Bamboozled

It seems bizarre to be back posting about knitting in the face of possibly 300 deaths from the fires many of which are still burning but I can only take so much horror. I seriously need a little normality in my life in the midst of the stories of loss and heartbreak

so without any intention of trivialising the past week:

you may remember that I was knitting a tinkered with version of the Posh Wedding Shrug in finer yarn/needles. The bamboo was bearable to knit with in the 46C heat, and I don't know that there are too many other yarns that I could say that of ... even cotton is unpleasant at those sort of temperatures.
Let's hear it for bamboo - not only is it the ultimate eco-friendly completely renewable resource [ and in case you didn't know: a 60' bamboo can replace itself in 2 months !!!!] but it's nice to work with, has a beautiful drape, is lovely to wear in stinking hot weather AND has in-built antibacterial and antifungal properties that reputedly survive around 50 washes.

The shrug went along quite well when it was too hot to do much else - strange really: I could knit lace but couldn't concentrate enough to do my other favourite low-energy activity - which is to read.

The picot cast-off edging took forever to do but looks good and I'll get a decent photo of the object itself when there is someone up here to model it, because a shrug that isn't on a bod is a damn hard thing to get a decent shot of, I'm here to tell you.

Since then I've also made these little mitts which are sorta kinda my Travelling Vine mittens [ free pattern link over there in the sidebar ]because it's the same lace as the shrug. The yarn weight is the same as the blue ones in the pattern but I went down a size on the needle - unintentionally - and made a few mods. There are fewer rows of wrist ribbing ... which in fact I would leave out completely next time, the lace continues over the palm, I left off the garter stitch detailing at the thumb opening and not as deep a lace band over the back of the hand seeing these are purely to look cute and pretty and not to keep the hands warm.
I was going to do the picot cast off to match the shrug along the top and around the thumb.
Well, not 'going to do' ... I DID do it ... but it rolled something shocking, so I frogged it back and did a conventional sewn down picot hem.


Did I say "a FEW mods"? I guess they're really a whole different pattern.
I may have to write this one up [ without that wrist ribbing ], before I forget what I actually did.

and NOTE TO SELF: Self, old dear, you really don't have photo worthy digits - get a shot of Nadie wearing these!