Cwtch-speak: Trial Sausage

If you have ever cooked on a BBQ you may recognise the point at which the fire is not really ready (too much flame, not enough white coals), but you really want to get on and cook something. In our family this is the point at which a "trial sausage" is deployed. A sausage is placed on the BBQ, and we know it will probably end up blackened on the outside before it's cooked inside - in short, it will be inedible - yet still we cook it, because to wait seems interminable. The trial sausage has a purpose other than being eaten, it's function is to fill time and get us to the point at which the fire is ready. 

Our make-along starts on Friday (May 1st) and I can't wait... there's a trial "sausage"...

The pattern is Spun Gold by Kat Goldin - a brand new release (and complete curve-ball, as I'd already decided to start with another) which is available at a 20% discount using the code CFTCMAKEALONG. I'm practicing the pattern with some old Noro I have laying around, and, to follow the metaphor, it's not intended to be 'edible' but it's helping to fill the time while I decide which pattern and yarn I'll start with on Friday. 

The design is perfectly simple and very beginner-friendly, although I still feel like I'm reading a foreign language. (I'm not fluent in written crochet - I prefer charts - and already had to rip it out once when I realised I was using a "US dc" and not a "UK dc" as required.) The very point of the make-along, and the reason I'm making a crochet shawl instead of knitting, is to try something new and it already feels good. If you want to join us the info you need is all here. 

Note: If a trial sausage is left on the BBQ for long enough, it may be ok for the dog to eat - he doesn't mind that it's not perfectly cooked. I'm not yet sure how much more of this I'll make, who knows...