I called Jo Sharp’s studio and spoke to a lovely woman called Wendy. She went and found a ball of the same dyelot and is about to knit it up but she was pulling it out while on the phone to me and said it seems much thicker and more uneven than it should be just looking at it. I feel less crazy now! Unfortunately the dyelot I have is the only one they have in the warehouse so if it is defective I will have to either change colours or hunt down a store with old stock. But they are going to help me do that which is wonderful. Yay for great customer service!

I spent pretty much all of yesterday tracking down 8 skeins of Rowan Magpie Tweed. The only colour I can get is nice, but not really what I had in mind for Rogue so before I buy it I am waiting for office hours to arrive in Perth so that I can call Jo Sharp’s studio and ask if I have a dodgy batch of yarn that can simply be replaced. I really want to like this yarn, and I love the colour. I joined the Rogue along and none of the participants who used JS Aran Tweed have mentioned gauge problems that I can see, though none of them seem to have used this colour. Suffice to say I am not quite prepared to give up on my yarn yet but I do feel much better having a back up plan.

In the mean time I have swatched and cast on for Jesse’s hat. I am using’s Julia’s pattern El Hatto Negro and I am even more wildly off gauge with this than I was swatching for Rogue. Only this time being off gauge makes me happy. Jesse’s head is enormous, 25″ type enormous, it does match rather nicely with his 6′7″ frame and size 16 feet, but never the less the hat would not have fit him as written and being off gauge means it will fit and I don’t have to do any maths myself.

I cast on using the same alternate cable method I used for Shedir and then found that due to the way the broken rib works the ribbing moved over one stich two rows into the hat and looked really awful.This morning I ripped back to the first row and re knit the second and third rows with a slight modification to prevent this jumping effect:

row 2: *slip 1 st knitwise with yarn in back, k1* to last stitch.
round 3: After row 2, you will keep working in the same direction, With yarn in back slip 1 st purlwise from left needle (it was already slipped knitwise and twisted on the previous row) and this forms the join to work in the round, place marker and follow pattern as written.

I would show you a photo but this yarn is too hard to photograph and I don’t have the time to win the battle with my camera. Instead I will leave you with a photo of our kitties. After two years living with my mother they will be moving back in with us in only a few months time and we are all so excited, though the cats are hiding thier excitement well.

I only bothered to wash the swatch on the left, the one that I thought I might get gauge with. Post washing the US3 section has come out at 16.5st/4 in. This yarn just really, really wants to knit up at 16 st/4in. The smaller the needle the tighter the row gauge and the stiffer the fabric but the stitch gauge just doesn’t change that much. I could cry.

I don’t know if it is the yarn in general, just this colour, just this batch of this colour, but what ever it is has certainly ruined my day. I bought this yarn in Adelaide, so tomorrow is my only chance to sort the problem out in person. I guess I will go in to the shop and try knitting up a swatch in a different colour to see if that seems more hopeful (wish me luck I will have a toddler in tow). If that doesn’t work I will try to convince them to allow me to exchange the JS Aran Tweed for a voucher for a later yarn purchase. And then I guess I will order something completely different. Perhaps Rowan Magpie Tweed if I can find it (yes I know chances are slim), or maybe Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed? Does anyone have Aran Tweed yarn suggestions? I feel fairly committed to the idea of using a tweed yarn for this project and I would really like to get gauge without going down 5 (or more) needles sizes.

I thought about using JS DK tweed, so I got out my Leftovers Vest and checked the gauge, I checked my archives for needle details. I knit this vest on the exact needle size recommended on the label and got perfect gauge (st and row for once). Given the vest fabric is quite lovely at the right gauge I think using DK would be a mistake. I just don’t understand why the Aran is so much harder to work with, I mean really, down five needles sizes and not even close to getting gauge is just ridiculous.

Rogue was to be my surviving IVF knitting* and I don’t see that happening anymore. The fact that I don’t have anything else on the agenda to do instead is making me feel rather edgy, panicky even. The next two projects on my to do list are for other people’s babies and I am just not sure I can work on them while actively doing IVF, I feel like it ought not to matter but it does. Perhaps I will luck out with a different colour in the Jo Sharp Tweed, perhaps Apricot Jacket may make an unexpected return to the top of my to do list….

