After a short hiatus I have returned to the Big Blue Slouch and, after a slow start, suddenly I am back with a vengeance. The last time I stopped to take a photograph, I was still working on the fancy rib; half a week later I am approaching the place where I will start to do the gradual decreases which form the long v-neck. After the mammoth task of completing the back, this piece feels like a breeze to work on. I thought for a while that there was no way the garment would be finished by the end of November, now I’m back to thinking that is a possibility. Where a lot of things in life seem stalled, it’s nice to see progress in one area.
Speaking of progress, the socks simply flew off the needles and are now a finished item. Hurrah! I love the colours in this pair – those red and mustard stripes remind me of the two inks I am using at the moment. These will be an excellent addition to my sock drawer and I’ve completed them at the perfect time as I have one pair in urgent need of retirement. Whilst it’s nice to keep wearing my socks, sometimes they get threadbare and there’s nothing quite like a nice new pair to add a little sparkle to the dull days.
I spent a bit of time on yarn-winding over the weekend and got two of the remaining three skeins of the blue wool for Slouch wound up into balls. This means I can avoid any more handy excuses for not getting on with the knitting. I still have one skein to wind up, then I also need to choose my December sock yarn (I think it will be a nice hand-dyed wool in shades of grape). Once that is wound up into a ball I’ll be able to get another pair of socks on the needles when the mood hits.
Whenever I have lots of wool to wind I briefly think it would be useful to have a ball-winder and swift (a bit like the skeleton of an umbrella which holds the skein of wool and rotates, allowing you to easily wind the wool into a ball or cake). Then I think about how much of the time you’re not using the ball winder and swift and they are just more stuff you need to store. It seems easier, somehow, to keep on using the backs of dining chairs to hold the skein of wool as I wind it. After all, dining chairs serve a useful purpose when you’re not using them in your wool-winding activities.
Pam Alison Knits 
5 responses to “A slow start”
Big Blue Slouch is coming along! And what a sweet pair of socks.
Thank you, I’m pleased with the socks and with the progress on Big Blue. I’m getting excited about seeing what the Slouch will look like as part of an outfit; it’s hard to imagine exactly.
I love those socks BTW.
Thank you, all credit for the socks must go to West Yorkshire Spinners for the producing the yarn and to my daughter for buying it for me. Turning it into socks was a pleasure.
Cheers to both