Looking backwards and forwards

Looking back to my post of 24th October, I said I would be selling the pretty Cymbal on.  Well, once the equal slot ribber arrived, and I got into making the drop stitch crav-hats, I have rather changed my mind.  The machine is running so much smoother now, and it is nice to be able to do the experimental stuff on a machine totally separate from my "museum production" one.  Being the same make, it makes for useful comparisons in case of hiccups.

The photo is of a set of Russian joined balls of sockyarn, all ready to go for more experiments.

Capping it on Boxing Day

For the hats I had been trying out, I had been using either a 50 gram or a 100 gram ball of yarn.  I wondered if I made a pair of handwarmers from a 100gram ball whether that would leave enough for a hat (say about 5 60grams) of the size I wanted.  Then standing at the ironing board this morning, my hanging bag of Russian-joined re-wound yarn was just a few inches from my eyes - why hadn't I thought of that before?  No restriction on weight or yardage!

So I made my fifth stocking cap, 72 cylinder, drop-rib-stitch rib, cylinder tension as low as it will go, counted 180 full rounds in between the shaping rounds.  Half measurement is 15 inches..  Then reading one of my Crimble pressy books, thought about a tassel. This can also be pushed through other end to anchor as a scarf.

Crav-hat

I made a stocking cap which was long enough at 30 inches to double as a small scarf or cravat - hence crav-hat.

 

 

A Merry Christmas to everyone.

 

Room to manoeuvre

My knitting room ceiling sprang a leak some time ago, leaving a hole  The roof was mended earlier this year, and I really thought it was time I got somebody in to re-plaster.  The end wall was only touched up (by me) when we had the electrics done 8 years ago  - I haven't even looked to see if there is any forget-me-not paint left in the shed as it won't be any good after all this time.  Local small hardware shop has provided white paint, and used this thinned down as a primer over the work.  They don't have any colours, so the whole of that wall is now going to be white.  It will be a slow job.

This is not a blog about paint!  But I have had to move a tall cupboard/desk/bookcase to get at all the wall.  The top was heavier than I thought, and I certainly won't try to get it back up there by myself. This was piled high with knitting patterns, my 30-odd machine knitting notebooks of 40 years, extra piece of equipment for that machine, my small Elna sewing machine (about 45 years old and still functioning), all our financial files, etc etc etc.  Quite a job to empty it and try to throw stuff out.  Oh, the memories!  The Joyce Grenfell type sketches I wrote when in the WI (Joyce also found them a rich source of inspiration), holiday receipts, leaving cards from various places of work.

I have decided to be ruthless and pass on the last of my collected knitting patterns.  I did get rid of men's babies, hats, etc a couple of years ago and hung onto these - a huge four folders worth of ladies, circular yoke, Shetland and Fair Isle  Who will want them?  Have got one contact already to send 2kg worth to.

When done, I doubt the room will look any emptier, as no actual furniture is going, and is so small re-arrangements aren't really possible.  But I might get a bit more shelf space instead of cluttering up the floor.

p.s.  found the paint in the shed was perfectly okay!  Not Forget-me-not (which must have been the previous colour), but Moody Blues, so the end wall is blue again.  And two of the four folders of patterns have been passed on.