Gallimaufry 2
I'm very pleased to say that I have almost finished the grey socks, as you see in the photo. Note that there is no actual green in the grey; that's just the camera being weird again, as it so frequently does. It's simply a very nice variegated light grey, the product of Adelle's outstanding hand-dyeing mojo. As soon as they are finished, I need to get to work on the next baby jumper, since I suspect (and, indeed hope) that the next of our church babies is going to be early. I spoke to his mum on Sunday; she said she officially had five weeks to go, but she was struggling. I mean, she's huge. She can't lean forwards without losing her balance. She really doesn't want to get any bigger. I don't know whether it's just a very big baby, a lot of extra fluid, or the way he's lying, or some combination of all three; but she already looks as if she's on the point of giving birth to twins. Which she isn't.
In the meantime, I have come across someone who is a good knitter but is specifically frightened of socks, because she thinks they mean flaps and wraps and other scary things of that nature. So I told her to put all thought of flaps and wraps out of her head, and to go and look at my initial blog post on the subject; and then, if she has any queries at all, to e-mail me. She will be fine. Once she understands the basic principles of Socks Without Tears, she'll be knitting them as if there's no tomorrow.
So that's the knitting for the moment (we won't count the baby hats, as they don't tend to take long to knit, and they require so little concentration that I finished the most recent one during Wednesday night's Lent group). What about the netting?
Well, I finished the square piece for the filet last night just before drama group, but there is a little problem. I miscounted slightly. I intended to make it 45 meshes square, and in fact it's 46. That meant I had to decide what I was going to do about it, because I don't want an off-centre design. I think the most sensible thing I can do is pick one of those Vinciolo designs that has a single square in the middle, turn that into a 2 x 2 square, and then work the rest more or less the same (possibly tweaking it a little along the central axes so that there aren't two obvious lines). If I'd realised in time, I'd have solved the problem much more simply by working another row so that it was now 47 meshes square, but I didn't, and it's awkward to tack on extra meshes along one side (it can, technically, be done, but it messes with the selvedge). So I shall just have to do the best I can with what I've got. I won't be working the filet straight away in any case, because I have more string bags to make for the food bank; although, amazingly, last time everyone brought bags and only one set of visitors didn't bring enough of them, so we used only one of mine and the other is in the "bag of bags" that we keep under the table. This is rare, and most welcome! When I brought in the original four sample bags, we used them all.
On the same general lines, I have a little bit of a saga going on at the moment. I bought that spruce green Twilley's Goldfingering from Yarn On Cone (the link goes straight to their Goldfingering collection, which, as you see, is not all that impressive at the moment), and I decided I would also like to make a similar shawl in gold at some point. So I e-mailed them to ask if they would be getting any of the same yarn in gold at any point in the future. I had a very nice reply from someone who said they'd go and check in their warehouse, and that was the last I heard for a while.
After a couple of weeks, I thought I'd better check; so I e-mailed again, politely explaining that while I very much appreciated this person going to look in the warehouse for me, I had not actually asked if they had the yarn in at the moment. I had assumed they didn't, or it would be on the website. What I wanted to know was if they would have it in at some point in the future. Could they please clarify?
They e-mailed back... to say they had been to look in the warehouse, and they'd found a 100 g cone of gold. Excellent, but not enough for a shawl, even when netting it (which uses, as you can imagine, a lot less yarn than most other techniques). So I replied, saying I was interested, but would they be getting any more? If so, I was happy to wait, but if not I'd buy the 100 g cone anyway and make something like a stole, which would use less yarn than the shawl. Their reply: "I'll have a look now to see what else we have." Which is all very well and good, but it's not what I'm asking... and I'm starting to wonder exactly how I'm supposed to get it through to them. Watch this space, and you will see if I manage to get any more than 100 g of gold yarn; though I'm not at all unhappy, since I know that I am, at any rate, getting at least 100 g.
Somehow or other I also found time to write a short story on Tuesday, and at about the same time I discovered that this blog supports files, so you can read it if you like:
(Trigger warning: domestic emotional abuse.) I'm extremely happy about both these things - first, the story, since I think it's possibly the best thing I've ever written, and secondly the fact that I can upload files here. It means that I can conveniently pop Mr Holdgate's netting book in a post here so that my Easter class, and anyone else who may be interested, can get hold of it without having to subscribe to the Internet Archive. It's free to do so, but it's a bit of a nuisance to do it if you just want the one thing. So I shall be doing that nearer the time, most probably in my Good Friday post.
As for the sewing... honestly, I think that's now on hold till after Easter; with my regular craft commitments, plus the stuff I need to do in advance of the netting class, I'm going to be pretty busy till then. (And let's not forget the drama group! However, I can't even order the pattern till we have the funding; our organiser is not prepared to spend a single penny until she knows what's coming in, which is very sensible, but could mean I end up sewing Alice's dress in a great hurry. More on that once I have more details myself.)
Finally... the lady who sells the netting needles keeps sending me e-mails about button-making, which is her great passion and field of expertise. She does make very pretty buttons, and I keep being tempted. But I have resisted so far, and I think I need to continue to do so. I don't have enough time for all the crafts I'm already doing. If anyone else is interested, though, do let me know and I'll put you in touch!
