Back in the swing

Startitis Continued
I feel like shouting from the rooftops in a euphoric way, Yes, Yes, Yes!!! Life is good. I have single handedly (is this a word?) unblocked my knitters block. And all it took was some stash yarn and two sticks!! I’m zooming along on the ribbon edged cardigan from the Debbie Bliss Cathay book. It calls for Cathay (obviously), but I have chosen to knit with her DK cotton yarn instead. Why? 2 reasons; the pattern only goes up to a 38inch - I need 40-42, and the DK cotton (in a lovely shade of blue) is in my stash – I’m hoping that working with a slightly thicker yarn and larger needles (4mm instead of 3 ¾ ) will give me the extra room I need for a comfortable fit. I've almost completed the back. I have some cotton cashmere, but have earmarked that for something else. Cotton cashmere can be a good substitute for Cathay in that it has a similar drape. My pet hate is recalculating patterns to fit if they don't go up to my bust size. It isn't rocket science but can be quite brain teasing/testing if there are patterns and charts to contend with, especially cabling. My experiences so far have resulted in drop sleeve garments where they should have been fitted, or very loose around the waist area because I increased the stitches to fit the bust area too soon. I’m sure there are websites that can help you recalculate, but my experience to date is that my dimensions on paper are not quite the same in reality – I wonder why that is??

I’ve had a good weekend knit wise. Saturday, a lady came over to my house to learn to knit. We met whilst I was knitting on the bus on the way to work at the beginning of last year (yes, its taken this long to organise). She came with her two sweet children, a boy and a girl, (both under 6 years old) who were as good as gold whilst they were here. Shea, not to be left out of the teaching curve, taught the little girl to finger knit. Ms S was given a long lecture on different types of yarn, (being a yarn snob and a purest I warned her against anything containing acrylic and polyimide), and taught how to recognise the constituents of yarn. We went through yarn bands and the information contained on them. It was quite fascinating to do, I didn’t realise just how varied the information on the band can be. We chatted about knitting and yarns for a good 3 hours before I let her near the needles. Low and behold, the girl is a natural. She really did take to it like a duck to water. Both she and her daughter went away clutching yarn with big smiles on their faces to carry on practicing.
Bank holiday Monday saw me sorting through my stash. No pictures, the day began entirely grey and we didn’t have sunshine long enough for photos. The result was a catalogue of what I have (not so), neatly recorded in my knitter’s journal (which has been sitting in the bookcase begging to be used for a good 8 months). I dutifully cut off little snippets to stick in the journal and wrote out quantities and characteristics of the yarn. It is much better than carrying about a lone ball of yarn which is then completely annihilated by the dross in the bottom of my (suitcase) hand bag despite my best efforts to keep it in pristine condition.