FO Red Percy for me

I showed my new percy to my aunty at the weekend.  She was very taken by it.  I had showed her the grey version when it was still in production and she'd seemed...doubtful.  This one really impressed her, partly because she preferred the colour and partly because it didn't look like a dishcloth.  I suppose I forgot that stretching part of the knitting out over my knee doesn't perform the same transformation as full on blocking does.

She liked it so much I've agreed to make Percy#3 for her. Yarn, bead and needle shopping followed.

Red percy - I hit a snag

The Percy shawl needs LOTS of yarn for binding off. Look how close I was to the end.

I think I managed about 90% of the stitches with the yarn held double. The recipe specifies that you should bind off loosely, and you'll see why when it comes to blocking. A tight bind off, or even an average bind off, will restrict how dramatically you can shape the edging points.

Here's what not quite enough yarn looks like:

More than you'd think? Here it is all neatly wrapped back up, ready to try again.

(here it is posing with my early birthday present)

I decided that rather than try the bind off with one strand of  yarn, I'd double up with another colour. My options were red Dye for Yarn or wine Fyberspates.

I opted for the sparkle sock and one bind off later, the percy was ready to be blocked.  Look at those lovely points!

Taking a small financial risk

All of the patterns I have written lately have been for the magazine and the yarn has been provided.  I submitted an idea recently that was too late to fit into an appropriate issue.  Or possibly it just wasn't quite right for the magazine.  Well, I'm still keen to make it and thought I'd buy the yarn myself and then publish the pattern on ravelry, putting my money where my knitting is, so to speak. I saw some wool in my local department store on Saturday when I was dashing in with my nephew to buy a ball for Sunday morning football and noticed it had the desired colour range.  I gave up at looking online as the yarns I was investigating had plenty of colours but on the websites the colours were not in rainbow order, or any order really, so I couldn't easily tell if they had what I needed. I went back today, with some trepidation as I realised I would be investing about £65 in this endeavour.  I wasn't too convinced that I'd make this money back. Maybe I will, eventually, but still.  So, I was very pleased when I looked at the next shelf in the shop and found far cheaper yarn, in even better colours! It all cost me £17, and even if I didn't make that money back, I'd still feel I had a bargain of a blanket. 

Green jumper - 2 steps forward, 1 step back

I felt pretty miserable this morning. My nephew stayed over and after a night of computer games and chocolate and a morning of sunshine and football, after he left I didn't know what to do with myself.  I caught up on Friday night tv (Castle season 2, a new favourite, starring Dr Pomatter himself) which was very enjoyable but still...what to do. So, I bit the bullet and ripped back the second sleeve on the green jumper that wasn't right. It was only a few stitches wider than the other but it seemed like many more cms.  I almost started another Percy, this time for myself, but reason won for once, and I decided it would be foolish to stop the jumper at this stage, because of having a mard on. As I traipsed round the supermarket, cee lo on very LOUD, I still needed a lift but my teeth hurt and I'm worried about fillings, so chocolate wouldn't work, and I have magazines and toiletries so that wasn't an option.  And I'm saving money people* so I decided if I still needed a treat when I slunk back to my messy/tidy flat, I could wind the red unicorn that will become my new shawl.  Feeling smug, and only buying one bar of chocolate, I have thrown myself into the new sleeve.  I haven't caught up to where I was before, but I'm feeling happier.