Didn't Work

 

Right, now I know why knitters don't finish off necklines with cables. When I finished Jack's pullover, I thought the cable finish looked good. But it stretched, so the pullover looked saggy and horrible. Not a good look. I did mean to correct it in the middle of summer, when the pullover was languishing in the cupboard, but of course I didn't get around to it until the weather turned cool and winter was definitely on its way. I used a circular needle to pick up stitches around the neck and work a more conventional ribbed neckline, without undoing the cables or anything else. It has worked fine and the pullover looks a whole lot better.

Morning Market

 

The weather on Saturday morning was cold and windy, not pleasant, so the morning market was a bit subdued, but it did go ahead. I sold the dinosaur towel and four bath puppets, so I it was worth my while to go. 

Of course I didn't just sell things at the market. there are always interesting things to buy. The trick is to bring in more than you spend, which I did manage this time.  I bought a jar of rasberry jam and 8 petunia plants from one lady; pitted dates from another; and handmade soap from Sarah, my fellow stall holder:

Mock Pepperdews

 

The story of pepperdews is quite interesting, as you can read in this article.  They're a pickled pepper that are heavily trade mark protected in South Africa. The peppers I pickled this morning are not pepperdews, they're a mild chilli pepper called grandmother's bonnet. (I wonder if that's a nod to Scotch bonnets, a similar looking but very fiery chilli?) A friend gave me a packet of them  yesterday. I followed the recipe in the article to pickle them. It's a copycat recipe, the author's version of how she thinks it was done. These will have to mature for a few weeks before we start eating them. 

A New Gang

 

I'm working on a new bunch of bath puppets for Saturday's market. 

More Socks

 

 I managed to do some spinning last week, in between sewing monkeys and frogs, mainly in the evenings. On Saturday I finished plying the batch and then dyed the four skeins. My plan is to knit two of the skeins into a pair of socks and offer the other two as yarn at the next market. I'd like to do one more batch before the market, but I'll see how it goes. 

Troop and Army

 

I finished the troop of monkeys yesterday. The collective noun for frogs is army, I'm told. I've heard of a chorus of frogs, but apparently that's only applied to a group of male frogs. I wouldn't like to be so dogmatic! The troop and army have already gone off to their new home, together with a crocodile:

Collectives

 What a difference a day makes, as they say.  When the market was cancelled, I put a note on a local Facebook group and received two orders, after the note from the shop wanting puppets on commission. One order is for 11 puppets - 5 monkeys, 5 frogs and a crocodile. The other order is for a monkey and a rabbit. So I only delivered 6 puppets to the shop yesterday, because a definite sale trumps on-commission-not-sure-when-we'll-pay-you. And yesterday I heard that there will be another market on the 9th April. Usually they're only held on the last Saturday of the month. 

Yesterday afternoon I made two monkeys in tandem and now I"m making four frogs:

The main advantage of working this way is that there are fewer changes of thread colour. I didn't do all the monkeys at once though because they're more complicated than the frogs and I didn't want to end up with a whole bunch of half-made monkeys.

But eventually I'll have a troupe of monkeys. I'm not sure of the collective noun for frogs, I'll have to look it up.

Next week I'll have to make more puppets for the market.