Sure! I can knit five projects all at once… in my dreams. (Worryingly, this is true. Last night I dreamt I came in contact with some Colinette and woke myself up from the thrill of it. I imagine some of you just curled away from the computer in a sad-cringe moment. Sigh!) But I have been doing my best. I finished the front (or back) of Gatsby Girl on Monday and succeeded in casting on for the other front (or back) straight away.
I love every single detail of this sweater and I am enjoying knitting the second piece. Needless to say, I’m hardly exhilerated about knitting ribbed sleeves – my two most despised things in knitting – but I’m going to try and knit them as fast as I can to just get them over with.
And the Alien Heads! I temporarily abandoned them for GG but it is still so warm here, so I have taken this back up with seasonal zeal (Waiter! A bottle of your finest seasonal zeal!) and I’d love to get it finished tonight. I have already completed the shaping on the front section.
When I had the front completed, I figured it would be a good time to try it on. Now, I’m all for the element of surprise (even if that surprise is not being able to fit your head through the neck-hole) but I figured, well, I haven’t gone too far and if it doesn’t fit around the chest, I could rip back and do a few discreet increases. Not only does it fit fine, but the length is great too. I made it about 6 inches longer than the pattern and now it is the length of a “normal” top. Jeez. What is with designers? I would hate to design a cropped top that doesn’t look cropped in the picture and have a whole pile of knitters who just knit the pattern and not question the schematic be really disappointed with the end product! /rant
There has been more going on, but I lack photographic evidence. On the train home at the weekend, I got stuck into the button bands for my Granny Smith. The plain one – the one you sew the buttons on to – came out a little floppy, but I’m hoping that when I block it out again it will stretch out. The other one, the one the buttons go through, was a fiasco. There I was, knitting away happily, looking forward to doing the button holes (this alone should have warned me). Then. The button hole instructions…oO{ ??? } I spent an hour trying to figure it out. All the while, I had this huge pile of bright green FUZZ on my lap and the guy beside me was just dying to know what on earth I was doing (the staring gave it away. sometimes I feel that, on trains, it would help to hang a sign around my neck saying what I am doing. Like, “knitting a jumper”, “knitting a sleeve and hating it”, “making buttonholes”, or “???”) Finally, having muddled my way through six buttonholes, I got to do my picot edging thing. The button hole bands are like the hems; there is a row of yo, k2tog, which forms a picot edge, then you knit the hem that is folded under. This means that I had to do two sets of button holes. Guess what I forgot to do! It was only when I laid it out to admire my handiwork that I realised that I could see a proper hole for my button hole. Sigh. It has since been entirely reknit and I made much better button holes, Aileen-styleey, this time around.
Birthday knits! My father and sister have birthdays very close to each other at the end of the month. I have already started her shawl (sorry! no pictures until she has it!) but I have yet to start my dad’s hat. The hat I have in mind is the cabled hat from One Skein, and I’m planning on using Debbie Bliss’s Cashmerino Chunky. Nobody likes a scratchy hat and he specifically requested a hat from me for working outside in the winter. So this will be warm and snuggly and very soft. Awww 😀
I was in town today and saw that the new batch of knitting and craft magazines have come in. Check out this month’s Sandra. Generally, it is not as good as most other magazines but this issue actually has one or two patterns I’m going to hang on to. This month’s issue of Knitting was disappointing, but upon Bryony’s advice, I picked up the Woman’s Way Knitting and Stitching Special Issue. I don’t like the way it is wrapped in plastic but trust me, it is worth buying. It has a good selection of autumn/winter sweaters, cardies and jackets, as well as some nice scarf patterns and childrens’ knits. Both this issue and the issue of Knitting has a featured pattern from Lucinda Guy’s And So To Bed – the very cute stuffed owl and the hot water bottle with intarsia of a sleeping moon, respectively. I would love to make the owl so I am glad I went for the Woman’s Way Special Issue. I always enjoy a good look through Anna, which is a more general arts and crafts mag. The current issue features a mosaic games board, which would be so much fun to make and really cool to use!
Phew! You’ve been knitting loads! And they all look lovely 😀 Glad you liked the Women’s Weekly/Way (never realised it was the same thing, otherwise I would have bought that one with the pattern you recommended!) recommendation too – I’d feel very guilty otherwise… And the owl is ACE.
Okay, optical illusion alert….at first I saw the alien heads, but now in each diamond shape I see smaller aliens with their little arms thrown up in perfect yeah-I-scored-a-goal expression. What does that say about me?
must…fight…magazine…buying
Now I am in love with your Gatsby Girl jumper… sigh. I can only imagine the horror that it would be on me.
And you! WITH YOUR MAGAZINE TEMPTATION! *strokes nasty plastic wrapping, trembles at thought of delights within*