After finishing the thumb and beginning on the next stretch of the second fingerless glove, I ran clean out of DK merino. I can’t remember if it was squishy or scrumptious or merino superwash.

Because there are now so many breaks in the yarn, (each finger is knit with a seperate stretch of yarn…) I am disinclined to unpick the gloves and re-knit the yarn. I have therefore contacted Fyberspates to see if there is any more of this colourway left to buy, or to find out if I can buy some undyed stuff and dye it myself in order to complete the project.

My plan for approximating the colourway is this:

*knit up a gauge swatch on the same size needles
*tie cotton around the places where colours begin to pool/fade etc.
*unravel the gauge swatch and see from the cotton-ties where exactly each dye begins and ends
*tie the yarn into a skein based on these approximations, exposing roughly the right amount of yarn to each colour bath
*mix up dye baths and dye according to placement of cotton

The bit I’m least worried about is approximating the colours. I’m nearly sure I can do it with food-dyes, based on Liz’ post a few weeks back, where she made a similar colourway with good old Supercook. I will be looking through her notes in detail.

All this for roughly 30g of yarn to finish a project.

Is it worth it? To me, somehow, it is. I am loving these gloves, the colourway, the using up of the river-stole leftovers and the joy of the warm gloves on my sore hands. I will have to elasticate the wrist-bands (which I shortened to save on yarn) and although this yarn-dyeing feels a bit time-consuming, the satisfaction of finishing things is what I need at the moment. In a similar vein, the Tatami is coming out when today’s work is done and in solidarity with Liz’ massive knitting project (31,000+ stitches before 9th December!) shall knit until it’s finished.

Then the Xmas knitting starts; a chunky-weight jumper for Mark, a Jayne hat for Edward, (my brother) and assorted other knitting. I want to be knitting for Mark at the moment and the quick knitting of the DK yarn for the gloves made me think a sweater in an even thicker yarn would be totally manageable. I no longer care about the sweater curse; the big love and the need to express it now, more than at other times, is very strong.

On a related note, thanks to you all so much for the love and support and concern regarding our recent bereavement. The Church yesterday was packed with people and there were a lot of tears, but also a lot of love. The service Ruth had planned was full of reminders of the preciousness of life and the importance of our families and friends. Though these reminders don’t abate the depth of loss or the sorrow of grieving, they do make sadness more bearable.

It has helped me lately to have such kind friends and I am looking forward to seeing many of you on Saturday. Bring friends, knitting, wine and joy. It will be good to see you all. Thanks, and love.