Back in the Race

Betcha any money I don't win a prize in the TDF KAL draw this week but I'll keep mentioning the knitalong and keep hoping that as I'm offering such LOVELY prizes in my competition, the yarn fairies will smile on me and I'll finally win something....
This weekend I wasted a whole day trying to dye the silk for my 'Skin of the Sea' only to discover that neither Food Grade nor Acid dyes will give strong colours on silk - what I need are Cold Water Reactive dyes so 'Skin of the Sea' will have to wait until I get hold of some.
So I decided to find an 'old bike' aka Glade and finish it.

Here's the story so far - I knitted the fronts, back and both sleeves in record time before reading about all the problems other knitters were having with gauge, getting the edging to fit and using too much yarn. I blocked and measured and measured again and weighed the yarn I had left. Conclusion? My tension had loosened after blocking so my pieces were too big, the length of the arms was way too long and I wasn't going to have enough yarn to finish.... I frogged the back piece and put Glade in a plastic bag upstairs.

I had already endured one evening with no knitting and it was terrible - I suffered real withdrawal symptoms and drank too much alcohol. Glade was resurrected on Friday 13th and I have re-knitted almost the whole back. This time I am knitting two sizes smaller to compensate for my tension and I was hoping that this would also generate some extra yarn with which to complete the edging. Looks like I was wrong..... The amount of extra yarn required for a Size 14 vs a Size 10 is almost zilch so I will have to consider a) frogging the sleeves and knitting them shorter (at least that way they won't be too long) and/or b) shortening the edging on the sleeves so as to use less yarn.

Either way Glade could take until the end of the Tour de France to complete so it is now my official Green Jersey project. I will also be dyeing my silk though and my Zephyr Laceweight has arrived so I must catch up with Mystery Stole 3 - there is no clue this Friday in honour of Harry Potter and although I pre-ordered my copy and it will be delivered on SATURDAY morning ( if the Royal Mail decide to deliver on time this week of course) I must take advantage of the spare week to catch up. With all these projects on the go maybe I should swap to 'King of the Mountains' group instead...
Keep checking back - the competition statistics are updated daily along with a new photo every time I take one that's amusing or interesting enough to warrant being posted.