*The critera being that it was for me, that it was challenging and that it was likely to take more time than the IVF to complete.

Jo Sharp is apparently out to get me. Revenge perhaps for my disapproving comments regarding the degree to which my Cabled Jacket pilled with just two weeks wear. I have been swatching for Rogue and it has taken six goes to get it nearly right. According to the label Jo Sharp Aran Tweed should knit up at 18 st to 4ins/10cm on a 5mm/US8 needle. I think of myself as an average to tight knitter, I was worried I might end up on a 5.5mm, so when we left Sydney I packed my 4.5mm, 5mm and 5.5mm Addis just to be sure. HA!

I finally ended up on a 3.25mm, or US 3, given the Boye needles are in US sizes. That is five sizes smaller than the recommended needle. Pre washing I am actually getting 18.5 st to 4in using the US3s, but that is a hell of a lot closer than the 14 st I was getting on the US8s!

I so don’t want to knit Rogue on my Boye interchangables. I like them, but not that much. Rouge needs Addis, heck this yarn needs Addis - it is so sticky that even aluminium is painfully slow, I shudder to think what it would be like on bamboo. Knowing that I intend to knit Rogue on Addis come hell or high water it was a bit pointless continuing to swatch when I ran out of them and had to move onto the interchangeable needles but I just couldn’t help myself. I had to know roughly what size I was going to need. After all, I told myself, I might need to order new needles (ahh the lure of shopping). I do have 3.25mm Addis, so I may be ok, but really I won’t know that until I get home, swatch again and wash that swatch too. Ugh.

Has anyone else had this much trouble getting gauge with JS Silk Road Aran Tweed? I don’t recall anything but happy knitting with the DK Tweed.

Back to Jesse’s hat and scarf. And I will be making sure to get a copy of Harry Potter for the drive home because there won’t be any knitting to do once that hat and scarf are finished, and they may yet be done before we leave….

*I did take photos of my swatches but the card reader has gone missing so I am unable to share them with you. That’s what happens when my mother and Jesse’s mother get together and tidy up our makeshift office (oh you mean that’s the kitchen table?)!

So last night I cast on 34 stitches of double rib in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran to make Jesse a scarf. This thing is nearly knitting itself, I knit the first ball last night and a ball and half tonight so I am about 75-80% done. The cashmerino is just divine to knit with. I took about 40 photographs of it this morning (after the first ball). I was outdoors, under a nicely overcast sky and not one, not a single one, of those photos is worth sharing.

Today we decided to delay our return to Sydney by three days so this is well and truly going to be done before we leave, heck I may even have a matching hat done before we leave. And you know what that means - nothing but Rogue the whole way home. Well, if I can get myself organised to get to a book store there may be a little Harry Potter distraction but I am itching to get started on Rogue. Perhaps I will swatch tomorrow, so I can actually wash my swatch for once, before starting a hat. Impatience to get started has always prevented me from washing swatches but I really want Rogue to fit perfectly and if I have something else (quick) to knit while the swatch dries perhaps I will find the patience.

So, any hat recommendations? The yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (18 st to 10cm/4in) and the hat is to match a simple ribbed scarf.

Bad news: I did run out of yarn, and only about two rows later - so it’s not worth another photo.

Good news: Kangaroo had another ball in the same dye lot!

I am probably only going to need a few meters of the second ball so I decided to order two and make a second Shedir at some point in the future. I am really enjoying the process of knitting Shedir and there are a few people in my life that I think would be pleased to receive one as a gift. For now I am going to knit Jesse a scarf.

If I had written this post this morning the title would have been “The suspense is killing me”. But that was when I thought I had a prayer of completing Shedir with just one ball of yarn. Now I am absolutely certain that it is not going to happen. You can see how much yarn I have (or don’t have as the case may be) and there are 25 rows left to knit, sure they get shorter and shorter, but still…

I have called Up Country Yarn, where I bought the first ball and they don’t have any, though they did say I have a good chance of finding a ball as it is apparently quite a recent dyelot number. Since then I have emailed pretty much every UK distributor of Rowan yarns listed on the Rowan website. Hopefully I will find another ball somewhere. If not I guess I will have to rip back and remove the fifth repeat of the pattern before the decreases start. For now I am just going to keep knitting until I run out of yarn.

