I've got an unexpected afternoon off - so moaning constantly about all your extra time does pay off! On top of my normal hours I've had to work for 3 Saturdays, last Sunday, between 11pm and 1am yesyerday and also at 2am on Monday morning! Also I might have to work this coming Sunday. It's not as bad as it sounds because it's not constant work, but it is tiring.

I had yesterday off too and I decided to go down to London's SouthBank to find a new knitting shop I'd heard about on the side of the Oxo tower called Eco-Annie. Annie sells yarn that (I think) she spins herself from all kinds of rare breed organic sheep. Also she sells recycled cotton that she's dyed herself. It's all lovely stufff. I bought 3 balls of yarn:

UK Alpaca 70% Blueface Leicester 30% - a beautiful black and fabulously soft. It's quite pricy at £10 for 100mg - but this is my favorite. I might get enough for a jumper.
Swaledale 100g Aran - Cream with black flecks. I think this would make fabulous gloves or scalves
Manx Loghton - Worsted 4ply 50g - brown. This would make a good sock yarn.

I love wool from yorkshire as I spent so much time there when I was young - hiking with my friends and staying in youth hostels. We saw so many sheep - maybe they were the great great great grandmothers of the sheep that produced the Swaledale wool!

While I was at Southbank I popped into the Anthony Gormly exhibition. It was very enjoyable - the kind of exhibition which it full of sensations. I'd quite like to go again with a friend. There is a box full of steam which you walk into. Once your inside you can't see the floor, the sides, where the door is or the tips of your fingers! It's actually quite frightening so I didn't stray too far from where I thought the door was. If someone else had been with me I might have been a bit braver but I could imagine wandering around and around the box for hours not being able to escape. Also there are casts of Anthony gormley's body all around Southbank which are stood on the edge of buildings and in the street - it actually seems quite sinister.


Back to knitting. I've started a new sock project - I'm knitting Mona Schmidt's Embossed Leaves Socks from the Interweave Favorite Socks book. I love the pattern so I cast on yesterday and so far have only finished the ribbing. I used the 1x1 Rib Cast-On which was new to me and took afew goes to get right. Now, of course, it seems like the easiest thing!

My cardigan project, Ziggy, has been pretty much a disaster. It just doesn't look like it would ever be anything that I would like to wear.

Things that worked well were:
1. The fit was good
2. A garter stich button band with short rows to give it the same gauge (lengthwise) as the st st
3. In a different cardigan with thinner wool I think that the lace bands around the neck would look nice. I imagine that they could look add emphasis to the wearers face.

Things that worked badly were:
1. The colour and the yoke patterning made the thing look childlike or maybe 'old lady' like
2. The two patterns (lace and the zig-zags) looked wrong together
3. I think to look neater you'd have to stck to doing the increases after 8 rows - not then change it to every 10 rows or it looks a bit messy (I'd have to work this one out!)

The actual round necked yoke design has worked OK. For future reference I cast on 100 st including 6 st per front for the button band (5 plus 1 slipped stich).
I increased every 8th or so row evenly arond the cardigan calculating the number of stiches to be added as 8 for every second row. Therefore on the 8th row I added (8/2) * 4 = 16 stiches. I ended up with 338st and a length to the underarm of 10". I then divided for the body using percentages and then worked out an even number of repeats of 9 stiches per secton.
28% back (46cm) was 94st
23% per sleeve (40cm) was 84st
13 % per front exclding the button band (20cm) was 44st

So I've got a new idea - this time as a fitted shoulder sweater and yes - with the zig zag design.