When in doubt, cover it with knitting

At last, I have bought a Smartphone. Persuaded to buy a "case" for it which in reality turned out to be just a back cover. So to prevent the screen from being scratched in my handbag (you won't see me walking round with the phone held out in front of me like all the 20-somethings round here), I set to and knitted a cover. It's two diamonds, folded points in envelope fashion with one flap up, one reversed so they sort of slot in to each other. I am finding that the Smartphone can do some clever things - I can put appointments straight on to my Google calendar, and read my Kindle on it. Best of all, I have got my Ringtone on it - the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. And so far have apparently spent only 16p on it!

More about the trip to the Old Bailey

Because of my work with the Framework Knitters Museum, and the fundraising I have done for them, I was suggested as a candidate for an outing. The past Master of the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters last year, Liz Green, became elected as the liveryman Sheriff of the City of London. There is another Sheriff, an alderman, who inevitably becomes the next Mayor of London. They serve for one year and have to live in the Old Bailey so one is always on hand to support Her Majesty's Judges at all times. They take it in turns to invite "interesting" people to lunch with the judges. Liz decided this week would be themed craft and heritage building skills, and her link with our Chair of Trustees resulted in my invite. Her dad was Barrie Byford - you may have heard of Byford's Socks. It started off with Champagne in Liz's office for the seven visitors. The other six invitees were from the Worshipful Companies of Basket Makers, Furniture Makers, Woodturners, Pewterers (he wore hand-cranked socks!), Upholsterers, and Rachel, who has a Royal Warrant to make hats for the Queen. All very friendly and chatty, the official photo is above. Can't take booze into lunch, they stopped that 430-yr old tradition of claret some years ago apparently, you can only have water. Met the judges and went in, 23 of us in all. Quite simple lunch, pan seared fillet of hake with Pont Neuf Potatoes (chips!), strawberry tart, cheese board, coffee with chocolate mint, and then the judges went straight back to work. No processions, no ceremony. The judges either side of me, Anne Molyneux (who asked about the crocheted fuchsias I was wearing) and Andrew Lees, were very jolly and chatty, still in their robes and wigs. A really lovely outing, I feel so honoured to have been "picked". Keep knitting, it can be an exciting life!

A thousand thumbs

Today I completed my 500th pair of handwarmers for the Framework Knitters Museum. That's one thousand tubes knitted on the machine with the ribber in place, and one thousand hand knit thumbs picked up on 20 stitches for 8 rows. 160,000 stitches for the thumbs alone! 84 sts, 80 rows, for each tube equals 336,000 stitches, or 40,000 turns of the crank handle, and that's not counting the number of waste yarn rows or the times I have had to frog and repeat. If I had been asked in December 2010 (when I started) to knit 500 pairs, I would have either fainted or said "no" (or both). But truly, it has not been a hardship and has raised oodles of money for this charming museum, my second home.

Knitting landing me in court?

Well, looks where knitting can lead you! Thanks to my volunteer work with the Framework Knitters Museum, first they get me Knitting In Public in the Library then the local Co-op. Then comes an invitation to lunch with the Sheriff of the City of London and the prospective new Mayor of London The Sheriff is a judge and the lunch will be these two and other judges at the Old Bailey!

An unproductive time

As usual with my holidays, I packed at least four projects and a selection of needles in the hope of coming across new techniques or patterns in the French magazines. Alas, did not get the selection right this year, and the magazines are no longer inspiring. Finished the Country Bumpkin gloves with the diagonal wrist I wanted - but on 2.25mm needles and failed to twist the pattern to the opposite diagonal on the second glove. Then used those needles on a Lakritz sock pattern which called for 2.5mm but 2.75mm might have been better. Made a DK glove in Wrigglefingers anonymous pink on 3.25 for wrist, 3/75 for hand, which came out too big. Going to weigh remainder of ball at home to see if enough to make a proper pair on slightly smaller needles (not that I like knitting titchy glove fingers on four dpns......) I did make progress on my net curtain, ran out of thread, got more in supermarket but it needs re-winding as I don't like using it from the outside of a cardboard tube. I did get onto the second ball of yarn for the Pink Dreams Poncho though.

Drawing a blank

Thanks to a massive miscalculation of other people's wants, I was left with five sock blanks on my hands in March, which had cost me £10 each plus postage These are single thread blanks. I identified the top end first (it doesn't undo from the bottom at ends of rows), and put four together in two pairs for dyeing, with the aim of getting roughly matching socks. Didn't want to be rewinding from inside then outside then getting lost where I was. I found I still had Procion Dyes from waaaaay back, even though I have now got rid of all my natural dyestuffs except for a bag of madder. Procion is ideal for this. There wasn't enough citric acid for the whole lot, but Googling showed I could use white vinegar as the fixative. One pair red, yellow, blue. This has provided enough to make one pair blue, one pair red, and just squeezed out a pair of handwarmers from the leftovers of each, red migrating to limey yellow. One pair red yellow brown, speckly. Last black small spots of red down one side, blue the other, leaving a lot of white - knitted up speckled. Also had a skein of undyed - that came out lime green with aubergine, not quite what I intended! Very little white left in this one, and had to re-wind to make it spiral. If I ever get round to doing it again : A good big single sheet of thick polythene, lots of newspaper, and don't try to flatten clingfilm on worksurface first. Squeeze blanks as dry as possible. Use weights, pegs, whatever, to flatten the blanks out fully to get right to the edges. Mix colours and gets strengths much weaker for paler colours. Consider flecks of dry dyestuff then using a water spray over them.

Re-establishing machine and preparing for hols

Because of illness, I am now only just getting the circular machine up and running after the show. I have decided to put the row counter sensor in a different place, but it keeps twisting round the mast. Hey ho. Finishing off another mitred square cushion, this time keeping pretty much to a purple theme, with all four corners same solid purple. I was inundated with cushion interiors from a friend, some are 16 inches, some are 23 inches - the latter may not get used as they will take so much more work and would have to charge more, say £35, and I don't think customers to the museum shop would want to pay that. Also getting ready for holiday knitting. I have made part of a pair of gloves on the flatbed as I want to try out a handknit cuff pattern that is best done in the round. Standard working for hand, but it seems to have come rather short. Easily remedied when I pick up stitches, but it looks as if the thumb gusset starts too high up. This may all work out when the gloves are completed. Gloves should be snug anyway, mittens shrug-off-able. That's my excuse. A couple of days after posting this, I found and downloaded a booklet on 12 different sorts of glove/mitten cuffs. This should provide extra fun!