Knitting in the midst of the summer

The weather has been beautiful, it’s been slightly hotter than I can handle but then again, I’m fair and pale and so I was never built for the sun.  The sunshine has been gorgeous though, the garden is loving it and so are the pugs.

Quick pug update: Lola and Ethel are getting on marvellously and our household feels complete again.  We loved our little Ethel the moment we met her and she’s turned out to be the friendliest and most fun-loving pug we’ve ever met.

So whilst in the midst of this brilliant summer heat, what have I been doing in my spare time?  Why knitting of course.  Any knitter knows that you always have to be ahead of yourself or you simply can’t fit it all in, so little time, so much to knit.  Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on Winter knits, so I’ve done a little more on the Marin shawl, finished a floppy winter hat and now I’m knitting another snood, which happens to be my favourite winter wear item.  This is another Toft Alpaca snood and as my chunky moss kit snood is my most worn item in the winter I couldn’t resist adding this to my collection.  The Hyacinth snood is a slightly tricky knit if you don’t like basic lace knitting and can’t get your head around a purl 5 together stitch, but after the first few rows the patterns starts to show itself and then all you can do is work your way through the 17 pattern repeats whilst listening to a good audio book (we’re on the Amber Spyglass at the moment.) The Fine alpaca yarn is wonderful to knit with too, it’s strong and light and I’m completely in love with the colour, which is called Steel.