A taste of Entrelac

Hello again,

July appears to be carrying on where June left off, depressing and wet!

Thinking back to my childhood I can't remember it ever being so miserable for so long - that must make me a child of the 70's! My memories are of being outside all day playing with friends or spending time with my horses.

This year has been so bad that we've had the wood burner on several evenings this month, more for the psychological benefit than heat, as it's never actually been cold!  That said, we are fortunate to have had no flooding where we live and my thoughts are with those who have suffered badly with the torrential rain we have been experiencing recently.

Hubby has just finished making his first batch of strawberry jam of the season - there is simply nothing as tasty as freshly made jam on toast for breakfast!  We've got an induction hob, so need to use a large soup pot for jam making purposes rather than a traditional pan.

I subscribe to the Knitting Daily email and most of the time I simply delete the email without so much as a second glance. Knitting inspiration doesn't come very often...or last very long for that matter. A recent tidy of boxes in the loft from when we moved house 5 years ago turned up at least 6 different pieces of unfinished knitting!

On Friday something caught my eye as I was skimming my daily email - Entrelac. More from curiosity than anything else, I googled it. "Google it" is now a favourite phrase in this house since the arrival of the iPad. I do love the iPad for the speed and convenience of accessing information.  If I had to turn the laptop on every time I needed information, I fear I would have forgotten what I was looking for before it had fired up - is that a "nearing 40" affliction?!

It's also great for the kids - when they ask a question that you don't immediately know the answer to (or only have limited knowledge of) tell them to google it. Not only does it expand their knowledge beyond that which I am likely to provide, it encourages them to seek, find and interpret information for themselves.

So, returning to the Entrelac. Once I had established what it was, I just had to give it a try, as I had seen examples of it at a craft fair some time ago and had set out to find out the technique.  Whilst my knitting is normally restricted to the long nights of winter, the weather gave me an excuse to try it out.

I had some leftover DK merino from another project handy, so decided to use that.

Having set out to learn the technique, I carried on as I was enjoying it and interested in how the finished article would look.  Before too long, I had a big enough piece to make a cover for my daughter's kindle - it got me all the way through the Wimbledon final and into the evening! What a fantastic effort from Andy - I do get so annoyed with those armchair experts who seek to criticise his efforts.  No, I won't start on that, I'm here to talk knitting!

I finished off the open edge with a border of crochet in a contrasting colour and well, that's it, for the moment anyway - a snugly kindle cover!

A quick and satisfying project

I might add a button or two along the open edge, but that can be added later. Having mastered the basic technique I'd definitely do it again, but I'd quite like to use Noro this time and let the wool do the work.

I might also experiment with smaller and larger squares - a cushion cover perhaps...

Bye for now,

Take care.

H