Booty call

I have been having such fun with a bootee pattern.

It's originally from a vintage girls' magazine, but it was republished in SlipKnot recently. It involves so many different elements that you never get bored! There's

• a garter stitch sole
• a short row foot with a simple lace pattern
  
• a stitch I have been calling 'seeded stocking stitch' (because it looks like stocking stitch with a regular pattern of seed-stitch like dots)
• a slip-stitch rib that almost knits itself
• and a really simple but effective crochet edging

I made it in RYC Cashsoft DK, and, although I think Rowan yarns tend to be a little expensive, I have to recommend this one. There was an error in the first line of the short-row section, and I ripped that puppy out 5 TIMES before I realised it should say 22sts, and not 20.... Anyway, it knitted back up as smoothly and evenly on the sixth attempt as it had on the first.

I've also been making my sister's birthday present. I decided on the Friday (2 May) that I had enough time to knit her a decorative scarf before she came to visit me on the Tuesday (6 May). She wears a lot of those very long and thin silk or chiffon ones to dress up her tops.

I picked out some gorgeous Jaeger Cotton Flamme from stash (I miss Jaeger...). It's a DK-ish weight, gold mercerised thread with creamy viscose slubs, and it's seriously lovable. I found a pattern online for a lace bookmark, grabbed my 4mm needles and cast on 15 stitches. I'd done 100 rows by bedtime, although I was slightly worried at the roll it was developing. It was a stocking stitch base, after all.

Next morning (Saturday) I shoved all the worries to the back of my mind and worked another 44 rows. By this time I really couldn't pretend the roll was going to block out, so I put in a lifeline and tried it out with a WS knit row instead. Well, that looked lovely, so, after about 30 rows of that, I cut off the first 140 or so rows, frogged to the lifeline and cast off what was now the first row.

Well, this went beautifully, and I was congratulating myself on having learned the pattern, and on even being able to watch TV as I knitted. By the end of the evening I had knitted 90 rows. I held it up to admire it, and realised that I had worked a third with the RS on top, a third with the WS on top, and the last third with the RS back on top again.

I toyed with calling it a design feature.

Next morning (Sunday), as I frogged it all, I decided to cast on lengthways for a simple garter stitch strip, that would show off the beauty of the yarn. 300 stitches later, I began the first long row. It didn't take long to remember how quickly I get bored with garter stitch.

On Monday afternoon, when I had still only produced two inches of width, I was beginning to hallucinate cables and yarnovers. I quit. It was too dense a fabric, it didn't show off the yarn, and it was just taking too loooong. Perhaps it needed a bigger needle for drape? And then a small light went on.

Scribble lace.

I grabbed my posh new 10mm coloured metal needles (thank you, Let's Knit), cast on 12 stitches, and four hours later had a light, lacy, softly draping 60-inch long scarf which looked a million dollars:

I am glad to say that my sister loved it. I also pointed out to her that, when someone compliments her on it, she can say with prefect truth, 'Thank you, it's Jaeger' :)

Next time I hope to have photos of my new wet room, and of my lovely birthday presents (it was last Saturday, and I had a wonderful day!).

Tigger has been back to the vet because he's throwing up more than usual (we are often presented with a pile of undigested biscuits, when he eats his tea too quickly and it bounces). The vet thinks he's had a tummy upset, but that it's just about over, so he didn't need tablets.

Tigger says, "You wouldn't believe where he put that thermometer..."