I cast on for Blithe last summer and knitted much of the front while sitting by the water’s edge on a little island in Sweden. Blissful. Returned home, knitted the back and the…. sleeves…. and then Put It Away.
One of my, many, favourite moments in the tv series “Gavin and Stacey” is when some of the characters are planning to go bowling and invite Dino, who refuses. Of course they chorus, “scared of The Shoes”. Well this time I was Scared of The Sleeves. I had heard many stories of gloom that these sleeves just were not right. So I did the obvious thing, ignored Blithe until the autumn and then put away since it was now not the weather for it.
So at the beginning of this recent heady Easter sun I looked again and tried sewing in the sleeves. Fear became reality and it was clear something was wrong. The sleeve of care indeed. Oh, the raveled sleeve…. quick post on the KH forum and within hours I had the advice I needed, from LizzieD who suggested using the sleeves of Arielle from Misty, which I did.
I knitted one sleeve, sewed up the tiny sleeve seam, used several quilting safety pins, for safety, and to be really sure crossed my fingers
It worked! I quickly knitted the second (well actually of course 4th) sleeve and sewed it in. A soak in Soak, (the Blithe), a lie down in the sunshine (both of us) and here it is
I love it. I wore it to work today, although I had to change at lunchtime due to the change in weather and our office’s full-on air con.
Thank you LizzieD!





had a lovely day on Saturday with my local spinning, weaving and dyeing guild. A day of natural dyeing in a beautiful garden with wise, creative and above all very friendly and hospitable people. I dyed a little bit of merino top with indigo and after I have had enough of patting it, will spin it up and see what it wants to be. (The photo doesn’t actually show my little bit, it was up the other end of the line near to some lovely madder dyeing.)







