Here’s a gauntlet

I’m throwing it down.

I like wooden/bamboo needles, especially when working with slippery yarn. I also like them because they are light and warm and don’t hurt my hands. However, when working with wool or other “sticky” yarns I have to work harder and it almost negates using the wooden needles in the first place. Here’s my challenge to anyone out there – I need a smooth metal-like needle that is light weight and is not cold to the touch – is there such a material?

Turkish-style socks part deux:

Instep and sole of the re-designed sock.

I had to add four stitches to the foot chart (making 8 extra stitches over the whole sock) and I had to make a judgement call. If I’d added the stitches in the chevron pattern I would have needed to re-chart the whole thing to add more rows as well as stitches. I decided to just work the extra stitches in a checkerboard pattern (you can just see it on the left-hand photo above).
For comparison, here is the original attempt at slightly further along:

The new leg pattern proved even more challenging because I decided to add a further 4 stitches to the sock (making a total of 76 stitches in the leg) just to make sure it would be wide enough for my semi-cankles. More of that in a later post, when you can actually see a difference!

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

I had a nice quiet day and I got presents (my favourite part of birthdays):

My knitting-related gifts were a scarf kit my dad picked out all on his ickle own (ahhhh….) and a wooden darning mushroom. Apparently, there are rarer than hen’s teeth those things (especially in Britain) but my folks came through and, in the words of Carrieoke, I’m a happy schmoo 🙂

Part of the reason my dad got the scarf kit is because he loves the feel of the yarn (like having a pet but without the vet bills and the poo!) – so I’m going to charge per stroke 😀

And now, because I caught the cold that everyone’s had, I’m going to snuggle up in a fleece blanket, listen to The Archers and play computers games.