sniffle

I'm sick. I'm horribly sick. This is no ordinary headcold, I seem to have caught some kind of mutant crossbreed of SARS and birdflu. My gums and the roof of my mouth are all tender and I am so thirsty. I feel like I've eaten a bag of salt. My thought processes are slow and plodding. Normally being inside my head is quite exciting. Not quite as exciting as being inside, say, Bjork's head, but there's a few things going on at once normally. Now my synapses are not so much firing as smouldering gently when they collapse on top of each other in a wearied heap.

i have curled up in bed with this:


my legs are actually under all that. the cloud skein wonder and my knit happens order, which arrived today (awesome. it arrives on the one day that I'm too sick to care). the noro silk garden is very pretty. perhaps a bit too pretty for my tastes usually. I'm rethinking making tithe, and thinking (very slowly, oh, so slowly it hurts... *sneeze, sniffle*) about making, like, a cushion cover and striped jumper. Maybe. I'll make a final decision when my zombie self is replaced with my real self again. the cashmerino aran is going to become this. Or if gauge doesn't work out, maybe arwen's cardy, from interweave knits.

I was going to go on for a little longer, but even my lying-in-bed-typing strength is fading. so farewell. If I never post again you'll know I succumbed to the fever. Make sure I get a nice obituary in the paper. And mention how I died. It drives me crazy trying to guess that when I read other people's obituaries.

oh blah.

good thing i'd already given up on the pringle pattern.

Because someone else has already done it. even in the cardigan form i was planning on copying.
guess i'll just use her pattern then, once i get some yarn.

but it's okay. i have Other Plans. it involves Paton's Woolcraft 1938; K-Mart '5, 8 & 12-ply designs' brochure (circa mid-70s), my stitch dictionary, and a largeish dose of lunatic measuring.

how i narrowly avoided

a pringle knockoff almost as ugly.

i've been intending to work out a copy of a the pringle jumper for a while now. starting on a swatch last night i worked out what makes the other 'inspired' versions i've seen look cheap.
fine gauge.
the fabric just won't sit right in anything less than so-bulky-you-just-knit-the-wool-with-the-sheep-still-attached.

which stymies my 8 ply/ DK knit version.

and as i don't really have the cash to splash on some superbulky yarn right now, i have to find something else to do with nine balls of plum and three of lavender... i want to play with the trapeze silhouettes that are around right now, but the soft drape of the 8 ply is making that difficult. i'm going to spend this morning trawling the paris autumn/ winter ready to wear shows (though it isn't looking promising - even mcqueen has used furs in place of knits), netaporter and anthropologie. stay tuned.

behold!

the ugliest knockoff of the pretty pringle jumper ever.

brought to you by justjeans.

seriously. i have seen this in the stores, and it is knit in a thin, almost boucle acrylic on a slightly too large gauge so the cables are virtually flat. mmmm, tasteful.