Time just keeps slippin', slippin' ...

Poor blog, how I've neglected you. My only real excuse is that I've been knitting, rather than writing about knitting. And organizing a school reunion (quite why I and another classmate who also lives in the States are organising a reunion in London of a school we attended in Hertfordshire is the subject for a long, preferably drunken, rant at another time).

The big news is that the Path of Flowers stole in done and I love it! I take back everything bad I said about Rowan Cracksilk Kidsilk Haze. It's wonderful to the touch, incredibly warm and still very lightweight. When I next see some at anything like a sensible price I will buy it, mortgage and stash storage space availability be damned.



This was my first time using lace blocking rods and they are worth every penny (thank you Knit Picks). It took ages to thread them through the edges, but they gave a beautifully straight and clean edge to the piece, and let it block out enough to see the pattern detail easily.



I've also been having fun using up left-over yarn (mostly Manos del Uruguay) trying my hand at Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket. It was thrilling to make - so different in construction than any other sweater I've done - that I was quite giddy at times. Also confused, because it looked like this for a while.


Not many rows, a little stitching and some crochet edging later it looked like this.



The buttons have Chinese/Japanese-looking ideograms on them, that I can only hope are meaningless, or at least not obscene, especially since I just sent it to a friend in Japan, for his first child to wear.


I contemplated making an adult-sized Surprise Jacket, but every single one I looked at on Ravelry was shapeless in a way that would do me no favours at all. I have quite enough garments that don't suit me (I am trying to get rid of them, but some are so comfortable I can't quite bring myself to sling them).