Knitting now - colour work

I don’t know who is who is responsible for reminding me that I don’t like knitting colours, whoever they are they forgot.  I had been looking at the Rowan Bessie cowl kit for some time and eventually caved in, it’s definitely beautiful and seemed straight forward, no shaping, not a big project, what could go wrong.

Photo from Knit Rowan

Firstly the actual pattern.  To buy it separately costs £5 for download but I took the option of pattern and yarn as a bundle.  The yarn arrived without the pattern, I had to contact Rowan who then sent me a link to the download.  I asked MrFF to print this for me next time he had the printer on but unfortunately he produced a black and white copy, I said I’d try to work with that.

We didn’t have any way to enlarge the download so rather than go blind I ended up writing out my own interpretation of each row, a better person would have produced a spread sheet.  I did mention this to Rowan in my feedback, a colour print out of a decent scale on card would have been nice especially if you paid £5 for only the pattern, they didn’t respond.

So I’ve soldiered on.  It’s the kind of work that requires much concentration, impossible to watch tv or even speak while I am knitting. I am even getting cross writing about it.  There are 192 stitches to a row and some rows can take almost 30 minutes especially if I lose the plot as I often do.  I can be heard chanting to myself 3 orange, 2 green, 1 orange and so on not in a calming way.

On the bright side the yarn, Felted Tweed, is beautiful, the colours are gorgeous and I shall have enough yarn left over to knit an additional item that will be much less complicated.

The pressure is on to finish this project not just for my well being but we leave for Italy soon.  It’s not coming with us, I cannot face picking it up again a couple months later and I might like to wear it on the continent.

I would walk 100 miles

Since his ascent of Scafell Pike MrFF has been suffering pain in his calf, he is seeing the doctor next week as it isn’t improving.   So he’s been occupying his time with DIY, moving cables from the loft to sockets in the hall cupboard so we can connect to the fibre network already installed to outside our apartment door.  Our provider will make the final connection but not carry out the internal work.

This has involved emptying the contents of the hall cupboard into the hall, we endured this chaotic state for a week.

However it was quite a voyage of discovery for me.  I found a nice wool jacket I had forgotten about and also these

I bought these hand made trainers from the maker Norman Walsh in Bolton, among the fell running fraternity he was a legend.  I remember making a special journey and meeting the great man with his colleagues cobbling away in a small workshop, it was a delight.  I wore the shoes when MrFF and I took part in the 1982 Pilgrims 100, a long distance walking challenge event of 100 miles/160 kilometres from Guildford to Canterbury, to be completed within 48 hours.  Before the event I had tried to break in the shoes but by the time I completed 65 miles my feet were blistered.  Our friend who was supporting both us and her husband, he completed the optional 140 miles route, met us at the checkpoint where we got breakfast.  I told her my feet were so sore, she said she’d take a look. I lay on the ground, I have recollections she might have thrown me down, she quickly burst the blisters with a sterile needle, applied plasters, stuck my clean socks and spare trainers on my feet, relieved me of my overnight gear and told me to get on with it.  I completed the walk in less than 32.5 hours.  I have no idea why I kept these trainers, I wore them afterwards for shorter walks but looking at them now they had very little cushioning, my supportive friend couldn’t believe I still have them.  They went in the bin.

The hall is back to normal.