I have to say I am finding this yarn/pattern combination very soothing. It is so deliciously soft to touch and I can’t rush the knitting, but neither is it dragging or tiresome. Perhaps it helps that I am new enough to cables to find the way it all weaves together quite magical, then again I suspect I may always find cables quite magical

I have been coveting a pair of these shoes for three years, when I first started thinking about them my desire was purely for the extreme comfort of Birkenstocks without the extreme clunkiness of some of the classic Birkenstock styles. But I was worried about whether I could come to terms with wearing mary janes pretty much all the time (because I will wear them all the time, at least in winter), I worried about how I would feel having socks peaking out through a hole in my shoes.

One guess as to my first thought when I tried them on at my favourite shoe store last week. Yep, you guessed it. Must. Knit. Socks. Finding sock yarn just became a priority in my life.

Pattern: Cabled Jacket by Debbie Bliss from The Cashmere Collection
Yarn: Jo Sharp Silkroad Ultra in Seafoam
Needles: 6.5mm Crystal Palace bamboo circular

I am sorry these photos were so long coming, trying to co-ordinate a second pair of adult hands to take the photos, decent light and a reasonable background has been challenging to say the least. A pilling problem added to the mix only made things worse. But here they are at last.

I have to say I love this sweater, it is so warm and cosy and fits so well. I kept finding excuses to wear it in Sydney, despite it’s being completely inappropriate for the weather, and I have hardly taken it off during the week since arriving in Adelaide. For all that I love this cardigan I have to say that it has a rather serious pilling problem. I had to scrape this ball of fluff off it this afternoon before taking these photos.

So, my notes on the Debbie Bliss Cabled Jacket - think about using smaller needles and probably steer clear of Jo Sharp Silkroad Ultra. The pattern calls for a 7.5mm needle and I have used a 6.5mm, however the design is much more fitted in the arms than the body so I nearly ran into trouble with the arm scyes. I think the 7.5mm recommended in the pattern is too big for my taste/size but as happy as I am with my sweater a 7mm may have been a better choice than the 6.5mm I used. The Jo Sharp Silkroad Ultra is lovely to knit with and beautiful to wear, but given the degree to which it “relaxes”* with the first wash and the pilling I don’t think I will be using it again, for anything. I know that Steph used Rowanspun Chunky for her Cabled Jacket and I don’t believe she has mentioned a pilling problem so I would probably think about using that if I were to make another one. And finally, I would also knit a longer collar. My collar is the suggested length and yet it seems somewhat shorter than I was expecting. I would probably unpick this one and knit a couple of inches more if my remaining yarn weren’t cut up into small pieces.

*To say that Jo Sharp Ultra “relaxes” is something of an understatement, if you do use it make a big swatch and block it because your gauge will change.

Isabelle was adorable at cousin C’s party, she slept beautifully right up to the third hip hip horray as the formalities started late in the evening. Though she did toss around a bit, first covering her head and exposing her feet and then getting too hot and throwing the covers off. Apparently at one point she also woke up, looked at Jesse and then pulled the covers over her face and went back to sleep.

C is a member of the university choir, at a guess 70 - 80% of the guests were choir members, or at least it sounded that way. Have you ever heard Happy Birthday sung by a large choir? It was just magical.

Once the usual birthday singing and formalities were done the choir sang again, doing a stunning rendition of a song I had not heard before so I can’t tell you it’s name. I was trying to pat Isabelle back to sleep at the time and I had my back to them, but it was so beautiful that I was very surprised to turn around and find they were all still seated at their tables and not standing together on the other side of the room. It seemed to me to be a wonderful 21st gift for a musician, such beautiful singing especially for her.

There were two or three more songs as the evening went on which involved the entire choir clapping as well as singing and Isabelle gave up trying to get back to sleep. She migrated to Jesse’s knee just in time for pavlova and chocolate cake.