Finished!

Pattern: Patons Ladies Edge to Edge Jacket*
Yarn: Patons Colour Works Aran

This was just waiting to be sewn up, so over a few episodes of House this weekend, I did exactly that. This was a really easy knit - it's nearly all garter stitch and I really like the mitred corners on the front edges.


*I hated typing that with no apostrophe or hyphens, but that is how it appears in the pattern book, so I resisted the temptation to add them!

Finished x 2

Having gone through my WIPs, I identified several from my list that just needed a few hours concentrated work to finish them off and therefore should easily be finishable in a weekend.*

1.     Summer holiday (2012) knitting

3.     Bolero for a young lady

5.     Glittens

7.     Edge-to-edge cardigan

10.   Wristwarmers

20.   Leafy hat

28.   4x4ply jumper

Some of them just need final finishing touches needed, others a little more work but they are all so nearly finished it seems a shame to leave them lying around with their destiny unfulfilled. So as I seem to have finished hardly anything this year, just get projects to nearly finished and then abandon them for some shiny new knitting, I decided to pick one each weekend and finish it off. Starting with the weekend we've just had.

Bolero for a young lady
Pattern: Suzie, Let's Knit Little Angels booklet March 2010
Yarn: Sirdar Calico

This project was a stashbuster - two whole balls used - and by whole balls I mean the last bit of sewing up was done with as closely matching yarn as I could find in my stash because I'd used every last bit of it!

It was also a (late because I didn't see her on her birthday and hence delayed finishing it) gift

I obviously got carried away with this finishing lark because last night I sewed in the last ends on this:

4x4ply jumper
Pattern: Banoffi, Rowan Knitting and Crochet Magazine No. 53
Yarn: Rowan Sienna and Rowan Panama

Please excuse the poor self-photography and the mess in the room behind me!

I really enjoyed knitting this jumper - it doesn't hurt that it knits up really quickly and I'm planning to knit another but with some slight differences - I'm going to have the ordinary stocking stitch, rather than reverse stocking stitch on the outside and I shall make the neckline slightly smaller. It will also be more purple as more purple knitting can only be a good thing - yes?

*Names of projects listed may not be official pattern names. I reserve the right to add more projects to this list as they approach completion and favour them over those already listed.

What I am knitting

A few days ago, I gave you photos of all my knitting projects but didn't say what they all were. So here's a breakdown of the types of things I'm knitting.

 

 

 

At the end of 2011, the breakdown of my projects looked like this

 

 

So it looks like I'm still knitting a lot of cardigans (some of them are the same cardigans - I really ought to finish some off) but the proportion of jumpers has increased and socks have gone down. I'm not sure if any interesting conclusions can be drawn from that.

Stashbusting update

Sadly, my beautiful spreadsheet, with charts, of my yarn stash that kept a record of what came in and what went out was lost in what is known in our house as The Great Computer Woe of 2012. It’s therefore a bit difficult to do a comparison with the beginning of last year, to see how my stash has grown or shrunk since then. I like to think it’s about the same size, but it is possible I am deluding myself.

I have started again with a shiny new spreadsheet. My stash grew in January – Christmas money to spend and sales in yarn shops being an irresistible combination! However, while it might not look like I decreased it from the chart as the gains and increases are in different areas, from the end of January to the end of February, my stash was reduced by the grand total of 1 ball of yarn.

Since then, it has increased again - ooops! I returned home from the yarn shop on Saturday with a bagful of mostly purple yarn. I’m intending to knit up a storm this month though, so am hoping to have balanced that out and more by the end of March.

Knitting WIPs

New in February

At the end of January, the marvellous Bert of Make and Bake with Bert told of the list of new things she was intending to do each month to challenge and entertain herself. I liked the idea (Bert often has brilliant ideas) and decided to join in. The new things to try each month are:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

Although I only heard about it at the beginning of February, serendipitously in January I had:

• Read a book by a new-to-me author (Josephine Tey)
• Tried a new recipe (spicy bean stew in the slow cooker)
• Designed a cable pattern for a man sock and knitting it (second sock still to be knitted).

So the only thing I missed out was the exploring of anywhere new.


In February I:

• Read Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James. I had not read any of her books before and I'm sorry to say that this is a sample, I'm not going to be looking out for them.
• Cooked and ate buckwheat noodles. They are cooked and look a lot like spaghetti but are a lot more filling - what I thought was enough for one meal turned out to last for three!
• Explored the sweet shop in town. It has been there since sometime last year and I've walked past and thought I must look in there sometime but it always seemed to be rather full of small people. I went early enough on a Saturday morning for it not to be crowded and found lots of delicous treats. Definitely an exciting new place :)
• Knitting newness came in the form of knitting a jumper that called for four strands of 4 ply to be knitted together. I've done two strands together but never four.

 

What adventures will March hold?

 

Not New Year resolution

So today is the beginning of March and this is my first blog update of the year. Probably a bit late for New Year wishes and resolutions! So instead I have made a new month resolution to try to establish a blogging habit this month.

Let's see how it goes!