I’ve been mitring along on the Mitred Vest most evenings lately. It looked a bit of a mess for a while as I worked around the diamond shaped hole in the back, but once the fabric on either side of the gap was joined together again it regained some structure. Last night I knit the diamond, and suddenly it was back to being one big piece again.

The first ball ran out around 10 or 12 mitres before the back finished, which was much further than I estimated it would go. Once I’ve finished the two fronts, sewn the shoulders together and tried it on I’m going to consider how much yarn is left and if I can add a few more rows of mitres to the bottom.

Though this is slow knitting with tiny needles and thin yarn, I’m yet to grow sick of it. The mitres are interesting enough to keep me, well, interested. And they’re simple enough to do while watching tv.

I’ve begun the Ribbed Wrap Jacket. I can tell this is going to be good tv knitting too.

Once again, I’ve altered the pattern. Looking at finished versions on Ravelry, I noted comments that there seemed to be a lot of sewing. The body is knit from the bottom of the back, up over the shoulders and then in two pieces to the bottom of the fronts. That means side seaming. I’d rather graft together the shoulders, so I’m knitting fronts and back together.

I haven’t decided on a colour for the collar yet, though I like all the suggestions in the comments. Raspberry, light blue or white? I can’t decide, so I figure I’ll make the choice in person. I’ve been carrying around my swatch, but the only yarn store I’ve managed to visit lately is Lindcraft, and they didn’t have the yarn.

I’ve also been experimenting…

The last item on my Sockless Summer list is the Droplet Scarf. I’ve had this idea for a few years now, for a scarf made of icords with little ‘droplet’ bulges down the cords. Yesterday I made a few attempts to create the droplets with no success. They came out all misshapen and were much too fiddly. Then I remembered an article in Yarn magazine about shibori knitting, where you tie objects into the knitting and felt it. The fabric that stretches over the object doesn’t felt and becomes a bulge. So I knitted up some icord and stuffed beads into it. Today I slipped it into a load of washing. It worked. Well, except for one problem.

How do I get the beads out?

I’m thinking I’ll have to plan to leave them in. And then another idea came to me. What if I used little bells instead of beads? Instead of a Droplet Scarf, I could call it the Wind Chime Scarf. I love the idea of the noise it might make as it was felting in the machine.

But I am a little concerned the cat might start chasing me around the house.