Knitting for calm.

Despite all the uproar surrounding my baking disasters, I am calmly knitting on. A few days after completing the Icelandic cardigan, I cast on for an Aran cardigan. There is a little story behind the design, and another behind the yarn.



In the late 1970s, I bought a really lovely second-hand Aran cardigan at a church fete. It was short, for the time, not quite hip-length. A very simple pattern, some cables and twists, with one lobster claw braid either side of the front. Natural white, with neat square leather buttons. I loved it, and wore it to death. Despite always looking, I have never been able to find a similar pattern

In 1996, my Mother bought some Aran yarn for me. I started to make a long (thigh length) cardigan. The back was straightforward, and quickly completed. The front, however was a different matter. I must have got as far as the armhole six or seven times. Each time, I unravelled it, thinking I had misunderstood the instructions. In the end, it all went into a cupboard, under miscellaneous junk.
This spring, I unearthed it all, and read through the instructions. Ah, the difference experience makes..... the instructions for the top part of the left side had been transposed with the right. I would never have been able to complete the thing!  Anyway, I unravelled the whole thing, wound the yarn into skeins, and washed it.
So, with the reclaimed yarn, now almost vintage, I am trying to recreate the church fete Aran cardi. I am working purely from yarn swatch stitch counts, and intuition.

There was the slightest panic, when I realised that I was missing a gift for a loved relative. Some John Arbon Organic Merino Aran was quickly purchased in Dulverton, at Nimble Fingers.  An ''Intuition Cowl '' was cast on, and  two evenings knitting later, a seasonal-panic-knitting gift completed!