Lost in Translation

On the last full day we spent in France I dragged City Boy to a couple of yarn shops I’d spotted in Eperany to buy some yarn, ostensibly as a souvenir. I’m fully aware that this is not the entire truth, and the yarn hunting expedition was actually due to the fact that I will grab any opportunity to justify the purchase, to both myself and City Boy, of yet more yarn.

I didn’t have any knitting plans in mind, so I was just looking for some sock yarn. However, after I realised that my French sock knitting vocabulary was limited to “ummm...Chausettes?”, which didn’t appear to be understood by the shop owner, I gave up on that idea and let her sell me some unusual looking yarn which came with a leaflet to make a scarf.

It wasn’t until I got back to the hotel that I realised exactly how unusual, and why a ball of yarn needed to come with 2 sides of instructions.

You have to poke the needle through the holes rather than cast on properly, and then sort of knit one edge of the ‘net’ to another edge, and layer it up back and forth. There’s not much you can do with this except a garter stitch scarf. The technique was much easier than I’ve made it sound, and in fact was quite a fun, easy project that didn’t require too much concentration and in about four hours I had made a scarf.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about the finished object. It’s not something I would wear, but my mum likes unusual accessories and she has a birthday coming up next month, so I think I’ll add it in as an extra little pressie. Besides, she’s my mum so she has to like anything I make for her – it’s in the mum rule book.