The Ponderers

I felt the title appropriate given all the pondering I’ve been doing, be it over what to write while I was studying this afternoon (do you see the % go up? Do you do you huh huh? I did another 1000 words today, so I’m hoping to get some more done this weekend to push it up to 12-15%), mulling over which of my stupidly large and underappreciated stash to offer to my friend who is still a fresh knitter (lots of spare/left over chunky stuff that I can’t decide how to use, and some Opal sock yarn), or wondering what the hell to do with the yarn I have from the myriad of patterns I have access to.
I had a fellow library girl (when does it start being inappropriate for me to be called library girl? Am I too old now? Should I become library lady? Yuck – more pondering) asking after the astrakhan and whether it knits up like an old tea towel 🙂 I’ll let you be the judge! I really like this stuff, despite its occassional terry cloth look. The swatch is made on 4.5mm in st st, so it has a knit and a purl side, but I suspect it would look different again in garter stitch.
Here is the knit side:

and here is the purl side. Notice how much bumpier it is compared to the knit side, which is smooth yet nubbly, and totally impossible to do a stitch count or gauge… Well nearly – I did manage to work out that I’m roughly on gauge. I think.

Looking at that you wouldn’t think it would be very nice to the touch, but it is yummy yummy yummy soft, in that cool DB cashmere way…
Anyway, the general concensus so far seems to be on the side of our friend Vogue. Are you sure? It won’t have normal yarn ribby bits, so you better be confident in my skills of neat edges 😉 Actually, the more you guys have said VK, the more faults I’ve spotted in DB’s pattern, like with the weird parting on the buttons and at the base. And is it me or is the model in this book super broad shouldered? She makes all the clothes look really small or tight. Like that bolero pattern – the sleeves look uber tight fitting and it looks like she has shoulder pads on. Don’t get me wrong – she’s a very attractive lady, but I think they put her in the wrong sizes…
Ok, a couple more things before my evening meal (wheat free pasta in case you were wondering, with tomato and parmesan. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm). Here is a pic of the clap. No, not THE clap. Clapotis. See – I am full of bad puns this week. It is the studying hurting and damaging my brain. The ever helpful BlueADT has told me to frog it and have done with the hag. But currently I’m reluctant, partly because I don’t know what the hell to do with the yarn if I did (I’m not starting another scarf, I swear. I need garments, otherwise I’ll be going nude in a couple of months… But I’ll be able to keep my neck warm as toast), and partly because I still don’t know how I feel about it. I’ll say it again – the pattern and pics of everyone else’s are gorgeous, and I want one, but I just feel a lull about this. Although I’ve done more work on it now, and it looks more like a clapotis than a big triangle of knitting, which is good. I think it is just boring knitting, and that is condusive to being bored of the product itself. Anyway, here it is.

Whatcha think? I have 9 drops to go before the 3rd section. I think.
One last thing for today. I bought some linen threads and linen fabric to start work on a crewel sampler from the New Crewel 🙂 I didn’t bother looking too hard for proper crewel threads as Huddersfield is not a good craft area at the mo, and all you can get are your basic DMC/Anchor embroidery things. I liked the linen as it isn’t very shiny. And I could pick colours as I saw them. I had a nosy on the web for Appleton crewel threads, but in a brief hunt there were plenty of stockists, but no online colour charts, and when it costs a tenner for a colour chart before I even know if I want to do this properly, I’ll stick to making things up with threads… I could use the colours used in the book, but why fart around so much at this stage? Anyway, I’m making the sampler to learn embroidery again (I did needlework a loooong time ago, so I can’t really remember much), on cream 28 count linen, with ecru, cream and a very pal oatmeal brown thread. That way it will hang nicely in my lounge if it takes my fancy, and work as a practice before I start doing anything really fancy on things of value…
Whoops! Pasta time! And if anyone can spot the reference from the title of this post, I’ll give them a prize (or I might not – depends how much of my stash goes to my mate ;D)