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.

Back from the hols

Just after the last post, the washing machine broke down. So we flew off to France knowing that we had several things to sort out when we got back! At last I can report that the sock machine is re-attached to its desk, the car is running, and the new washing machine has done two loads today. I seem to have hit the ground running, so have only completed the rib and leg of a sock so far.

I brought back three magazines from France, mainly on crochet, some new techniques to try out, like their macrame crochet and their Cro-Tat, which have quite different interpretation. Macrame crochet looks a bit like Irish Crochet, and is done not over padded cords but over crocheted ones. The Cro-Tat is a wonderfully easy way of doing tatting, at last, without worrying if the knot is done the right way or the wrong way on the other thread. If you have ever struggled to learn tatting you will know what I mean!

May Day, mayday!

A bit in limbo! The car passed its MoT on 27th April, then the sock machine got impossible to turn, so took it with me on my regular Wednesday in Ruddington to see if Helen and Milla could sort it for me. It was a bit embarrassing, as I was doing a local event on May Bank Hol and it just kept stopping when visitors were having a go. Sold the pair of bamboo socks, though, a hat pattern and some of my own spun and dyed yarn, and encouraged one woman to start spinning.

Anyway, it was sorted - the central nut and bolt, as I thought. I’m not sure whether there is a screw inside a screw, but it wasn’t a straightforward relationship between one end and the other. Packed up to come home and the clutch went on the car so had to have a suspended tow. As my local garage is at the bottom of the hill, no way could I drag the machine home, even in a wheely case, so it is stuck there for quite some time as we are off on our hols, flying on Sunday. I hate this bit before a holiday - everything is ready, no car so can’t even get to the wool shop in Beeston for more of the bamboo yarn with my profits, don’t want to start anything new and can’t even fill in time by playing on the sock machine.

However, did wind off some more of the stiff Jacobs yarn (see string bag on 2nd April - now finished but not got round to a photo) and am making crochet bowls by the technique of one round of dcs, one round dcs into the same places as the round below. Hard work on the wrists so can’t do many rounds at a time.