Purple Island

I started a purple garter diamond because I needed some mindless knitting for the car. I selected the yarn (Malabrigo Sock) just because I like the feel. I figured I'd knit the diamond centre and choose a border and edging later. It has 162 stitches at its widest. I finished this centre just after completing Rock Island Canopy, when I still had the itch to continue with Shetland Bead stitch. So that's what I went on with. In a way, it's an extension of the last several projects.

If you embiggen, you can see the Shetland Bead stitch right next to the purple, though you can hardly tell that's what it is. I used the same needle size throughout. I persevered through 20 repeats. I did wonder, while knitting the border whether or not I should change to a larger needle. It felt a bit tight while I was doing it but I just kept going. Blocking should fix it.

The edging, similarly unrecognizable at present, is Queen's Lace Edging (Heirloom Knitting page 129) with Small Bead Insertion (page 128). I don't know why I'm even explaining all this when it's impossible to make it out in the picture.

My guess is that apart from the colour choice it will look very traditional. I ran out of the purple even before finishing the centre and switched to blue because it was at hand. I have no inkling about the final size or whether my proportions are reasonable. I am enjoying it, however it all feels a bit irresponsible.

Our heat wave/drought ended yesterday evening. Up until then we had less than half an inch of rain in all of July. I did minimal watering, focussing on the vegetable plot and phlox bed. Nevertheless some things continued to bloom...especially weeds.