A Knitting Disaster

Oh, oh, oh! I have learned a lesson the very hard way! For all my enthusiasm about tidying up and spring cleaning, it seems that the one thing that must never be tidied away is your most current craft project, a disaster is certain to befall it.

As did to my beautiful wrap shawl thing that I have been knitting. I am about three quarters of the way through. When I took it out of its new home, some (ok, lots!) of stitches slid off the needles, woosh! Happily I caught them, and put them right back on again. Then I held it up to look at it better, and discovered two stitches had made a bid for freedom and were unravelling! Agh!

My wail was spectacular. But you see, it is such a lacy pattern that I cannot see how to mend it, and nor can I think of a simple way to rip back and start from just a few centimetres before the big gaping gap that has formed.

So, all is lost you see. Utterly lost. I can't start the whole thing again. I am desolate. Until I see my Mum again, when I hope she will be able to work some magic on it for me!

Until then, I needed another craft project. I have no crochet on the go at the moment, and am quite out of spirits with knitting. So I rummaged in my craft chest and found an embroidered tablecloth that I bought five years ago. It is a square cloth, with a border of green leaves and curling stems, and beautiful flowers in shades of blue with yellow french knot centres. I had done woefully little before I packed it away, so I have resurrected this.

I had forgotten how soothing it is to embroider; my stem stitch felt a little rusty at first, but is flowing now. I love the satisfaction of completing a whole little flower, entire in itself, but only part of a larger pattern. I like the idea of painting with embroidery silk on fine fabric. So for a little while, I shall be stitching away in the evenings.

This is in fact part of another drive of mine- to finish more that I start. It occurs to me that if I ever want my future children to say 'oh, Mum made this when she was my age' or anything similar, I am going to have to have some finished projects!

I have just finished reading Five Get Into A Fix (the summer brings me out in a rash of nostalgia for Enid Blyton!), Suspense and Sensibility, and have just started rereading The Little Lady Agency. I am in a fortunate position to have a whole stack of reading lined up: Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wickhadden; On Mystic Lake; The Provencial Lady in America; North by Northanger...and now I am looking for a scrumptious sounding book recommended by a kind commenter.

I spent Sunday afternoon in the garden with a pillow, gin and tonic, and pile of books. Such bliss!