Stuff

I was mid-phonecall with sueb yesterday afternoon, when I belatedly realised that midnight had arrived early - the sky was pitch, inky black, and there were distant growls of thunder. I did have the good sense at that point to switch off the pc, but carried on gasbagging on the cordless phone.....

Massive, overhead crack of thunder, lights flicked of and then on again, phone went out - at least, I thought it had, but even after several seconds, there we were, still talking to one another. I was amazed that somehow the transatlantic connection survived the break! However, I did then realise that staying on the line was perhaps not the most sensible of ideas, so....didn't.

Wow, am I glad I hung up! It turned out to be one of the (UK-style) super thunderstorms that there were some of earlier in the year. The lightning flick-flick-flickered, and the thunder rolled round and round and round. Must have lasted for an hour, all told. Pretty heavy rain, too. In fact, it was probably just about the worst storm that I ever remember in this country. (Have come across worse in Europe - pink and green lightning is pretty amazing, that was in France years ago, and last summer in Colorado we had a couple of beauties.)

Despite all the rain yesterday, I finally managed to get my now-forest-green merino and silk yarn dry, and have sampled for a shrug. I really did do an actual for-real sample, all of two inches by two inches, and now am doing the more normal for me sort of sample of casting on and seeing how it goes. The yarn is in fact rather nice. Higher in silk content than I had thought, so very light in weight although chunky in grist, and with a good sheen. The "design" is for moss stitch cuffs, a moss stitch border, stocking stitch body. I have increased with yarn overs for two rows and may put in another one when I can either find our "Denise" circs set, or wrest the regular one the DSM is using from his hands when he gets back from work. I'm sure he could use something else. I'm thinking about shaping it slightly, scalloping the bottom edge downwards at centre back. Assuming that it looks ok after a few more rows.

I need a pic, don't I?