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Monday 3 October 2016

A challenge





Today I celebrate finishing a 20cm square of knitting after four attempts using the yarn supplied, plus a trial using my own yarn. 

At the Knitting and Crochet Guild convention way back in July I signed up to knit a 20cm square using instructions from one Gladys Jeskins, then forgot all about it until we came back at the beginning of August from our Lakeland holiday to find yarn, instructions and a photograph of pattern 841. The yarn is King Cole merino blend 4ply superwash, needle size is 3.25.  

Today I cast off the square, now the ends need to be sewn in before blocking, spraying with cold water and leaving to dry.  The project has been quite a struggle for me, it was complicated to establish the number of stitches for the square had to be 20cms, the pattern was in blocks of 12, apart from the last 11 stitches.  Additionally there was to be a border of 6 rows of garter stitch top and bottom and three garter stitches beginning and end of each row. Needle size was 3.25mmm, the rows were 12 border, 2 foundation rows and 56 rows of pattern as 8 rows completed the pattern.

The instructions didn't use standard knitting abbreviations, also I had never come across a stitch before one drops a stitch down four rows before, knitting it together with the four 'rungs' of the ladder formed. 


Another reason I feel very cheerful today, apart from the sunshine, is that we went to a Beetle Drive on Saturday night. Good old fashioned fun in aid of Whitton Network, a local voluntary organisation that arranges for volunteer drivers to take people to medical appointments, do some shopping, just help out.  The Beetle Drive equipment, including dice, cups, photocopied sheets, whistle all date from the war or immediate postwar era, I suspect we should have worn vintage dress as we moved up and down or not in my case. I had the honour of winning the prize for the lowest score in the second half. 

Yes, four bottles of raspberry Lucozade, so needed after my Pilates class, we know how to live in suburbia. 

1 comment:

  1. I've never come across a stitch where you drop down four rows either. You have to be very brave to attempt that!

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