Confidence restored!!

My Gedifra Diandra jersey turned out to be fabulous - warm and cosy and looks good too for something that is home-knitted by an inexpert knitter!

I added rows of Swiss darning to make it more interesting.

 The neck edge is simple two rows of knit.

I enjoyed knitting with the Diandra so much that I promptly set about knitting some very chunky wristies, called "mitts" in the Rowan pattern I used.  I'm not keen on knitting cable but these were very simple and I even managed the clever slit for the thumb!

I wear them when on my computer as my hands get very cold.  

My daughter was so keen on the mitts that I made her some too:  I used the leftover Squiggle super chunky that I'd used to make her poncho.  It's much thicker wool so I had to adapt the pattern a little and only made one row of cable.  Also super-warm for the bleak February weather!

So keen am I on knitting with Diandra that I'm currently reknitting a pattern I'd made two years ago.  It's a short-sleeved jacket which is meant to be close-fitting and tightly knitted, using thinner needles than I'd used for the striped jersey.  Although it fitted, it felt too warm and the front gaped, making my bit of podge seem even podgier!  So I'm reknitting it in a bigger size with the 8mm needles to get a looser, more casual fit.

 Yet another yummy colour from the discontinued Diandra range (but have a look online:  some places do still sell it!)

This is the Rowan pattern I used for the mitts.

This is the Gedifra Diandra pattern I used for the jersey:  as you can see, it's a complex cable pattern, which I totally ignored and made a plain, striped number.  For reasons I don't understand as I made no errors and followed the pattern shaping religiously, my neckline isn't quite as low.  (I sometimes think they use machines to knit the pictures you see in pattern books, meaning we can never recreate them perfectly!)

Below is the pattern for the jacket.  I might make more buttons, though, as I'm really very tired of this daft fashion of having your tummy hanging out of an open-fronted cardi.  I'm not exactly fat but I'm no stick insect either and it's seriously not flattering (also it's chilly!)  They've used poppers to close this cardi/jacket with the button sewn on top.

Bad knitting is a little happier this month!