Weekending - swatching and preparing

It was a weird weekend for everyone, and even weirder for me! I live in St Kilda, very close to the Grand Prix track. I don't like car racing, but I mainly dislike the Melbourne Grand Prix because it is in a park (which is full of concrete for three months), and because you can hear the cars from my house and there are combat aeroplanes flying around (I don't know why) and loads of helicopters. Leon and I planned to go to Ballarat for the weekend to escape the noise. Then, on Friday they cancelled the race. A couple of hours later I got a call from my mother saying she's off to hospital. She was very vague about what is going on - it's got nothing to do with COVID-19 though.

Needless to say we cancelled our trip. I saw my mother yesterday, and I think she's ok, but they are not quite sure what is wrong with here, which is always a worry.

Everyone is getting ready to settle in with this pandemic outbreak, and I'm no different. Earlier in the week I asked Melbourne City Dyeworks to dye me a gray to match go with the speckled I bought in Marysville. It came and it is stunning.

I balled up the yarn and swatched for Japan Sleeves. I love bow the three colours play together, and am really looking forward to starting this jumper.

I was planning to get to the mindless bit of this before at a work conference I have in ten days, and then knit on it through the comedy festival. Well, the comedy festival got cancelled on Saturday is cancelled, and I imagine the conference will be too.

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Linky Wednesday - the one with the pause

In meditation it's said that the pause between the in breath and the out breath is a gap, a space to rest. Well, I'm in that in-between space for reading, listening and knitting. This is a random photo of a highlight of my week - I filled up my lolly jar. These are just supermarket party mix. During the lockdowns, we sources a great pick-and-mix delivery service, but at some point they started sending from the UK, which is a bit silly. Rachey messaged me a new one she found, and I impulsed purchased a kilo of mixed lollies, and then she sent me a link to the biggest lolly shop in Melbourne, which also delivers sweets by the kilogram, so i think I'm sorted for the rest of the year! In reading I've just finished The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham . It's the second last book in the Summer of Mystery, and I have to admit, having now read nine Margery Allingham books, that they are OK. I wouldn't have read them if they were not connected to this club, but on...

Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises.

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat. The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

What I made, by Sharon

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