To my irritation I have discovered that the knitting pattern I am using for tea cosy composition has been written by an idiot, or at the very least by a person who does not possess a teapot.
The pattern instructs that you cast on a hundred and twelve stitches and knit them in various pattern combinations for fifteen centimetres.
One hundred and twelve stitches gives me a piece of knitting that is about forty centimetres long, and before anybody who actually knows how to knit sends me detailed explanations of mistakes I might have made, I have already checked that I am using the right thickness of wool and also the right size needles and have got the correct tension as described. Therefore any stupid mistakes are not, this time at least probably, mine.
It would have been all right had I not started wondering about casting off for the spout hole and started to read ahead in the pattern, through the mire of psso and K2tog, at which point I discovered that no such arrangement existed. It appeared that what I was supposed to do was to knit another forty centimetre long identical oddly shaped piece for the other side.
The teapot which would fit inside such a construction would have to be shaped rather like the sort of jelly that turns out not to have set properly when you upend the mould.
Also the pattern tells you that you need fifty grams of wool, which is clearly not the case, because I have used that already and I have knitted about an inch of what now appears to be the first half of a tea cosy.
I am now in a dilemma about what to do, whether or not to unpick the wretched thing and start all over again with a more sensible pattern, or whether to keep going and modify this pattern in order to make it fit a real live teapot.
I have thought about this for some time and not reached a conclusion, so I have shoved the whole lot underneath the seat of the taxi and decided to write to you instead.
I am going to have to reach a decision reasonably soon, not because the teapot’s arrival is imminent, which it is not, because I have still got several instalments to go. However I would like it to arrive to a home which has made adequate preparations for its arrival, including a proper tea cosy.
I did consider a set of pretty teaspoons to go with it, but the only ones I really fell in love with were two hundred quid for a set of six and so even I thought that perhaps it might be prudent not to bother, at least not until I win the lottery. In any case, as Mark sensibly observed, since neither of us take sugar or milk, and therefore never bother stirring drinks, they would be a bit expensively superfluous to requirements.
They were lovely teaspoons, though, with delicately enamelled flowers on them, so if anybody of extraordinary wealth ever reads this and thinks they would like to buy me a Christmas present drop me a line and I will send you the catalogue number.
Having resigned myself to a future with only plain teaspoons from the local ironmonger in it I have been getting on with my day, which since it is Sunday has been occupied almost entirely with work.
I will not bore you with soporific yarns of drinking coffee in bed and then ambling about the Library Gardens. If you are a regular reader you will have heard them all before, and if you are not, then don’t worry, if you keep reading then no doubt you will hear them very soon.
Life in Windermere is not so thrillingly varied that I don’t have the space here to include the dull bits, as am sure you can see from the title of this piece. There will be plenty of dull bits to come, I promise, just watch this space.
I will keep you updated about the knitting crisis.
I love to leave readers on the edge of their seats.
