Lots of goodies!

The envelopes

This morning I found several envelopes awaiting me on my desk, all of them from the UK.
There was a used book (part of a fantasy series by Harry Turtledove of which the first three had been translated in italian while the other three were left untranslated. I got the second.hand books through Abebooks), 12 and 15 mm needle tips for my Denise set (I alteady have them for my KnitPro, but the Denise cords support much better the weight involved with bulky and extrabulky knitting so I decided to get these new tips) and a lovely spindle from Deborah Gray.

Books, needle tips and that lovely spindle

It's one of her Deluxe Spindles, individually turned by artisan Murray Dunan in Auchterarder, not very far north of Edinburgh. The spindle is made for bottom whorl spinning and sports an elegant thistle head finish on the shaft to anchor the yarn with a half-hitch for spinning bottom-whorl (thistle is Scottish national flower, which always makes me think about inviting some Scottish people to a bagna cauda dinner with lots of cardi gobbi stalks to dip in the garlic, oil and anchovy sauce). I requested a small personalization and Mr Dunan fixed a hook on the shorter end of the shaft for top-whorl spinning, since I am pretty good at using the half-hitch on the longer end of the shaft, but I suck at top-whorl half-hitching. Mr Dunan then offered me an extra treat by making my own spindle a very special one with a wonderfully patterned whorl made ith some special wood. And I love it. Really! I mean, check out how beautiful it is!
And, yes, it came padded in lots of wool...

The ogival issue continues

Finding it totally impossible to knit with the ogival tipped needles on Saturday I decided to go hunting for a new set of dpns. Unfortunately it seems that in Milano it's nearly impossibe to lay hold of an half-decent set. After touring half of the shops I finally hit a paleozoic seller who had these alluminium needles dating probably to the 1950's. Something a knitter from the US or UK would probably regard as a vintage piece and which here are to be considered the state of the art. They are longer and heavier than I would have liked, but at least they have dull but acceptable conical tips with which I can even cable without a cable needle. Yet, when on Sunday I swatched some yarn on my knitpro set I almost cried at how unbelievably easier it is to knit with proper tools.

Ogival

Damn you, horrible ogival-tipped 4.5 mm dpns, that make it impossible to cable wihout cable needle and cause me to knit looser then I'd like. You will be substituted. I think I never hated knitting with anything as much as with you.