Acquisitions

I didn't mean to post this yet, I'm clearing pictures from my phone and found some yarn I had added to my stash. There are skeins of Hedgehog Fibres sock in an old club colour (Brick Layer - I LOVE these). Then I have some Merino Aran in the lovely speckled grey Construct colourway, these are just fab and did you know, Hedgehog Fibres source their Merino from farms which do NOT employ the vile mulesing system. I thought 'mulesing' was a word for those joins you get in yarns (dodgy logic from me there!), turns out its a barbaric practice of stripping the skin from around the sheep's backside. Makes my stomach hurt thinking about it.. Another good reason to think before I buy yarns and woollen goods.

This last pair is lovely LITLG, the last instalment of their Winter yarn club. I was offered a second skein as a swap by a lovely Raveller (I was delighted!). The colourway is First Flower and is destined to be a cropped lace patterned cardigan.

Crochet

I have been crocheting a blanket for James. I started it months ago and ended up putting it to one side, I think as I was making it in single crochet it was proving to be very dense, and frankly it was fairly boring to make, despite the lovely yarn (all Hedgehog Fibres). I'm quite bad for starting things and then hiding them away... 

I'm following the Spice of Life crochet pattern, a free pattern which encourages you to learn new stitches. It was originally released in sections as part of a CAL (crochet along). I love that it's broken down into sections, I feel that a massive single pattern would probably be quite daunting for me. I'm nearly on to section 4 and am adding in small stripes of single crochet for continuity as there is such a big strip of it along the bottom of the blanket. I will finish the blanket with a large matching strip at the top and then the edging, of course.

I'm planning on finishing this before moving on to another WIP (probably my Kate Davies blankets). That said, I am going to cast on a small shawl, more on that later though - I dyed some yarn (naturally), which I'm very excited about.

Watching the rain

I'm sitting in my studio just watching the rain as I do a bit of procrastinating, James is watching a programme about the history of the diesel engine (on BBC4 last week, it's fascinating!). He turned 5 yesterday and we had a nice quiet day with the family. James had asked for a fish after seeing them used as props in Sweaterspotter's Pengiun knitting book.

Couldn't find an image via google so I did a screen shot. You can look at and buy her lovely wares here - Jo Waterhouse. I'm very taken with her beautiful lino prints and her cushions. LOVE.

I recently finished a pattern from the Penguin collection, the Aptenodytes Cardigan. I still haven't repositioned the buttons, I do need to do that as it's pulling because of where I placed them in haste, also they make one side appear longer than the other. Here are some dodgy photos of me wearing it, dodgy because I took them myself and my self-taken photos don't often come out very well. The garden fences look so rough but just imagine them as they will be in a few months' time when all my flowers have grown (hidden!).

It's so pretty and was a really interesting garment to knit, I loved its construction. I'm back to working on my small WIP mountain, there are 4 blankets which Will Be Done. I mean that, I'm doing it. I'll post some photos of these soon.

Ásta Sóllilja

It's a Finished Object. Over a year in the making (most of that time it was hidden away), but it's finally finished and I'm so pleased with it.
Last year, or perhaps it was in 2014 (when Kate Davies first published teasers of the Yokes patterns prior to the book's release), I had decided that I wanted to make a dress version of this design. I'm not sure what possessed me, it certainly would make a lovely tunic dress with short sleeves but the fitted version I was dreaming of might not have worked very well. Clearly it didn't, as this is where my tinkering ended up! I had gauge problems and a serious reluctance to go down the several needle sizes I should have in order to knit the dress nice and fitted and not get a 'saggy bottom' - the knitting version of Paul Hollywood's famous saying on the GBBO.
I have quite the terror of a saggy bottom after something Rich's mum Jane told me years ago when I had bought a lovely knitted pinafore dress from TopShop. I wore that dress to death and was so affected by Jane's warning that I used to hoik it up whenever I could as I sat down in it (company permitting). I'm going to find a picture of the TopShop dress in my photos actually, I quite fancy reverse-engineering it, it was so versatile. A bit itchy as it had some alpaca in it, I'm ok with wool but find alpaca gets me a bit squirmy.. Not a good look!

I hadn't blocked it here and the edges were rolling in a little in that delightful stocking stitch way. They've settled down a bit now.

I was planning on knitting a version of Miss Rachel's Yoke but I can't find the spark of 'must knit this right now' that I need to cast on, I did try but I unravelled my progress. I think I'm going to continue with my plan to finish my WIPs because they're still doing my head in (that phrase makes me sound like my 14 year old self).
What's on the list? There are 4 blankets... I am slightly appalled that I have 4 blankets on the needles!! I'm certain that one of these was cast on in 2012.
Then there is a grey cardigan that was going to be a dress but I changed my mind and left it to languish. There are two sleeves and a body piece. I have reinforced the front ready for cutting and will knit the bust area in pieces, separating from the fronts and the back. I was going to edit this so it could become an Effervescence cardigan but the ribbing/waist/pattern placement will be ridiculously off. I might add a lace bib to it like the Audrey in Unst cardigan (I want to make another of these but WIPs first!).
What else? My Bohus yoked cardi (Blue Flower) which had been edited by me in an attempt to fit the pattern to Coraline by Ysolda. This worked (or it would have done if I was the size of a 10 year old), the yoke depth I ended up with was far too shallow and while it was wearable it really wasn't right and did no justice to the original design. I spend an evening ripping it all out and picking up the live stitches and have begun to knit it as written, albeit in the wrong direction.
A surprise addition to my WIP pile was the Aptenodytes cardigan by Kristen Blom and Anna Maltz, I had seen a two-colour version of this pattern on Instagram and I had to have one. I am on the final section of ribbing after ripping it back this morning because I had lazily picked up too few stitches - not like me, I always pick up extra for ribbing. I think I was having a lazy evening.

So, that's 7 items, 4 of those are large items. I will hopefully have another FO post very soon as I'm hoping to get my Aptenodytes finished today. That is the plan!!

 Here's that dress I was on about, I'm musing on it now...