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<\/a><\/p>\nSometime in the day I finished my summer socks – all my own design, and in spite of stopping taking notes before turning the heel, I managed to make both of them roughly the same. There maybe a slight disparity on leg length, but only by half a pattern repeat, so not even I will notice. Of course, I still have a significant amount of stripy yarn left over, which is mildly annoying, given that the intention in making these was to use up all of this yarn. I could just ditch it, but I am the product of a scot and a Yorkshireman. So I can’t.<\/p>\n
I started knitting the Perfect Storm mitts. Sizing is done in this pattern by changing needle size. I swatched with a 3mm needle and it came out 1 stitch over gauge. I cast on and knit the cuff, which looked *huge*. Massive and flappy. So instead I went to a 2.25mm needle (having nothing in between with me). I’ve nearly finished the body of the first mitten (there’s been a lot of sitting) and it’s definitely far too small for a grown adult – I think it will have to go in the gift box. Luckily, because this yarn is some that I bought 2 big cones of from eBay, I have enough to have another go. However, I don’t think I have knitting this pattern twice in me, so will just have to chalk this one up to experience and remind myself to trust the designer and myself. If you get gauge, just follow the damn pattern. The designer probably knows what they are talking about.<\/p>\n I knit these mittens inside out, which appears to work really well for getting the tension right on colour work. The downside to this pattern is that it’s not really TV knitting, as I am *always* having to look at the chart constantly. I can’t see any glaring errors so far, though, which is good. I’m just going to have trouble trying them on once they are done!<\/p>\n Also, this is the first pattern I’m using the Knit Companion app to follow. It’s going well so far: this could be A Thing.<\/p>\n On Saturday night we went out to Lorna’s old local where there is an old people’s disco. It’s not usually my choice of activity, but I enjoyed it – we had a good chat & there was dancing. If our standards were low, we could have pulled several times over. But really, given the choice (in the parallel universe where I’m 41 & single and living in Solihull) I’d rather remain single… It was a good evening, though, and we didn’t come back until nearly pumpkin o’clock, which is almost unheard-of for me these days.<\/p>\n Yesterday afternoon we went to the cinema to see Pompeii. I’m very much into volcanoes, so being here this weekend & able to go to the cinema was very timely. Plus, it stars Kit Harington (Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) so there’s another incentive right there. The film was suitably bonkers and I really enjoyed it. As Lorna pointed out, the star of the film had maybe 10 lines and made up for the lack of speaking with lots of smouldering. Of both kinds (um, spoiler alert). But, as Mark Kermode strenuously argued in his interview\/review, if you’re watching a film called Pompeii set in 79AD then the fact that a volcano erupts really shouldn’t be a spoiler. Other than that, it was a classic disaster movie. Right down to the baddies continuing to be evil even when they should have been busy screaming and running away. We preceded the film with several episodes of “Destroyed in 60 seconds” and followed up with “Deadliest volcanoes” and “War of the Worlds” (the Tom Cruise remake) so all in all, a fairly destructive day!<\/p>\n Also, I took advantage of being near a Pepperberry shop to get a couple of tops that fit me nicely – this pleases me greatly. I could have bought a third one, but exercised restraint. It’s nice to have a choice of more than one thing that fits me – I will *definitely* be back!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m playing hookey this weekend, having a bank holiday weekend away from my lovely family with my friend. The plan was to relax, do lots of sitting around and knitting, maybe a little light sight seeing (although we’re in the … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n