I miss my bikes. I forget how much I miss them until I see happy cyclists out on the road and I wish I wasn’t trudging along on the footpath. However, I have the consolation of carrying my little pouch with the bicycle print every time I leave the flat. I bought this pouch on a trip to France many years ago and it has had bouts of use then longer periods where it didn’t serve any useful purpose. However, the past year has proven that it was perfectly designed to hold masks and hand sanitiser in a pandemic-stricken world. It’s comfortable and lightweight which means it is easy to sling across my body as I’m picking up my keys, and it works together with any other bag or backpack I choose to carry. Instant access to the pandemic accoutrements helps to reduce the stress of a less than ideal situation. And, anyway, that bicycle print!

I have worked a bit more on the leg of my sock and I’m hoping that I will soon hit the longer stretch of the plain biscuit colour for the heel. I can already reveal that it irks me to have the yarn dictate the point where the heel will be worked. It’s lucky that I’m so happy with the look of the project and so I put up with the loss of control I have over the practicalities.

I worked a swatch for my was-a-yurt project but would have had to go down a needle size to get the gauge and I didn’t have needles in either size I would have needed. I used to have a more comprehensive selection of needle sizes, but I reduced them a few years ago and at that time I decided I wouldn’t ever want to knit with a yarn thicker than aran weight. Hah! Now I’m contemplating a few projects in very chunky yarns and so I’ll have to go shopping when the world is back on track. However, for now I have found a pattern which will work perfectly with this yarn without needing to change needle size and which I also think will suit the recipient perfectly. Not only that, but it’s a Martin Storey pattern and I always know I’ll get a good result when I knit his designs. To round out the sense of victory, I also stumbled across the perfect pattern for another of my Christmas gift knits whilst ambling through my pattern collection, so I’m completely sorted with my plans for the coming four months and a half months. I reckon I can complete each project in six weeks because I find it very easy to delude myself. This optimistic plan might be what my horoscope was warning me about this morning when it mentioned that if I mess up now it will be huge.

I treated myself to the latest issue of The Knitter magazine after going through my old copies. I find I enjoy the editorial content at the time of purchase, but often the patterns appeal to me a year or more after they have appeared in the magazine. Somehow, though, I doubt that the heavily-embroidered sweater in this issue will ever make it onto my list of projects. It’s not simply the fact that the decoration is embroidered, but the sheer scale and the subject matter which put me off. I don’t mind a scattering of flowers embroidered on a knitted item, they can look effective and add a slightly ethnic air, but I’ve never really been one for picture knits. I expect it takes a certain type of personality to pull off such a look and, much as I like bright colours, this one definitely isn’t for me.

How do you feel about such bold statements on your clothing? Toucan or Toucan’t?