Knitty-Gritty - 13th December - Cinderella has a new woolly slipper

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen
Snow on snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter Long, long ago 

Christina Rossetti's famous Christmas poem, set by Holst must have been written on a day like today. My gardener, texted me this morning saying that there was no point coming today as the ground was frozen solid. 

I have ventured no further than the front door step today, and even stayed there, thanking a friend who had brought milk round as the milkman failed to deliver - again - at least today the weather made a new excuse!

I cancelled a piano lesson this morning as I was finding it so uncomfortable to sit upright after my unexpected rapid descent down the stairs yesterday, but it has been easing all day.

I distracted myself yesterday evening and this morning by finishing off the first of the origami-style slipper socks. In the process I rediscovered the bit that confused me in the pattern, so in case you were wanting to make them here are my annotations to page 2 (page 1 has instructions for knitting the sole).

You can see that after the instructions for row 7 I have added 'TURN' At this point you will knit Short Rows across the central portion of the stitches, ignoring the others. so at the end of every line of instructions you turn your work before carrying on.

I was using up all sorts of bits and pieces of wool, and so knitted these short rows with some left-over blue speckly yarn that was within reach. As you knit from toe to ankle, you sort of incorporate a stitch from the sides. Clever.

This is the sole of the slipper; I knitted the first few rows in dark brown. It looks most unlikely, but that's because the brown edges will be folded in half at the toe and sewn together to make a seam running the length of the foot.

Here is my finished slipper.

   Tomorrow I can have one warm foot at least, while I get on with the second slipper!

What I find completely fascinating is how did the designer image and create this? She must have a very well developed sense of how to fold and manipulate the knitted fabric, and how the different processes would work together to create this ultimately complex and simple structure. This is one of the main reasons I find knitting so interesting; the repetitive processes can be a bit mind-numbing, but it is the transformation of a single length of yarn into the three-dimensional shape which is so absorbing.