In the same weekend that involved the fishing trip, I also met with knitters at the First and Last Pub in Pembroke Dock, where I knew – courtesy of Brenda Dayne’s magnificent podcast – that people were gathering for some WWKIPD action*.

It was great to meet Angie, Elizabeth, Angela and Andrew and to enjoy the specific blend of knitting inspiration, sunshine and beer on offer. I was very excited to see today that Andrew has uploaded the pink handspun pinwheel cardigan he was working on to his flickr; I am intrigued by the construction of the pinwheel cardigan and am contemplating making one myself. And I was reminded – by Angela’s drop-spindling – of my own green handspinning endeavour, which is quietly waiting in a tin for me to finish the podcast series and get back to it. I hope that Elizabeth’s rainbow sock story has a happy ending (she lost the first one in the recycling) and that Angela’s mum makes a full and speedy recovery. It is always very rich, meeting with new knitters. I think it is rich meeting with new people generally, but the knitting is a door-opener; you can get straight to the stories with knitting and I was grateful to be included in the last hour or so of the WWKIPD at the First and Last pub in Pembroke Dock.

The project I was working on during that sunny day is now finished, ravelled here. I’m not really sure what I think of it; it’s somewhere between a stole and a scarf and reminds me of the dresses Queen Elizabeth I wore with its golden lustre and rich blues. It may be altogether too gaudy?

Upsettingly, when I blocked it, some dye ran out of the golden lurex thread and stained the white stuff in the colourwork a sort of nicotine-esque shade of ick, which I am quite gutted about. It doesn’t really show in the photos, but I know it’s there, and it’s annoying. It’s definitely a synthetics-friendly dye, since the angora and the silk are both totally unaffected, whereas the polyamide white baby stuff is stained! Also, the running dye didn’t stain my hands. Any ideas what might remove it?

The scarf came about because I saw these colours together in my stash, and they are all oddballs, and I thought ‘I’d like to play with these.’

They reminded me of the colours in the joyous jumper I made a while back; all golden fields and radiant blue skies and I thought a matching scarf would be amazing. I initially cast on and began a version of the My so called scarf pattern, but I really wasn’t enjoying the way the blue angora and the gold sari silk were looking together, plus the sari silk doesn’t have much stretch in it for the so called scarf stitch pattern and it was not a pleasant experience trying to knit it. So I ripped that out and started experimenting with other things and I realised the sari silk really needs to be knit on massive needles, to get a big drape and to not be tuggged about too much. Moss stitch wouldn’t s–t–r–e–t–c–h out with the weight in the same way stockinette would, plus the little bumps give a nice detail in the texture, even knit large. So I went for moss stitch in the sari-silk and little gold borders between that and the colourwork sections. I knit all the ends in as I went along, since I hate weaving in ends, and I picked up and knit a border all the way around to stabilise the scarf. That took forever! I gave up trying to count how many stitches but it was taking me over an hour to get around it each time at the end and I did the cast off in stages.

So it was a good exercise in playing/experimenting/adventuring, but only time will tell if I will actually ever wear such a thing. Does anyone have any suggestions of what sort of outfit this excessive stole/scarf could become a part of? An ensemble that it may just complete? I’m really not sure that pairing it with my red dotty shirt is helping me to appreciate its true potential, as an accessory.

*Thanks Liz for texting me the specifics when I remembered halfway to Wales that it may be possible to do some public knitting afterall!