Further Adventures

I also managed to finish another project without a deadline. This one took me about 6 months. It's the pattern for the Cloister fingerless gloves, and I uploaded it to my Ravelry pattern store yesterday. The charts are cool, look:
I made 2 more pairs, for the purpose of writing this pattern. One pair for Iolanda, who teaches violin at my school and is also my academic secretary and great friend. She likes brown and mauve. I loathe both brown and mauve, but I must say I love these.


The mauve and pale green are in a wonderful yarn that I discovered in Perpignan and spent 100€ stashing up on, Songe by Bouton d'Or. Here's a picture of my lifetime stash thereof.

I've been using a lot of it for one of my Secret Projects. It's so cool. It looks like Mithril once its crocheted up.

And then I still didn't understand my own bloody pattern, so I had to make another pair, this time for myself. I surprised myself by making them both the same: usually I need to make the left glove somehow different from the right so I can keep myself amused looking at my hands in boring faculty meetings. I did make one tiny change in one glove. But that was by mistake.


The pattern for this is done and for sale for 5€ in my Ravelry pattern store. I'm going to try to add a button for it and Veritas Equitas, here on this blog, but it may take me a while. My Blogger skills are pretty limited.

Secret Service Crochet

I'm so sorry I've been away from this blog for so long. I've been crocheting like one possessed all this time, but the bulk of it is top secret. I don't think I'll ever get used to this not being able to share my pretties with the whole world.

But not all of it is top secret. I finished Gryphon for Gryphon. What, after 3 months? Didn't you get that yarn back in October, for Chrissake? Well, the thing is this. All the other projects had scary deadlines. So I had to shelve it 3 times to work frantically on other stuff. And contrary to my assumption, it was not easy to make. Pleasant and delightful, yes, but I had a hell of a time combining the colours just right.


Gryphon sent me this exquisite note card along with a sample of yarn. It's a medieval tapestry depicting the Moirae or Fates. So I said, I'm making the cowl in these colours! Ha! Easier said than done! The wonderful woman dyed up a number of them just for me and sent them. Upon which I discover that I'm not enough of an expert to combine them correctly. As it happens, A+B+C is not at all equal to A+C+B. Did you know that? I didn't. But I do now. What infuriates me is having to achieve success by trial and error, rather than by theoretical knowledge and expertise. The next time this happens it'll have to be trial and error all over again, because I'm not knowledgeable enough about colour theory! Well, enough griping, here's Gryphon for Gryphon just before it goes into the box and off to Maryland.


It's so soft! Luckily I have one of my own to keep (one of my failed test runs!) because I don't think I could live without it. After DH took this picture I totally forgot that I was still wearing it and had it on for hours. Every other cowl I own starts to bother me after a while: either it itches, or it bunches, or it tickles. I guess cashmere and silk is after all cashmere and silk.

Since I've been silent for 3 months I'll post again today.