I’m still working at them, between knitting shawls. I have one glove past the end of the thumb gusset. Please excuse the bad picture, but you can see a larger version if you click on this one:

Although I am enjoying knitting these gloves and I do like the way the pattern is developing, I really, really want to knit one of the more famous grid-based Sanquhar patterns like Duke. I couldn’t make them for myself because I’d have had to mess around with the pattern too much to make it fit my narrrow hand, or aim for a gauge of 15 or more sts/in. Fortunately, Rys has volunteered to let me knit him a pair, which with his big hands will only be about 11 sts/in, and he has even promised to wear them if I get the fit right.

We happened to be in John Lewis yesterday. Our friend Diana, who works in their yarn department, had told us about a yarn that might be suitable for his gloves, Rowan’s 4-ply Yorkshire Tweed. I think she is right, as it is not machine washable so although it is not as ‘clingy’ as the Shetland I’m using for mine, I think the floats will bed down nicely once it is washed. Rys chose the combination of Oceanic and Dessicated. ["dessicated"? what kind of name is that for a yarn colour?!?!]

While we were in John Lewis, two little fellows followed us home:

… and talking of being followed home by sheepies, my friend Jan, who was also my first formal spinning tutor, picked up some interesting fleeces while at the 6th World Congress on Coloured Sheep in New Zealand last November. I bought 500g of moorit Polwarth from her:

The speaker at the meeting was Annabelle Spencer of the Falkland Islands Agency in Wells. She brought along a good selection of pure Merino fleece from the Falklands, and I couldn’t resist getting a pound of this superfine ‘silver’ which, as you can see, is actually more brownish than the description would suggest.