Time Thief Watch Cap 2007.037am, My Bed, Pearce
Working with 8ply for the watch caps is really slowing me down. This one took nearly two weeks.
Partly it's this particular yarn. 100g skein of Little Bo Peep, produced by a mill in Geelong (but my stash of it purchaed at local op-shops in the last 12 months) that only spun Corriedale and Merino fleeces. The yarn has a lot of the lanolin still in and are in the natural fleece colours. The grease in the wool has made it rather slow going because it doesn't slide along the needle as readily as more processed wools. Also, with our 30C+ heat every day this week, the lanolin became very sticky making it less than pleasant to knit with and reducing speed knitting further. I've another skein of the yarn in the same colourway as this. Might save that until the weather cools, though. Last week's beanie was in Little Bo Peep as well (donated by Spidey), but the lanolin content was far less than this one.
I broke my own rule about only knitting these in time otherwise not devoted to knitting and finished the decreases this morning watching the first episode in a Blake's 7 marathon.
I missed Blake's 7 the first time around, but found the complete first season on DVD at my local library yesterday and thought it time to broaden my experience with science fiction (not my favourite genre). Maybe it was the tragic 70s hairdos and wobbly sets that made me think of Skyhooks for the photographic shoot. For a rock down memory lane with the Skyhooks song book, go here.
Lessons learned:
- do not knit naturally greasy wool in very hot tempertures
- I can work out "fixes" to patterns if I need to (I finally got the decreases right for the 8ply).
- A small calculator is now part of the knitting tool kit.
2 comments:
love Blake's 7. Still get heart palpitations thinking about Paul Darrow (Avon)!
Re the calculator - have you noticed the connection between knitting and maths? A couple of years ago I did a knitting course run by an artist who used knitting as her medium. Part free form part maths - she was interested in the so called golden number...
Also thanks for your kind words on my post early last year. I was very ill for most of it - pregnant - never been so ill in my life. Have only just starting to use the home lap top again after a long time.
Glad to see you're venturing into sci fi (Babylon 5 is my favourite series) ... and congratulations on the calculator inclusion ;)
I've got some Little Bo Peep wool too - a single skein of creamy white, still in its plastic bag, a Salvos treasure. I'll keep in mind your comments about greasy wool, and knit with it in winter :)
Your hats are working out very nicely - I'm sure their recipients will be happy with them.
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