opps, thats broken ....

yes, 6 and a half hours in Dunedin Public Hospital A&E department with a broken Toby. As a result yesterdays blog post sort of got derailed, or superseded by other more important events. Still I've got other news, knitting related, 2 new(old?) books, one of which has an inscription that makes me giggle at the lack of understanding in the modern world about knitting, and lastly my new and very pink project.

For those with kids, read on, for those without, bear with me or skip down to the knitting. Toby is ok, he has a nasty break near his elbow, so we are attempting to avoid funny bone jokes (they are not very funny he tells us). He failed to land safely on a jump down 3 or so stairs. This is a temporary splint-cast until the swelling goes down, and then the real deal next Wednesday. Toby is tall and thin, shaped like a twig, all 28kg of 8.9 year old, and I guess he just snapped.


Now - two new(to me) books. First A Fine Fleece is a beauty, and arrived as a surprise gift, from Suzanne. I do need to find an appropriate thank you for this a beautiful book. And Suzanne is not a spinner, so a doubly nice present. Each project is photographed in hand spun and in commercially spun yarn and there are some nice projects in there, very classic, very me. And Bear - he has ordered a hat from the book already.

And the second book, a used copy, ex library, of Nordic Knitting by Vibeke Lind. Now what makes me giggle is the stamp inside the cover "Discarded, Outdated, Redundant Material", in red no less. I'm not sure if Palm Beach County Public Library put all the knitting books in this category, or just the 'old' and 'history' ones, but I'm amused and slightly horrified. As one who is collecting books on ethnic knitting traditions and finding the second hand book market prices for these beauties is robust to say the least, as one who knits, and knows many many younger and hipper knitters then me, I am still surprised that others consider knitting and knitting knowledge as outdated and redundant. I do offer an apology to any Palm Beach resident who was hoping to borrow this book from their local public library. I'm very sorry its now in my collection, but I bought it fair and square online from Amazon. Perhaps take up the issue with the library manager?

And lastly, Pam at Take Back the Knit, offered me a bag of dk/worsted weight pink yarn to knit something for Poppy. She inherited it and wanted to find a home it would be used in. Well it is pink, pinker than I'd usually choose, but Poppy is in Pink heaven. And I've chosen to knit a Danish shawl from the last issue of Spin-off, as a practice for a larger more sophisticated one for me next. This working shawl wraps and ties around the body, and seems a cute update on the poncho and ballet wrap craze of recent. The shawl is a very easy knit, with standard yarn over increases every 2nd row. This is to be finished with a two colour crochet edge, I'm thinking charcoal grey to tone the pink down perhaps.
Whilst I'm past the neck section on this shawl, but in my new/old Knitting in the Nordic tradition book I found very clever instructions on how to short row the neck to get an even better fit on this type of top down shawl. But of course that is obviously outdated and redundant information - sorry its going to take a while for me to let that one go.

Take care, I'll be taking care of Toby (Tubs to us- 'cause he isn't at all a Tubby guy).
Stella