All-purpose festival day

Today is an interesting one in the calendar. I've always known it as Candlemas; it's also Imbolc and Groundhog Day. It's the official halfway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox; and Rosie pointed out in e-mail earlier on this evening that it's also St Brigid's day (if you follow the Imbolc link there's a load more information).

So I dragged out my St Brigid sweater (from Alice Starmore's 'Aran Knitting' book) and had a look at her, and she's still beautiful even if she only has half the back finished so far. A couple of pictures:

This is the best one in terms of colour;

and this one shows the three-dimensionality of her (and current lack-of-progress, shown by positions of needles) but looks like a completely different yarn. I'm using Jamieson's Soft Shetland in a colour coincidentally called Pagan...

Wish I could link to any of the really beautiful photos in the book, but they've been removed from the sites I know about, apparently under threat of legal action. Fell in love with this sweater about 10 years ago because of images on the Internet, and found the book the first week our local Borders opened 4 or so years ago, just before it became unobtainable.

If I hadn't been going to SkipNorth for the final bit of the Knitting Olympics, I'd have put finishing this one as my goal; but she's just too big to carry around (1kg of yarn or so by the end)...