat cap-sleeved) lace top, instead of joining the sleeves together with the body to create the yoke I've crocheted a provisional cast on in place of each sleeve and knit across that. Once the yoke and shoulders are finished (assuming I don't run out of yarn) I'll undo the provisional cast on and knit the picot hem down from that point.



That's the plan at any rate.

Where did you get that hat?

What, this hat?



Pattern: 115-12a - hat with lace pattern by Drops Design
Needles: 3mm and 3.5mm circulars
Yarn: Buttersoft DK (1 skein)

I finished this up on Friday evening at the Studio. Once I finished the decreases the hat, which had been assuming quite alarming proportions, wound up being a quite reasonable size - fabulous for keeping my ears warm. Now I just need the matching gloves.

More like it

There, that's a much better photo of the lace hat. I managed to snap this at lunchtime just before the heavens opened and my hat got an impromptu blocking.



I really am enjoying knitting with the Buttersoft DK. I don't know whether it's the fibre or the way it's spun but it has a lovely velvety texture. There should even be enough leftover for matching gloves and I'll need them soon. The weather front that the boyfriend and I saw on Sunday evening has brought some really nippy weather and my fingerless mittens aren't quite cutting it anymore.

It's making for very good TV knitting. I worked through the ribbing and the first few increase rows whilst watching Into the Storm with the boyfriend on Monday evening. Quite apart from the excellent performance of Brendan Gleeson as Churchill we enjoyed playing "spot the British character actor" as the cast was packed with familiar faces. It was rather a potted history of WW2 - kind of like those iphone adds "sequence has been shortened and some steps removed" - but very entertaining overall.

A hat with no name

Or as good as, anyway. Even if this were the prettiest hat in the world there's virtually no chance of it sweeping the nation with a name like 115-12 a - Hat with lace pattern. It's just not memorable enough. I'm already knitting the pattern and I can't even remember it - it's why I'm putting all these links in the blog posts, just in case I lose my print-out and need to find the pattern again on Ravelry.

If a pattern has a name you can always find it again or find someone who knows it. Even if you get it slightly wrong and go around saying that you want to knit Damozel by Ysolda Teague or Forest Glade or Fern Grove from Knitty - someone's bound to know what you mean. If I get a digit wrong in "115-12 a - hat with lace pattern" I'm lost.



All that said, it is a very pretty lace hat pattern and it's knitting up very nicely in the lovely Buttersoft DK. Now that I've finally worked out how to wear hats without turning my hair into a complete bird's nest I forsee lots more hat knitting this winter.

Autumn days

We had the most glorious October day yesterday. It was so sunny that I was almost too warm sitting outside with my knitting at lunchtime.



I'd been a little concerned that I might struggle a little to find my bearings when I picked up the left front of the Arisaig cardigan after a break of a couple of months but the simple lace pattern and the fact that it's easy to count the increases and decreases by the repeats of the lace meant that I was able to carry on as though I had never left off.

The very steep decreases for the front neckline meant that every row was a little but shorter and I was able to make really good progress before the end of the day. I would have made even better progress if I hadn't got so carried away that I knit about 2 inches past the start of the armhole and had to rip back to the right place (oops!). Having had sizing issues with lace cardigans in the past (yes, I'm talking about you here, Katharine vest) I thought that this would be a good moment to block the back and check that the lace and ribbing really would stretch out to the required dimensions.



Yay! I even held a real piece of clothing up against it to make sure and so can now knit on with confidence.

Some fibre, a plan, a wheel, arisaig!

Ok so it doesn't have an internal rhyme and it's not a palindrome but it's a snappier title than "Nain otalgia sir, an arisaig Latonian"* which is the only palindrome I could devise containing "arisaig".

I've been wanting to knit this ever since I first started reading Knitty but I've never had enough of the right yarn at the right time.



Then just last week I realised that I had more than enough grey Shetland fibre to spin the fingering weight yarn needed for the project and that I'd already spun up some gorgeous blue Shetland in the same weight for the tie and edging which are done in a contrast colour.

I'm really excited both at the thought of finally knitting (and wearing) Arisaig and at creating a whole non-sock garment from my handspun.

* It's English, Jim, but not as we know it. Nain (my own) otalgia (earache) sir, an arisaig Latonian (pertaining to Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana). I suppose Diana could be telling Apollo to stop playing music for a moment and admire the wrap cardigan she's knitted for mother. It does get nippy up in the Greek highlands.