Sunday, October 15, 2006

I Aten't Dead

Sorry for my non-appearance last Sunday. It's been a bit of a time, what with my tooth, and going out gallivanting, and the Beamish Boy upgrading my computer and introducing it to Linux. It wasn't love at first sight...

However, now that the BIOS has been upgraded, everything seems to be working fine, and I am no longer under the oppressive thumb of Bill Gates :)

I've spent part of the past week wrestling with my mother's Christmas present. She requested a big lacy knitted circle, with slits left in it for her arms to go through, so that it would just cover her shoulders nicely if she had to go into hospital. Not that she's planning to, you understand, but she likes to be prepared. I faffed about with a number of different knitting and crochet patterns, none of which really fitted the bill. In the end, I dug out one of my favourite crochet doily patterns, and worked it in 4-ply yarn with a 4mm hook. This gave me a good base on which to build, probably by adding a few plain rounds at the end and working the slits into them.

It was at this point that I phoned my mother and told her what a pretty bed jacket she was going to get.

"Oh, I didn't want anything as complicated as that," she said. "I was thinking of just a length of knitting joined up at the ends to make cuffs. I didn't want you to go to any bother."

I told her firmly that she was having a fancy bed jacket and liking it, and then went straight back to my crochet and started working out how to add cuffs...

In the end what I did was simply to work in half-rounds, gradually decreasing as I went, to turn the circular doily into an oval shape. When it was wide enough, I put the edges together and started working round, and round, and round to make sleeves. Of course I would have done this a lot more quickly had I remembered that the doily was composed of 16 motifs. The first time I started on the half-rounds, I counted up and came to 15, so I worked the whole of the first side and sleeve from a beginning of 7-and-a-half motifs. It was only when I'd nearly finished the second side, worked over 8-and-a-half motifs, and held up that sleeve against the first one, that I noticed the discrepancy in width. Luckily crochet is much easier to unpick and work up again than knitting...

Well, it's finished now, and I can get back to my plus size patterns.

And I promise that this week, I really will do the sketches to go with the swatches I made weeks ago, and get them sent off...

DSCF4798

Tigger doesn't care what I do, as long as I don't move :)

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I take it that you are (also) a Terry Pratchett fan, then? - it's funny how many knitters seem to be fans of his

Anonymous said...

Hooray! a new blog. I was getting anxious. I see Richard's (The Beamish Boy) website is mentioned on the K&CG site! They recommend foold see his photos of the Homes and Gardens exhibit. Excellent photos they are too. And a brilliant website, if I may say so.

Anonymous said...

And he can type without writing things like 'foold' - instead of 'folk'. How does that happen? I have the same number of fingers as I had this morning. And in the same order.
All knitters seem to like Terry Pratchett and cats. 'Wintersmith' is hilarious and wonderful in case there is still one fan left who hasn't yet read it.

Amerynthe said...

Can't understand how Mary-Lou could tell from that post that you might be a Pratchett fan but then, a lot escapes me these days ...

Amerynthe said...

Just decided that it might have something to do with Aten't Dead and went to delete my comment but I can't! So just ignore me.

Heather said...

Linda - yep, 'I Aten't Dead' is the sign that Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax leaves on her chest when she goes off Borrowing some poor animal's brain and body.

I can't believe I've never got you into Pratchett :))

Heather xx

Mary Anne said...

Heather,
so nice to see you posting again and know you are ok!
The bedjacket sounds lovely and Tigger is looking spiffy.

Amerynthe said...

Oh, I do do Pratchett, but I'm not up to anorak level yet! ;-)

littlelixie said...

Has that beamish boy been writing your archive link html? Or you? Or is there a way to get it to look all neat like that by itself. As a fellow physicist I demand to be told! Would love it if mine looked all nice like that and looking at the source code it's a nice bit of programming!

littlelixie said...

I love pratchett too! How come none of us have come up with a discworld linked knitalong yet?!

Richard Winskill said...

Nice though it would be if I'd done it, it's a Blogger Beta thing; it does it all by itself...