Half full or half empty?

It has been an interesting week, but I’m not quite sure whether it was good-interesting or bad-interesting. I’ll let you decide how I should be viewing my proverbial glass.

Half Empty
1. Take a good look at my progress on Cobweb above. Not bad you might think, the back and two fronts. Yes I’ve knitted the back and two fronts but take a better look at the fronts…that’s right TWO LEFT FRONTS! I don’t know how I did it. I think that when I knit on the train on my way to work I go into some sort of knitting trance.

2. Talking about the knitting train-trance, on Thursday I (yet again) got on the wrong train home. This time it wasn’t as much my fault. As usual Our train broke down and the train driver made an announcement to get on the next train. I did this but what the train driver had actually meant was get on the next train to where you want to go. I ended up in some windswept, desolate, place with only one platform and a sign that swayed slowly backwards and forwards making a sinister creaking sound. I finally got home about two hours later than I should have done.

3. I’m a big Posh Yarn fan, if you hadn’t already guessed, and I have been DESPERATE to buy some of the One Off Wednesday (OWW) yarn that Dee posts every Wednesday, but it goes up while I am at work and sells out before I get home. Anyway, this Wednesday 4 o’clock arrived and my boss headed off to get a coffee. ‘Ha Ha!’ I thought ‘my chance has come’ and quickly I located a gorgeous skein of dark blue cobweb weight yarn called Sombre. I got to the payment bit, entered my name and address and… my boss came back from the tea point. I pretended to be reading papers (naughty I know) and waited for him to sit down and look the other way. But by the time that he does and I tried to start entering my credit card details the yarn has gone from my basket. It is a tragic tale.

But now for the other sides of the stories...

Half Full

1. On Cobweb , the second side turned out better than the first so I’ll be keeping that one.

2. On the train journey, my husband took me out for a meal to cheer me up and we had a lovely time.

3. On the Posh Yarn… nope sorry there is no upside to this tale. But I have taken consolation by stroking my Posh Yarn stash and muttering to myself and I have started designing a Celtic knot stole to use this beautiful blue lace weight yarn with.

Oh and I have posted the Gerda pattern link in my previous post or sidebar.

FO: Gerda Stole

Yarn: Cecilia Cobweb lace weight yarn (50% cashmere / 50% silk) in raspberry from Posh yarn
Needles: 2.00 mm addi turbo circular
Pattern: Mine! and I’ve called it Gerda.

ETA: Please see the pattern link in the sidebar

Gerda is the name of the little girl in the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson (you can find the story here). You probably know the story, Kay (her best friend) gets tiny shards of a broken mirror, which once belonged to a wicked goblin, in his eyes and his heart. This makes him become cynical and cruel and he starts to be mean to Gerda whom he once loved. Then one day as he is playing on his sledge the Snow Queen comes and carries him away to her palace. Gerda pines for Kay and eventually sets off in search of him, meeting a kind witch, talking ravens, a prince, and a robber girl along the way. Eventually she finds the palace and Kay who is cold and still. The happy ending? Well, if you don’t know it you can read it for yourselves.

I called the stole Gerda because of its wintry design - snowdrops and snowflakes. I also felt that the red colour and the geometric shapes gave it a Scandinavian feel (Hans Christian Anderson was Danish). I can imagine wearing it on a clear dark night for a midnight kiss on New Year’s eve. I’m thinking of knitting another one in white Kid Silk Haze.

I am so pleased with the stole and I can’t wait to give it to my Gran for Christmas! Yet again I saw the blocking miracle, it’s no wonder lace is so addictive when you can take a crumpled ball of unpromising knitting, wash it, pin it out and be left with something light and crisp and beautiful.

Update: I have put a pdf of the Gerda pattern here. Beware that it may not be perfect, but if anyone does knit it please feel free to contact me and ask what on earth I was thinking!

Gerda Stole pattern pdf

It's not like a black fly in your Chardonnay but it is ironic…

This weekend Monkey and I took up our old carpets as we are finally getting our new ones delivered - two months after we ordered them (by the way don’t shop at Epsom Carpet World it is truly appalling!). Monkey and I met when we were both actuarial students and I think that this may account for the fact that we are pretty risk-averse individuals. Hence this is a picture of me ready to take up carpets (excuse the bad hair and old clothes). We even discussed the merits of the different safety gloves available. Imagine what we would be like if we had to do something really dangerous… like put up a shelf! Where does the irony come into this tale? I flicked myself hard in the eye with the elastic of the safety goggles as I took them off. Pain and some food for thought.

Anyway, I have just cast-on for Cobweb from Rowan 40, is there anything more lovely together than Kid Silk Haze and sparkly little beads?

This also means that my stole is lying tightly pinned out in the other room. I’m so excited to have finished it - photos soon!
By the way check out Gosia's most recent post about the East London Design Show it sounds great!