Thursday 22 July 2010

Still not a spinning update

I am spinning, honestly. It's just that all of my yarn is so appealing right now!

This month I've crocheted three snowflakes of twelve. My lovely grandmother gave me a booklet of snowflake and angel patterns for thread crochet, ages ago, so I decided it was time to make some. (The fact that I finally found my missing crochet thread may have influenced the decision also...) I have no pictures for you because it is apparently impossible to buy laundry starch in the UK. One can find spray starch everywhere. However, powdered or liquid starch, suitable for soaking and starching lace? Nowhere to be found. Woolworth's used to stock it, but they went out of business. Boots and some supermarkets used to stock it, but according to the shop manager I spoke to the other day there just isn't enough demand for real starch. I could buy it from Amazon, but the minimum purchase is 750g! Somehow I doubt I'll use that much for twelve snowflakes and a handful of doilies.

Sometimes I despair that people of my generation have lost their ability to care for their posessions. Ironing, starching, mending... I have friends who visit and bring buttons and shirts to be rejoined because no-one ever taught them to wield a needle and thread.

Maudlin musings aside, I am quite pleased with my knitting this month. I've knit most of a sock, (Monkeys again, of course) and expect to have the first finished and the second well started by the end of the month. I've made progress on my various WIPs. I've also cast on for a new triangle shawl, this time using some sockweight silk I bought years ago. It's quite lovely. Of course, close examination of the shawl pattern I've chosen reveals an alarming similarity to the shawl I just knit for G. Ah well. At least I know what I'm doing, right?

Other news, other news. I have a garter stitch scarf on the go again. This one is slower than previous projects. I frogged the feather-and-fan number I was knitting with my shiny Rowan Lurex Shimmer because it was making me nuts. The garter stitch scarf is to use up the pre-cut fringe and remaining yarn. The impetus for this is thanks to a Ravelry feature I discovered recently - it's possible to sort one's stash according to the date one added it. The Lurex Shimmer is one of my oldest yarns, bought back in 2004. I think it's been hibernating quite long enough!

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