“The mornin’ dew is blinkin’ yonder, there’s lazy music in the rill,
And all I want to do is wander through the heather on the hill.”

From the musical Brigadoon

The Heather Sweater is underway and I’d say my progress to date is reasonable. I would possibly upgrade that to very reasonable considering that the recent few days of hot weather have made knitting a bit of a chore again. I put in a solid hour or so yesterday with my electric fan to cool me down, but other than that it’s been a case of a few rows in the morning and perhaps half an hour last thing in the evening.

The lace pattern is an 8-row repeat which I’m sure I will soon have committed to memory, and will probably be able to ‘read’ in another few rows. I had quite forgotten that this pattern has the lace panel on the back as well as the front and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that, but I am working it anyway. I think I will need to wear something underneath it that really makes the lace pattern pop; I’m just beginning to wonder if a blouse in some shade of yellow might be just the thing. Oh, it would need to be a warm, autumnul, golden-yellow – something along the lines of these dried flowers, for example. I can get behind that vibe for as long as it takes for me to find that no-one is selling such an item this year.

I’m using a pair of the new needles for the main body and find that the tips are more rounded than my previous darker wooden needles. I’m not yet sure if that is a point against these ones. I feel like the rows are taking longer than I expect to complete, but I have to factor in the lace patterning which will always make the knitting go more slowly. The pale tips do make it nice and easy to see what you’re doing, and the darker wool shows up well against the various bright shades in the needles, so it’s easy to distinguish the stitches when you need to. That’s really important with a lace pattern where you need to knit stitches together and I know I’d really be struggling with this yarn on dark needles.

Now that my mornings begin with mist over the river valley, it feels good to have a nice autumn jumper on the needles. My days end with Jupiter, Saturn and Mars all putting on a show for me in the night sky. You really can’t complain when you’ve got all that.