Then fix it, dear Too-Hot-to-Knit

No, I haven't done it - the hole is still there. It was too hot yesterday and I was hit with a big dark cloud [you know those moments when it's all too much]. I just didn't feel able to attempt the repair. I know it has to be fixed, and it will be done in a timely fashion, but yesterday wasn't the day.

However, I have been knitting, and frogging, and thinking about knitting.

Firstly, the knitting. I made another beanie from the hand-dyed salvaged yarn. This one started with the thicker yarn that took up the colour much better. When it graduated to the thinner yarn, which didn't take up the colour so well, I increased the number of stitches. Then decreased again for the thicker yarn [the dark blue about one third of the way up the beanie] and increased again when necessary. I knit the body of the hat in a chevron pattern because going around in stocking stitch is boring after spending so many hours knitting complicated lace! And I thought about the pattern and realised that 'chevron' must mean a horizontal zigzag [some people are sloooooow!] not just the name of a fancy hotel in Sydney during my childhood. Ad then it occurred to me that Chevron had also been the name of the home brand of a certain department store starting with W - duh, Lynne!

Then there's the pair of fingerless mitts [known to me as the Rafa Mitts] which I "designed" on the needles while watching Rafael Nadal win his first round match of the Australian Open. They are also knit from the same salvaged hand-dyed yarn [just the thinner stuff]. There's not much to them, I know; I wanted to concentrate on the tennis not the knitting! They are too small for any hands in this house but children need mitts too and these will go [as will the two beanies] to Australian Interior Ministries which is one of the April recipents on the Knit4Charities calendar. These are obviously still WIPs - I have yet to sew them up [I can't seam and watch tennis]! Despite appearances, they are actually the same size.

As for frogging, well that poor Online Supersocke yarn better be good for multiple knitting because I have frogged again. I started knitting a modified version of the "Flame Wave" pattern from Favourite Socks but the variegated colour of the yarn disguised the subtle pattern so I frogged the twenty four rounds I had done after the ribbing.Then I sat and watched tennis and thought and watched tennis and got frustrated and watched tennis and thought and tried a couple of things and thought and then frogged the 12 rounds of ribbing too! I cast on 60 stitches this time [the Flame Wave had only 56] - I know I could have just increased four stitches but the K1P1 rib wouldn't work with the pattern I had chosen - I had already tried that!! I decided to use the same pattern I used in Version 2 of the socks - a Mock Cable which involves PSSO rather than a cable needle. I've only done about 16 rounds of Version 4 so there's really nothing to show yet. This photo shows them in their second incarnation; the first attempt with the mock cable pattern - I frogged these because I didn't like the shape of the toe! If I've confused you, I'll summarise:
Version 1 - plain stocking stitch - cuff down - finished - too big in the foot length by at least an inch and a half and too big around the foot
Version 2 - mock cable pattern - toe up socks - misshapen toes [I increased every round instead of every second round]
Version 3 - cuff down - Flame Wave pattern too subtle for colours of yarn
Version 4 - cuff down - in progress with mock cable pattern

And finally, some more thinking - about what I could knit in some of the acrylic yarn I brought back from Wangaratta. I have 5x500 grams of a bouclé yarn in five different colours - that would be the orange/green/purple/gold [sounds awful doesn't it?], the lemon, the mauve/pink, the pink/white and the blue/grey in the photo - so I guess there's enough there to make some child-size sweaters. I will have to swatch because I'm not sure what 'ply' it is - maybe 10ply [Aran]. The weather [40*C - 104*F] is not appropriate for knitting sweaters at the moment so I think I'll stick to socks, beanies and mitts.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the tennis!