I need you to be specially nonjudgmental

So I can show you my City Stole blocking without feeling bad about all the crap I had to push to one side to make room on the floor (it’s alright, it’s just the overlocker, wool-in-progress, pins and a random elasticated belt from Top Shop. No-one has to ring Hoarders. You’re not going to see me ever on Discovery Home and Health clutching onto a 10-year-old yoghurt pot while all my family stands round wringing their hands). Otherwise I have to get the laptop out and fire up Gimp and crop and it puts me off.

I had to stand on a chair and balance against the ironing board to get this photo. I straightened the edges a bit afterwards

Anyway, vital stats because EVERYONE SHOULD MAKE A CITY STOLE:

Here is the pattern – you have to pay, but it is definitely worth it, it is a lovely pattern (12 pages of charts and they are very clear. I found about 2 tiny errata, unfortunately I forgot to note them down but they won’t cause you any trouble – there was one missed yarn over when it is obvious there should be one so you would realise, and one of the stitch count numbers was one out but the chart is correct),
I used KnitPicks Gloss Fingering from Great British Yarns because I wanted something cheap, navy blue and in fingering weight (sock yarn weight). Well, it was certainly cheap and navy and is OK yarn, but, that is never sock yarn weight. Sock yarn my arse, as Jim Royle would say. It felt more like DK to me (I did check the label). I went through agonies thinking the stole would not work because of it, but it seems to be blocking alright, and I can always knit another in proper thin sock yarn at a later date,
Mistakes – I made a couple of tiny errors in the chart but tant pis only God is perfect. Also, I think it is going to curl a bit as it is a stocking stitch base, but the blocking should flatten it a bit, and honestly, I don’t mind that much – I think it’s the nature of a stole like this (I can’t see how she could have got this effect apart from on a stocking stitch base, and it does have a garter border).

Bonus Cambridge cat photo, looking pointedly in different directions like an 80s album cover

So there we are – this stole was such an epic that I feel like my life’s work is now done, and I am a little rootless. I will try and get better in-action pics when it is blocked (also of the Annis – I was worried the Annis would spring right back when I took it off the pins but it held its shape completely – it looks great). In the meantime I am making chutney,

I never want to chop up another apple, I really don't

And I am casting on for some new colourwork mittens which I may give to my brother Dan for Christmas, and working up to winding the wool for Jaali. Wish me luck…