Mystery stole clue 2

Progress continues on MS3. I did make a mistake a few rows from the end of clue 2, and kept trying to knit the following row and not understanding why it wasn't working. I eventually realised the error was on the previous row, and to my surprise, found I could quickly identify the missing yarnover visually, and furthermore, insert it on the following rest row. I think I finally understand what they mean about 'reading' your lace. Flushed with success, I raced through the following rows to finish the second clue.

The Lutea shell has become a commuter project for the foot of stocking stitch, so is also moving along well.

Halfway through clue 2

After a concerted effort, I am halfway through clue 2 on the mystery stole, but seem to be falling further behind! I was hoping to catch up during the Harry Potter break week the designer has given us, but this week's installment is an alarming 135 rows!

The Lutea lace shell is knitting up quite quickly due to the bulky yarn.

Succumbed to Stella

After a couple of weeks of abstaining from wool purchases, I succumbed to the John Lewis sale, and bought more Debbie Bliss Stella than I am ever likely to use. To assuage the guilt, I have been swatching for the Lutea Lace shell from the current IK.



The yarn is borderline chunky so the gauge is off a bit. I'm hoping the maths won't be too hard as there are no sleeves.




I'm going to add a lace border at the bottom edge, using the same pattern as for the shoulders.

Clue 1 of mystery stole

A riveting Wimbledon final on TV and losing my needle threader combined to slow progress on MS3. I'm now halfway through clue 1, but don't think I'm going to catch up this week.



Argosy is half done, and I've figured out why the points are curling. I was careful to cast off loosely to avoid the edges pulling, but it seems I have been doing it too loosely, causing a curl. I'm too far through to frog, and will look to blocking to try to remedy.

Sahara is languishing neglected. There really isn't much to do on it, but I've lost interest.

Le Grand Depart

There's been a lot of buzz about the start of the Tour de France in London, so today we duly dragged ourselves out of bed early to see both the Caravane and the actual Tour.

We had a good view, but the riders come by so fast that photos are just a blur:

The not-so-local gendarmerie supplemented the Met:

Loads of support vehicles in team colours:

I was quite surprised that any cyclists who were behind the main peloton had to weave in and out of all these cars.

Good luck to the riders, I've stopped for coffee, but they will be riding to Canterbury for several hours yet.

Re-emerging blinking

I'm back.

Yes, I spent a week immersed in the highly addictive Ravelry, enaged in an introspective review of my oversized stash. Even I am slightly horrified to find I have logged 240 different yarn / colour combinations. There's still more to go...

I have however, managed to keep knitting. Two new cast ons this week; Argosy and MS3.

Last weekend was busy and involved a fair amount of travel, so I cast on Argosy in the car. I bought some Rowan Tapestry using my 10% discount voucher while looking for beads for MS3. It's now working as my commuter project, although it's slightly more complicated than is ideal for short distance, interrupted travel. It is growing quite quickly, but the points curl badly, so it's going to need strong blocking.

With one thing and another, I only got to cast on for MS3 last night, so not much to show yet. I'm tethered to a huge cone of yarn, so this is definitely not portable. The beads are so tiny they don't really show up much, but I like them anyway.

Someone in the group suggested using a needle threader if the crochet hook was too large for the bead, and this turned out to be a genius suggestion. There are other good suggestions, but the group is currently generating an insane amount of email - several hundred per day!