A camel fix

In the last few months, for some reason, I had a craving for camel wool yarn. Not that there would be none in my stash but one needed to be ripped from a sweater failure and redyed (I don't really like the camel colour), another didn't talk to me at the moment so I went on a shopping spree.

It resulted in an acquisition of 150 grams wool/silk/camel/cashmere blend in sort of yellowy white, a cone of wool/camel/baby camel blend which cost arm and leg and which is very fine and I'll have to knit it in several strands. After it is rewound and redyed (the damn beige again).

And I spotted Steppe by Bouton d'Or and Lady Blatt by Anny Blatt. Anny Blatt gets expensive and the Steppe was a bit more than I was willing to pay so after some drooling I just gave up, thinking that 1500 km of yarn is enough.

Some two weeks ago while checking for spring news in the yarn world, I got to the Bouton d'Or website again and the Steppe was on sale. Upon quite some pondering, I acquired 21 balls in four colours. I'm of the opinion that one should get their gifts themselves when there's no certainity that normal gifts will arrive. (1)

I didn't know what I would do with the yarn but somehow, the idea crystallized itself.

The swatch:


Yes, intarsia. I made a gauge swatch and I washed and blocked it. I needed the stitch count in both directions because I needed to manage somehow with the pattern. Usually I only do column gauge (for non-yarny people: how many stitches are there horizontally per 10 cm) but this time I needed the row gauge (how many rows are there per 10cm) so that I could calculate the size of the triangles. I managed somehow, cast on, messed it up, cast on again, messed it up in a different way which is however fixable later on, knitted some...




and as I took the yarn with me to my three-day mountain retreat while failing to take two cables I had to manage the non-collaborating mess on one long circular needle. In fact, I did have another cable but the ending got unglued and it would not hold; I did use it for fixing dropped stitches or miscounted pattern. Fixing intarsia is a major pain in the butt, and one that can't get easily fixed by cinchocaine (2), I'm telling you.
I need to transfer the cluster of wool on two long circs to show the whole thing... and I'm afraid I may run out of yarn.

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(1) where normal be defined as things the recipient actually wants, be it for fancy or for need, in colours, sizes and other parametres that befit the tastes and needs of the recipient. Not clothes that will fit perfectly well after the recipient loses ten kilos, or stuff the recipient's mother would gladly wear if she were the age of the recipient.
(2) yes, an ointment for haemorroids lives in my bathroom drawer and travels with me, the gluten thing... well, whatever. It's good for puffy eyes, too.