Saturday, April 27, 2013

This is another one of those “I was gone but now I’m back” posts

It’s true, I’ve neglected this blog AGAIN.  The truth is that I’ve been really busy, and I’ve been meaning to write, but never did.  Yesterday I read an article about a site called 750words.com, which basically encourages you to splurge 750 words in complete anonymity and privacy with the aim of increasing productivity and inspiration.  So over the past two days I’ve written over 1500 words, and some of it did indeed have some real gems to post here!

So, between the last post and this one, I’ve knit two hats, a scarf, a hoody for a little’un, a dog jumper and I’ve started a tunic for my mum!  I did say I’ve been busy!  Sadly I took zero photos, so there’s nothing to show here for my efforts, but I can at least tell you about them!

I knit a hat and scarf set for my auntie in February just before we had that sudden cold snap – right when you want to have just received a knitted gift!  I knit it in a simple basket stitch, from a red shiny yarn by Patons i think.. helpful i know!  It was very soft though and I was very happy with such a simple knit.

The second hat was in a chunky variegated blue yarn which i also knit in a sort of basket stitch, this time for my mum.  Again i cant remember the name of the yarn, I may have had the time to knit but not the time to write all this down!  I had just under half the yarn left so i started knitting a hat for myself, but havent finished it yet.  I had a horrible suspicion that I would run out of yarn, so i did what every sensible knitter does – put it to one side in case it magically spawns more yarn!

The next thing I knit was a hoody for my sweet little niece.  It was using some yarn I was gifted – already knit up into something else so I can claim I never actually knew the brand of yarn!  I designed a top down raglan cardigan with moss-stitch button-bands and cuffs, and a lovely King Charles Brocade through the body.  And of course it had a hood, with the same moss-stitch border around the edge.  I finished it off with some lovely pastel-coloured flower buttons.  I’ve been intending to write up the pattern for this but not got around to it yet!

The last thing I’ve finished is a wee jumper for Rosie.  She’s been feeling the cold of late – after all she is quite a slight little dog, so I butchered a drops pattern that was meant to include all kinds of intarsia and fanciness which didn’t get included in my version.  I used a striped yarn (Striped, not self striping – so the resultant effect is  more like awful camouflage) and knit the size meant for Chihuahuas, but it is still a bit too big!  I will probably knit her another one but this time not do as many rows before the split for the leg holes comes, and also the small strip that goes between the legs (and eventually is picked up from for the leg-cuffs) needs to be 2-4 stitches narrower.  She really is tiny!

Next time I will show you (with pictures, I promise!) the tunic I’m knitting for mum.  It really is going extremely slowly, possibly because I’m comparing it to my last few FO's, which have all been quite small and quick!