Leon's winter set - the yarn and the sense of urgency

I knit Leon mitts and hat and a scarf every winter and usually I try to get it done by the end of March. This year it was all a bit delayed, because I bought the yarn at Edinburgh Yarn Festival and didn't cast on until we got home - mid April. "Luckily" because the weather is so screwed up it's definitely not winter knitwear weather right now - but the cold could hit any time!

So, what am I knitting him? As discussed, I'm using Kate Davies "Highland Rogue" pattern as the stitch pattern for the set. The yarn is Arlandish, from the Isle of Mull. At EYF I sought this out - I used to work at Duart Castle, on the Isle of Mull, so I have a lot of affection for the area.

I wasn't expecting the person working the stall to be the actual weaver - or for her to be a New Zealander! We had a long chat about Mull, being expatriates, weather and family, and then I bought this stunning cone of yarn:

It's so sheepy and delicious. It doesn't wind all the well on a ball winder, so I've been encouraging Leon to hand wind it into balls for me. He asked how big he should make the ball, and I said "as big as you feel like" and when I looked again he had made a ball roughly as big as my head!

It smells even sheepier than the last yarn I knit with, the colours are perfect and the stitch pattern is working well with it. Now it's up to me to get it done before the weather changes. Hang on winter, I'm nearly there!

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Unravelled wednesday and WAYRN - the one where I prepare

We are heading off for some camping and hiking and general R&R on Friday, so I'm currently in planning and preparing mode. Of course that mainly means deciding what to knit - I'm going to make the Old Romance cardigan by Joji Locatelli. The yarn is wound and I'm ready to go. I completed Leon's Winter Set (2023) just in time, and it's currently blocking. I'm reading Georgette Hayer's Fredrica , which I am enjoying very much. Regency romance is so sweet and, unlike current romance offerings, I know it won't suddenly tumble into gynaecological territory! For unexplained reasons, NetGalley is offering some Georgette Heyer books at the moment - (maybe it's re-release?) and I'm taking this opportunity to read a few more of them And that's my week in knitting and reading. To read my all my book reviews, and to see everything I knit, you can find me on Ravelry as Sharondoublekni t and on GoodReads as Sharondblk . I'm joining in with Kat ...

Yarnalong - the one with the final bit of transport

Remember how I took every form of transport known to man a fortnight ago? Well, I was missing just one thing, suburban trains. But today I got to remedy that, knitting my way to Dandenong for work. Yay? My Char jumper has been knitting up ridiculously fast. It's easy, pleasant and a well written pattern. I'm reading Rachael Herron's latest book The Ones Who Matter Most . It's a good read so far, family centered fiction, easy to read but still emotionally challenging. I'm listening to Evelyn Waugh's Men At Arms . I'm enjoying it, I didn't really know what to expect, but some of it reminds me of Catch 22, in that it catalogues the absurdities of war and bureaucracy. The narrator has the perfect upper crust English accent and I'm very pleased it's the first of a trilogy. And that's another week of reading, knitting and catching trains everywhere for me. Do pop along to Ginny's blog to see what she and the rest of the yarnalong ...

Slowly slowly

I haven’t posted about my actual knitting for a while. This might be because not much has changed since the last time I talked about my knitting. This is the edging of my Village Sweater Wrap: The picture fails to capture how much further there is to go. I'm just past the first arm hole, so just over a third of the way through. It’s 47 stitches of relatively simple lace. I’ve been knitting it since Monday two weeks ago. It’s quite pleasant, and slowly growing but I can’t quite work out why it’s growing so slowly. One reason I know is that the first week I was knitting it during Good Beer Week, so I didn’t take it out and about with me. I knit other things, and when I’m knitting two things it makes everything feel like it takes forever. But the main reason, I think, is that this is just a slow knit for me. I love the needles I’m knitting on ( Karbonz of course) I love the yarn, I love the way the lace looks. So really, what’s the rush? I’m not going to be cold...

What I made, by Sharon

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