Hayley Mills, in the Bingo Room, with a Knitting Needle

Posted on February 12, 2024 by knitigatingcircumstances

Did any of you see the new episode of Death in Paradise last night? In it, Hayley Mills (that’s right – Hayley Mills!) was the unfortunate murder victim, stabbed to death with her own knitting needle. With apologies to the boardgame Clue (Cluedo over on this side of the pond), in which you guess the identity of the murderer not the victim, I couldn’t resist thinking “It was Hayley Mills, in the Bingo Room, with a Knitting Needle”. Hee hee.

Two things struck me right away. First, that was the most un-lethal knitting needle I’ve ever seen. Where did the prop people even find that? Second, I guess knitting has moved up in the eyes of mystery show writers. You see, in a tongue-in-cheek post I wrote some years ago I noted that the show Midsomer Murders, which is shot locally, usually features multiple members of a club or society getting killed off. Beware anyone who joins a club or has a hobby in Midsomer! Interestingly, there is no episode killing off knitters. I wrote:

All of these years of hobbyists meeting their premature end in ever creative fashion, and no knitting club. Perhaps, I thought, this is the true definition of a hobby. Not that an alien would adopt it in order to blend in, but that by taking it up you would meet an untimely death in Midsomer. If that is so, I am pleased to declare that knitting is not a hobby. Which means, of course, that it must be a spot of self-care.

I suppose to be completely accurate, in this episode the hobby was Bingo, not knitting, so I am pushing this metaphor. Still, we knitters are moving up there in the Murder mystery genre. Our beloved knitting needles have reached the same status as the rope, lead pipe, and candlestick! Hayley Mills, in the Bingo Room, with a Knitting Needle indeed!

Of course, I reckon that it’s still a spot of self-care.

Whose hat is it anyway?

Posted on February 10, 2024 by knitigatingcircumstances

Today I took my new hat out for a spin.

Who would imagine that this is what it looks like once its been knitted and blocked?

Does this look like a hat to you? There is no opening in which to put one’s head. But then, you tuck one half into the other, and voila! You either end up with a white hat with a blue brim, or you can turn it inside out and you have a blue hat with a white brim. Magic!

It really is a lovely hat, and the wool is soft and bouncy. I used the pattern A.N.T. (A New Take) by Aimee DeBaun, with a couple of skeins of wool from stash, which I had purchased in Copenhagen a few years ago.

It has a very nice crown:

Since the hat is a double layer of wool, and the brim is a quadruple layer of wool, it is very warm and cozy.

But wait, what can this be?

Someone has nicked my hat! And he is brazenly wearing it! He looks rather pleased with himself, no? I hesitate to say it, but…..it looks great on him!

Whose hat is it anyway?

Piping hot temporarily cools

Posted on February 4, 2024 by knitigatingcircumstances

I’ve got a lot going on right now, and as a result, I’m spending less time knitting. I am fully hoping to devote lots of time to knitting in the second half of the year, but until then, as a chronicle of knitting, this blog leaves something to be desired.

I finished the body of my piping hot sweater weeks ago:

I am worried it is a bit short, and that I may need to rip the ribbing back and add an inch or two to the length. I sensibly decided to wait until after it is blocked to make that decision. In the meantime, it has been sitting in a pile on the coffee table in front of my sofa, giving me occasional exasperated looks and trying to make me feel guilty. Sorry, piping hot, I am not falling for this manipulative behaviour!

In the spirit of having something mindless (and small) on the needles, I decided to cast on for a hat. Everyone these days seems to be churning out double layered hats with a fold up brim; there are quite a few patterns out there to choose from. I decided to use the A.N.T. (A New Take) pattern by Aimee DeBaun. This pattern starts in the middle with a provisional cast-on, and then you knit up to the crown, pick up the provisional stitches with the second colour, and finally knit the second side down to the crown. I found some nice yarn in my stash which I had purchased some years ago in Copenhagen, and cast on. I am nearly ready to start the crown shaping on the second side:

It doesn’t look like a hat, of course, until the one side is folded into the other and the brim turned up. Trust me, it will look pretty cool when finished. The important thing for me at the moment is that it is fairly mindless TV knitting, all you do is knit around and around and around in stockinette:

The fact that I am not doing much knitting doesn’t mean that I am not finding time to dream about knitting, which has led me to make two purchases today. The first is to join a Pressed Flowers KAL with the lovely folks at A Yarn Story in Bath (which starts tomorrow). I am rationalising that I don’t need to actually keep up with the KAL, but it does give me a reason to have a weekly zoom chat with other knitters, which I think will do my poor lonely knitter’s soul some good. Also, I am pretty sure I have something in my stash that will work. I will start a swatch during the first call. I’m not sure yet whether to knit the cardigan or pullover (or the vest, for that matter). It will depend a lot on the swatch.

The second was to pre-order the new book by Kate Davies and Felicity Ford, Colour at Work. They are both so creative and I am really looking forward to reading this book in which they, together with some fantastic collaborators, explore colour.

I took the bus home from work on Friday and noticed that the sun is setting later in the day. It may be grey and windy today, but that extra few minutes of daily light is definitely impacting my mood. Have a good Sunday, everyone!