knitting neels

I have had many encounters with spiders recently. I am as much of a fan of multiple legs running across my skin as the next person but I go out of my way to keep spiders alive. Creepy though they may be, they are very useful around the house. The evening before I left for work I brought in a load of washing from the line outside. By the time I got indoors, I had five tiny spiders hanging from my glasses. A few days ago, I came back from lunch and was halfway through an exam when a tiny spider lowered itself from my forehead. I blew it off my page only to have another abseil down off my glasses… and then another. The night before last, I was lying in bed reading my book when a very large hairy one slowly crept up over the top of my book (I’m sorry but not even I can help screaming in that situation). This morning I came in to find a sodden-looking spider floating in my jug of water. I fished him out with my finger to find he was still alive. I left him on the table cloth and periodically gave him a poke to make sure he was ok. He disappeared shortly before I finished for lunch. Am I giving off some sort of arachnid hormone or something?

I have been knitting away. I finished my Noro socks but can’t sew up the last toe because I don’t have a darning needle with me! I’m happy with how they turned out, though, and the Harmony DPNs were really lovely to work with.

I was working on my Coastlines top, the one with the lace yoke detail, but the silk has gotten completely and utterly knotted up in my handbag. I’ve left it to one side until I have sanity spare to deal with it. Just as well I packed something else, isn’t it?

My Tangled Yoke cardigan was on the back burner for a while but the combination of my Harmony needles and not having anything else to knit has really kicked this off again! The needles really handle the Felted Tweed well – just the right amount of stickiness for wool. I have added a lot of length to it already and have just started the increases after the waist. I love the texture of the fabric. I’m finding it eggs me on to keep knitting. In fact, that’s what I’m going to do right now.

11 down, 7 to go.