Moving along

Things are still ticking along nicely around here, when I say nicely I mean as usual, so there is frogging of a kind, the kind that isn't so much frogging as starting again, and very slow progress on my pi shawl.

I finally bought a new phone, one that let's me text easily. This one has a typewriter style touch screen keyboard rather than a number pad, keeping up with the cubs is soo much easier. When I bought it I looked at the cases sold for phones, and part of me thinks such things are a tad weird. For a start one buys a new phone, usually because it is thinner, or smaller, with a better screen than the competition, and then immediately slaps a thick case around it making the super cool thin phone all thicker and heavier, canceling all the features one carefully chose it for. I bought phone with gorilla glass, toughened to resist scratches and decided to make a soft crafted case to keep it in. Knitting seemed too fuzzy, too soft, too likely to attract lint in my handbag, and I'd seen a crochet technique over cord on pinterest that held promise, stiffer, more case like. The first case was worked quite firm, with a teeny crochet hook, orange soft cotton over thicker yellow cord, and suffers from the goldilocks effect in that it is too small. Well it fitted, but actually slipping it into place on the phone was a struggle - i had assumed being cotton it would relax, but seems corded crochet does not (or not yet). Rather than frog it, as it was soo much work, I've set it aside and started another putting into play what I have learned, the second one is on 2mm hook, same cord and thread, and I am not pulling the cord quite so firm this time. Crochet is not my best craft sport ... so progress has been slow, but is faster now with a larger hook.

Look, I'm nearly half way there! The first case took nearly a week, the second might be only a few days. And today is a rainy dull day, a perfect day to keep warm and dry inside crafting. Yoyo shares the feeling, except being a cat, replaces crafting with sleeping. Being a cat she sleeps where experience tells her it is warmest, on the back of the sofa where usually the sun shines. Being a dull rainy day, the warmth from the sun is totally imagined in this case. Yoyo is not the kind of cat to let reality stand in her way.

I've not just been crocheting, and playing with my new phone and all its features (it has a very nice camera, f2.0 and a Carl Zeiss lens), but I have been plodding along with my pi-shawl, again with Yoyo as a photo prop, this time she is doing that cool cat thing, sleeping with one eye just open. I choose to knit mine on 3mm needles, making a thicker and more dense lace than if I used the recommended 4mm needles. Knowing that I suspected my shawl would end up smaller, so I've adjusted the maths a little. I plan to repeat the gull wing lace for the full 80 rows, then work a round of increase eyelets, the the lace edge. The pattern calls for only 40 or so rows then a fake increase row (eyelets only) and then edging. In the original the shawl finishes before the seventh increase round? I think given my use of smaller needles I need the extra repeat rows of lace, so my edge will start just after the seventh increase round (2x576 stitches). I also like the idea this way the repeats will demonstrate the pi principles more clearly, as each band of lace will be double the width of the previous one. Nice idea ... but at an average of four or so rounds a night ... progress is slow.
Take care
Na Stella

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