Friday, March 17, 2006

Knitters gather

It was s'n'b on Wednesday. I thought I was going to be late, but when I got there, only Yvonne, Tracey, and Sue were there. A large group arrived together shortly afterwards: you can see how many of us there were here.

I took my scarf: progress went like this - knit one row (the K2tog, YO, K1 row). Start to knit the next row. Halfway through, notice that one of the stitches in the previous complex row is wrong, but can't quite say why: the stitch count is out as well. Pfaff round trying to sort it without undoing anything: realise that as I don't know what is wrong, I can't solve it like that. Tink back through the knit row, tink back through the complex row. Reknit to the end of the complex row. Purl next row. Look at knitting, say that should have been a knit row. Tink back purl row. Knit row, but as I think I have an extra stitch, add a K2tog stitch. Count stitches: now have one too few. In the first hour, I add two rows to the scarf - each of only 38 stitches, so a grand total of 76 stitches knitted. At least I can say I averaged over a stitch a minute. Progress was faster after that.

Topics of conversation were many. We discussed the lack of kettles in foreign
hotel bedrooms, how to make lemsip when you have no hot water and the curiosity of USAians on being presented with a request for hot water and milk so the requestee can make a cup of tea. We discussed Oddpins knitting from the 1980s, where you use two different size needles to create a lacy look. We discussed where to buy wool locally.

We saw Tracey's Rogue. The cables were stunning. She showed us the pattern - page after page of charts, but the Girl from Auntie seemed to explain them throughly. Tracey had printed them on A3 paper which must have helped. Rogue is lovely, but I'm tempted by Eris, also designed by the Girl from Auntie.

I had a look through Interweave Knits. It looked good, but I didn't study the patterns. I had a look at Handknit Holidays, but nothing grabbed me. There was a Bergere de France pattern book as well, with lots of nice patterns.

Several people suggested I could knit a Booga bag with my 4 skeins of Kueryon: Kate had a really nice bag as well. You can see both bags on the table.

I forgot to check what people were knitting: at least four jumpers (sorry sweaters, for those of you who don't speak British English), a hot-water bottle cover, a ribbed coat, a square, a scarf.

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