Happy Hallowe'en

Only a day late, not bad!  I managed to finish the striped cardigan in time for Hallowe'en, as promised.  It was a very easy knit except for the very long border.  I had to pull out my first effort which was excruciatingly painful.  Also, the most obvious error I made is in the border:  I didn't cast on enough stitches (and yet I seemed to have so many...) so it pulls up at the bottom a bit.  However, my daughter doesn't seem to care.  The striped version isn't supposed to have pockets but I thought they broke up the rather endless length of stripes down the front!  The style suits my daughter rather well as she is long and thin but I was concerned that it is a perfect fit - and I made the biggest size!  If I make if for her again, I'll have to increase the width quite a lot, which is a bit daunting.  But it seems such a waste to only use a bought pattern once!  Even if it was on special offer...

That's a bat on my head, in case you're wondering

Yes, these are pockets

Let's party!

Time for hottie botties

While I struggle to sew up the striped blue cardigan, I've started knitting another hot water bottle cover, using up the last of that mystery wool.  I hope there's enough wool!  This is how much I've done in two evenings (even I'm impressed...)

On the needles...

I seem to have a strange affinity for the needles I'm using:  they're an old pair of my mother's, one of only two pairs I could find.  I've never been able to sort out this mystery.  Did my mother really only have two pairs of needles?  Did she knit hundreds of jersies using only two sizes, both quite similar?  The ones I'm using are a US6 (which is a 5mm) and although I've got a pair of new 5mm, I find myself using these.  There's something about the feel of them that is nice.  Perhaps they're made of a better quality aluminium?!

In the meantime, during the day, for an hour or two only, I'm sewing up that cardigan.  I've already had to unpick one armhole.  What is about armholes.  When I used to sew (back in the days when you could buy decent fabric), I used to struggle with set-in sleeves.  In fact, I struggled with sleeves of all kinds.  The sleeve never seemed to be the same shape as the hole it was going into.  It seems to be the same with knitted garments!  But I promised my daughter the cardi would be finished by Halloween and I'm well on track.  For once!

On the needles (I think I've lost count.....)

Mmmmmm......I'm not so sure about the new Blogger dashboard.  It looks nice and big and all but it didn't automatically bring up the previous "on the needles" title so I don't know what number this is.  But, hey, not important!  This is about knitting, not my technical quibbles (I have enough of those in My Other Life.)  

I'm currently working on a long stripey cardigan for my daughter.  I saw the wool on sale at Black Sheep (yes, I confess:  I am a Black Sheep sucker.  Send me an ad for a Remarkable Sale Item and I'm buying it without blinking!) and am quite charmed with it.  It's pure acrylic - real wool knitters would probably sniff at it haughtily - but, golly, it's so EASY to knit with.  And with all the hassles I've been having recently, it's so nice to be able to knit something that just seems to flow off my needles!

It's called Sirdar Wash'n'Wear DK Double Crepe and is acrylic/nylon.

I chose the two blue shades for stripes.  Most of the time, it looks rather like a rolled up rugby scarf.  I'm sure it'll all work out when I sew it together...

Here is the completed back.  My knitting has never been this neat!

Abandoned in my wooden box is my autumn cardi....not entirely sure when I'll be getting back to that one.  There is a LONG story attached to this, which I'll save for my next blog.  In the meantime, it doesn't look all the appetising, which probably explains why I abandoned it....

The colour on the website AND the knitting magazine showed this is a bright golden yellow....in real life it looks like mud....

And for riveted followers of my blog, I have finally fixed up that cardi I knitted at the end of last winter.  I didn't like the bottom edge and it was also too short.  As it is chilly enough now for cardigans, I really wanted to wear it again without looking like a short-bodied troll.  So I picked up a thousand stitches along the bottom edge and knitted away merrily until I'd used up the last ball of wool.  That was a complete disaster as I'd used smaller needles and it succeeded in pulling tight the bottom of the cardi.  So I pulled it all out and the painstakingly unpicked the cast-on edges of the two fronts and back.  NOT as simple as unpicking the cast-off edge, which comes undone with one tug of the yarn.  But my patience was rewarded and finally I could pick up all ten thousand stitches with a too-short 6mm needle (I wanted to use my 6mm circular needles but lost confidence....) and off I went, using up every last drop of wool I had...

HUGE success.  I now have a cardi that is not only longer and smoother but hangs better too as it's heavier along the bottom edge.  

My favourite cardigan!

Spring has Sprung

It hasn't, actually, though it is very warm, but these colours are so soft and beautiful that it felt like spring!  I realised towards the end of last week that I had run out of money and couldn't buy the Debbie Bliss Prima on sale until after the weekend.  But how long would the special offer last?  So I wrote to Black Sheep and got a lovely letter from their customer service lady, Maria.  Providing I realised this was just a one-off, I could buy the Prima over the phone and she would put the sale through manually.  What wonderful kindness!  I was so overjoyed that I bought twenty balls.  In trying to work out how many balls I needed for more skinny rib tops, I weighed the top I'd made and calculated 6 balls, but bought 7 (just in case.)  I've bought enough for three tops:  one in yellow, one in lavender and one that will be avocado, cream and other stripes (depending what's left.)
Something gorgeous for next Spring!

Debbie Bliss Prima on sale!

That delicious coral cotton is on sale at Black Sheep Wools for only £1.98 a ball!  Actually, it's not cotton, it's viscose bamboo/merino wool but anyway!  Since I've harped on and on about this yarn, turning a disaster into a joyful success (something I actually wear!), I thought it would be worth mentioning here.  The coral is still available, which surprises me as I'd thought it had been discontinued.  There are also other lovely colours.  Yes, obviously I'm going to buy some!  I love my rib top and want to knit more!

Click here for Black Sheep Wools.

Click here for Debbie Bliss Prima at Black Sheep.

Would love to hear what everyone else knits out of this....

My favs are:

Primrose

Ecru

Coral

Avocado

Periwinkle

All in a blur

My daughter took some rather nice pictures of me in my new pink top.....each and every one of them out of focus and blurred!  You have to wonder how that can happen on a digital camera that does everything except print out entire portfolios.  So until I - eventually - get a decent photograph of My New Favourite Top, here I am at the British Library, in a fabulous blur...

Teeny tiny photo!

I tried to take a photo of myself using my webcam.....harharharhar!  Look how SMALL it is!!!  Can't figure out why.  I'll get my daughter to take a better picture of me later.  Needless to say, I LOVE my new top.  For once I've actually made something nice out of something awful!  Hooray!

Could this be any smaller?
The photo, not the top!!