Wiggles

This mass of wiggly wool is the next stage in reclaiming the yarn from the cardigan I knitted for my friend D: Believe it or not, this morning's temperature was only 13 degrees--we're in the middle of summer here and a week or so ago the max was 40. So, starting to crochet a largish lap rug is actually an ok thing to do. I gave the yarn a good soak in some warm water. Now it's hanging to dry. That combination of warm water and gravity is all it takes to get the yarn back to a near-new condition. Meanwhile I've started the first few rows of the blanket with other colours. I'm using teals and brown as well as the red-burgundy colour. I'm liking the combination so far.

Deconstruction

I first heard the term, "frog stitch" in a beginner quilting class. It made me smile and still does. It's nice to have a light-hearted expression for what is often a frustrating task. This morning I started a big frogging job. It's a cardigan I knitted for a dear friend quite some years ago. In the sad tradition of inexperienced hand-knitters, I put hours of loving work into a garment that was never quite right. My friend persisted with it for years, attempting to wear it at least once each cold season, before setting it aside. This year we finally came to the conclusion that it just wasn't ever going to work. After some discussion, we decided to re-use the yarn. It's a lovely alpaca-wool blend. I'm not planning to have another go at the cardigan. My friend now lives in the north of the country, where I'm unable to check and adjust the fit of a garment and where heavy garments are rarely needed anyway. It's going to be part of a blanket. That way she'll get the fibre "hug" I intended for her.

We're coming into the warm season, even in Melbourne, but the forecast today is for a cool 20. Most of my fibre tools and supplies are in a state of transition as I get my studio set up. The cardigan was sitting in a post-pack near my armchair. It felt good to be able to tackle it this morning.
My memory of the knitting is sufficiently distant, that unravelling the stitches isn't bothering me any. I already have two balls of wool ready to skein up, wash and rewind. As for the Studio, I spent yesterday moving shelves from the spare bedroom. They were all mounted on the wall, so each one had to carefully removed, carried to it's new home and then reinstalled. I was surprised at how far I got, but things are still looking reasonably messy. Maybe that contributes to the satisfaction of this much lighter deconstruction task.