Updates ++ a bit of fibre

Quick check in today because I have a cold and I’ve scheduled in some hardcore whimpering (I know. Who gets a cold in June? AND an insect has bitten my finger!), but just wanted to show you my in-progress woolly things and update. First, many thanks to Yvette for your offer of the magnetic words! How exciting, I would love them! If you send me your email (my email button is at the side) we could swap addresses and I could send you some of my soap or something in return. Second, do you remember my post about the boring bits of Cambridge? Well, Rachel over at Growing Things and Making Things and Julia over at Pages of Julia did posts about where they live as well, which I really enjoyed reading. I love hearing about where other people live. I was particularly fascinated by the infrequency of the bus service in Devil’s Bridge and the fact that there are not always sidewalks (did you see, I said that in American) in Houston. No sidewalks! I don’t think I would cope very well because although I have never actually had an accident (touching wood now) I am not a very good driver, although I am better than the poor girl who tried to drive the wrong way up the one way system this morning while we fish van customers watched her in horror and sympathy. (Everybody hooted to warn her and then waited while she did a U-turn. There are a lot of us Sunday drivers in Cambridge).

Also (I know you don’t care, but indulge me) do you remember the lady who was harassed by the bad cat who wanted her fish? Today I saw the same lady, with the same bags, walking home the same route, but very nervously, and pointedly on the other side of the street, in the road - I suspect so she wouldn’t meet that cat again! Alas! I knew that it has now moved nearer to my house (because it leapt out at me enthusiastically the other night and nearly knocked me over) and her new route was taking her slowly, haltingly and irrevocably, into its lair. I should have stopped to warn her! But I had to get back as Partner was champing at the bit to see the answers to yesterday’s Guardian crossword which is really no excuse morally.

The traditional awkward operating-camera-with-teeth hand shot. Spot the obvious mistake

Right, now the woolly things. I finished one endpaper mitt and am halfway through another. This mitt is chock full of mistakes (I found another one while I was taking the photos) but, what I am going to do is, when I am wearing them, move my hands very quickly for emphasis because then not only will no-one notice where I have cocked it up but also I will look sexy and Gallic. I could also smoke a Gauloise perhaps but as I have never smoked anything I am not sure I could do it convincingly, the sexiness might be undercut by my having to rush off and be sick/ suck my Ventolin or something.

Please admire the even tension of my stitches. You know where this kind of thing leads, don't you? It leads to steeking

Close up of the stitches (unblocked). I thought this pattern was great for a beginning colour work project (the mistakes are all mine, the pattern is clear) as it is a quick knit, and the pattern is easy to memorise and see if you have gone wrong. You may remember a while ago I was bleating about not being able to understand how to twist the yarn to stop floats if I knitted with both yarns in my right hand. Well, I have worked it out, and I am now in a position to say to you that: if you are a person who is most comfortable holding the yarn in the right hand, there is no reason at all not to do colourwork like this. None at all. It is perfectly efficient. I have such a strong bias to righthanded knitting that it is as if God has ordained it, and if I hold one yarn in either hand I have all sorts of tension issues which just disappear if I do it my way (although the yarn-in-each-hand method would work very well if you are comfortable doing both). If anyone wants step-by-step pics of how to hold the yarn/ weave floats, let me know in the comments and I will do a tutorial next week when I am livelier.

You remember I said if you use yarn from the same range it will always match? That may not entirely apply to Stylecraft Special DK

The rainbow crochet throw. I started this mainly to have something to crochet when I am sitting in the garden, but I am enjoying it very much. The pattern is easy but there is enough going on to keep you entertained (I think I might have been subconsciously influenced by this). I have this vague idea of it absorbing all the summer energy as I sit crocheting feverishly while Simon next door makes me feel inadequate by creating what appears to be an exact replica of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Simon: your garden is now beautiful enough. You are making the rest of us (especially me) look bad. Could you please incorporate a small scruffy lawn, a pile of bricks and an upturned flower pot into your design to blend in with the rest of the row, thank you, only joking.

OK, off to go and wash up. And you know what's on later, don't you? Partner concerned me with the episode where they had to go out and buy a top hat and other things by sitting rattling off where they should have gone for everything. 'Top hats from Beyond Retro in Covent Garden, Susie, don't you remember me trying one on? And fabric from the scary shop in Kensington where we go in the basement. And...' This makes me think that Partner and I do not do intellectual things together. Anyway. I bet none of them can crochet ;-).