Heeliotrope

Heelitrope was finished today, complete with a bee in her bonnet, which probably doesn't show up in the pix. Again, inspired by Val Pierce's Daisy pattern in Knitting, June 2007. Name courtesy of Pat at Woolly Thoughts, which is why the petals are purple.


Knit as one tube on the sock machine, pot up through stalk to flower. Leaves and petals crocheted afterwards.

Don't believe the ball!

I bought some King Cole Zig Zag last Open Day at the Centre for Knitting & Crochet. It's 50/50 wool and nylon, destined for hard-wearing socks, and a wonderful rainbow. Two balls with the same shade and dyelot number, but looking very different. One was apparently short repeats of the colour. To check it out, I ran it through the sock machine as a tube. Due to the ball dropping on the floor, it pulled the tension a bit so I got three different patterns. I took the ballband off the second, thinking this was long repeats (the unknitted ball in the photo), only unound a little bit and immediately saw, yes it was going to be exactly the same as the other one.

Moral - if there is no photo attached of the yarn as knitted, don't believe apparent long colour runs in the ball - unwind some, even if it annoys the shop owner!

Why don't men wear shawls?

Had a lively discussion at Derby Branch of KCG today - the shubject was scarves, shawls, shrugs - their shapes and consh-truction (shorry!). I asked the question - why don't men wear shawls? One theory was that men don't get cold in the same areas of their bodies! What do you think?

Nalbinding

Some people think that Nalbinding came before knitting. On Saturday I had my first opportunity to see it "in the flesh", when I met up with Tanya of the York Guild of WSD. She has done slippers and mittens in it, so of course I am now dying to have a go.

UK Ravelry Day

Got sent to Coventry yesterday, as roving ambassador for Ruddington Framework Knitters' Museum, along with Sockrates Snail. Didn't buy an awful lot, but had a whale of a time, AND we had our photo taken with Meg Swansen (to follow). Items bought were rubbery stuff to turn socks into slippers, a couple of skeins of sock yarn for dyeing - one Blue Faced Leicester, one Wenselydale, and some silk and banana fibres to spin. Plus some Skacel Zauberball yarn that promises to only have one repeat per sock. Saw dozens of people I knew, and Sockrates made lots of new friends.

Since coming home I have run the Zauberball through the sock machine, just as a tube. No way can I make two even-slightly matching socks from this! Plus there are two yarn knots that make the colour change abruptly. It'll be great in a scarf though.

Icelandic shoe inserts

Picked up an incredibly interesting book at the Centre for Knitting & Crochet on Saturday. Its Icelandic Knitting Using Rose Patterns by Helene Magnusson. She has her own website (hername and dot com). Half the book is research on these wonderful little knitted items which used to be made to fit their soft shoes about a century ago. The other half is new patterns for garments and accessories using the patterns found within them. No actual pattern for a shoe insert itself, so I emailed the author, who wrote back instantly that she didn't think about it until the book was well on its way to being published. She then Googled for my name and came up with another person with my name in New York who is also a knitter nad wants to improve her French! Really uncanny, a sort of Internet doppelganger.
Anyway, I have made a trial insert, a proper pair with stripes to get the sizing right, and am halfway through a pair with a complicated pattern in the middle. Pix later. In the meantime, have done a mini-pair and joined them together for a scissors holder. Should make a good workshop.