Back To The Yarn

There I was outdoors, photographing some crochet for this blog post, determined that Robyn-the-robin wasn’t going to hijack another post, when guess who zoomed, screeching, past my head demanding food? I didn’t manage to get any decent pictures of her this time (she can be standoffish on days when I’ve selfishly abandoned her to go to work) so here’s an eight-second video from the other day. If you follow my Instagram, you’ll have seen a similar clip already. Was that a shameless attempt to persuade you to follow my Instagram? Why yes, since you ask, it was!

She eats from my hand, too, but she does it so fast that it’s hard to focus the camera in time. Still, here’s a marvellously in-focus view of our shed:-

But yeah, knitting and crochet.

Far too slowly, I’m knitting another Trip To Town cardigan, this time for my friend Alice. Fortunately, Alice’s many qualities include great patience. I’m trying to hurry up because it’s nearly her birthday, but the flaw in that otherwise brilliant plan is that this cardigan was supposed to be a gift for her last birthday. As I said, Alice’s qualities include patience… as well as tolerance of incompetent friends.

I do recommend the pattern, by the way. It’s an easy knit. It’s free via the Drops website. Here’s the previous one I knitted, all finished and ready to be worn on chilly mornings as I walk the twinnage to school:-

There’s been some literary crochet, too. Many months ago, my friend Jo texted to ask the name of my favourite novel. I was busy and distracted when her message appeared – probably peeling the twinnage off the ceiling or something similar – so I quickly replied recommending Barbara Kingsolver’s book, The Poisonwood Bible, and thought no more about it. I assumed she was looking for ideas for what to read next.

But then many weeks later on my birthday, a large package appeared. It contained a great deal of yarn (Stylecraft Special DK) wound into cakes, and some detailed notes. This isn’t even all of it, because I’ve started hooking…

This, my friends, is on its way to becoming the blanket of The Poisonwood Bible. YOU’VE READ THE BOOK, YOU’VE WATCHED THE FILM, NOW CHILL OUT ON THE SOFA UNDER THE BLANKET!

Jo had picked through the book, allocating yarn colours to characters and events and places, planning a corner-to-corner crochet blanket of the whole novel. Along with seven large cakes of yarn, she gave me her detailed notes.

Such was Jo’s dedication to the cause that she found herself in a yarn shop, pondering questions such as “I wonder what colour would best represent malaria.” Stylecraft have yet to add a ‘Malaria’ shade to their Special DK range (must have a word with them about that), but Jo settled on orange. Fair enough.

So I’m crocheting, and I’m having fun, and soon I’ll have an entire novel, if Robyn-the-robin will give me a minute to myself…

Happy yarnery, people.

Phil x