winter, fear me!

It's been a busy old week here at Glitz Towers, I'm telling ye. And I didn't even get caught up in that astonishing hurricane that Europe saw last week. Nope, I had hurricanes of my own, of the worky variety. The week didn't see that much knitting, though I did make some progress on the cardigan. But last night, in the course of watching The Wind that Shakes the Barley, the ridiculousness of having a pair of socks with just four rows left to knit up grabbed me, so I finished. It felt like knitting with vicious little toothpicks, after my clunky clumsy 8mm needles, but I didn't let myself get put off...

FO: Edinburgh Bohemian Socks

These are from Lana Grossa Meilenweit Magico, in colour 2529, knitted toe-up on 2mm dpns. Plain stocking stitch, the simplest socks imaginable.


Look, matchy toes! After the last self-striping pair, I took the trouble to make sure they did actually match. A wise decision, I think. As was the stocking stitch: that colour pattern is far too pretty to mess up with funny stitching. I love the fabric.


And so back to the bulky cabled cardigan. Ah, clunky bumpy 8mm needles, flying through the chunky yarn at a rate of knots. No dangerous little spiteful 2mms, just good honest workhorse needles knitting up cardigans super-fast.



A little too super-fast, perhaps. I fear this is going to be an extremely attenuated and rather tight-fitting cardigan. The curse of ebay yarn, where you can't buy an extra ball if things go wrong, and perhaps the curse of Tivoli chunky, which doesn't reveal its yardage. "There's nothing in chunky wool," said Aileen, yesterday, "especially not with cables. It's a scam." It was fabulous to meet up with Aileen again, and somewhat startling to realise it's only the second time we've met, so avidly do I read her very entertaining blog. We wandered off to Trimmings for notions and Hickey's for yarn, and alas, it was a far cry from our meeting in Berlin and the riches of Fadeninsel. Hickey's gets more depressing every time I go in there. Who on earth invents these yarns that look as though a plastic goat excreted them? Why on earth don't they stock plain, sensible 100% wool yarn at a plain sensible price? Argh!

However, they DO stock this particularly luscious yarn, Twilley's Freedom wool. The second I saw the photo of the gorgeous beret Aileen knit out of it, I was smitten. It's even prettier in real life, too. Such subtle colours! And look, although I was very, very tempted by the purple colourway, I resisted. Look! Green yarn! Fresh new resolutions for a fresh new year. No longer will I be a slave to pink, I swear it.