Matisse cardigan/Granny's Paperweight Blanket

This cardigan project was the product of my idle browsing of Instagram. I'm still not so keen on Instagram, especially since they changed the order in which they show you posts from people you follow, I also dislike how you can no longer whizz through a person's page if you're not signed in - thanks Facebook. I spotted the Matisse cardigan design via one of their algorithm's recommendations, a good example of an algorithm working well (rather than showing me SELFIES and wedding photos - I do not like these).

True to form, I ended up not finishing this cardigan, instead it was re-purposed into a blanket for the new baby (it's the perfect size for a cot bed). I had completed the body of the cardigan and having tried it on I realised I wouldn't wear it when it was finished. It had a bit too much going on and was a little clown-style for me, not at all like the original design which looked great with its colour palette. Crafty chic! I'm always drawn in by good garment styling, in this case the model in the garden with her floaty dress really appealed to me (and still does, I love that cardigan!).

The little hexagons are quite (very) addictive to crochet, I absolutely LOVE them. Each was made using scrap yarns, hand-dyed yarns and kid-silk, so double-stranded. I found it nice to have the neutral blue colour as a final single crochet edging. I hand-stitched the blanket together rather than joining as I went, it looked a little neater.

See! Cot bed size really... It's laid on our double bed here. It was lovely and warm to work on, I did a lot of the finishing during a cold spell when our boiler had broken and took days to fix.

Little Robyn is a lucky girl, I might have to start another of these at some point for me, it's definitely my most favourite crochet project ever and something I hope she will treasure.

Christmas Dress

 Earlier in 2019 I cast on a Christmas dress, nice and early so that I would have the time to ensure I finished it. The base pattern is House Dressing by The Flying Yak on Ravelry (here), I knew I could get just the right fit if I used this pattern rather than the disappointment which was my 2018 Christmas dress. I really like Christmas hand-knits and plan a jumper for 2020, I'll probably knit a little cardigan or dress for the baby too (once she's here safely).

The dress was picked up and put down at various points during the year, I drank many mugs of tea as I knit and many tins of flavoured coke/lemonade as I found I'd got quite a taste for those during the summer months. The reindeer-y chart I used on the hem of the dress was one I found while I was browsing google images, I pulled it (creditless) from Pinterest. I've noted this on my Ravelry project page but if anyone recognises the chart and knows its origin then please let me know if you have a minute spare, thank you!
I struggled with the fit of the bodice when knitting my original House Dressing - looked like a shapeless sack when I'd finished... I re-knit it following the instructions for Ruis by Jatta Pauliina, an incredibly flattering dress I really would like to knit again at some point.
I gave my red Ruis dress away in the years following the birth of my second son Oliver as I felt it was too form-fitting particularly as I'd put on weight... Vain I know but you've got to feel good in your clothes!!!!
I tried and tried to lose that weight, I remember pounding the pavements up and down the hills of Biddulph Moor at night, getting those 10,000 steps in (at as high a speed as possible) under the cover of darkness. Nothing doing. One morning I happened to read an article in the paper about sugar - here (it's LONG!), it made sense to me, I ordered Sarah Wilson's I Quit Sugar book from ebay, a book I had in the past stuck my fingers up at because she looked so smug on the cover and WHY would anyone in their right mind give up lovely SUGAR!?
Ha! I found out why... Interestingly, after I stopped eating sugar the weight gradually just went away, as did the spots, the mouth ulcers and all sorts. Re-visiting A-level biology last year certainly helped me understand all the science a little better, just in terms of how the body uses/stores sugars and why. Anyway, I'm not hungry all the time like I used to be, although I probably eat a little too much in the way of butter... I LOVE buttered toast.

True to form, the photos are a bit overexposed, but you get an idea of the dress on and can see there's plenty of room for the baby too. I'm a little concerned that I'll have to re-knit the bodice at a later date as my bust is usually naturally nowhere near its current size. We'll see how it looks either next Christmas or Christmas 2021 and I'll go from there. It's only a few days' knitting in any case. Also! I have no idea what went on with my sleeves but they're quite generous in size, probably a little too much information here but I do tend to run fairly hot and find that I perspire accordingly! I always mean to buy dress shields to protect my knitted dresses, then I forget to and have to resort to wads of folded toilet paper which is great till they become dislodged! Bane of my life while I was at school and college... I do find that Driclor helps if I can stand to fall asleep with it applied, but I can rarely withstand the awful itchiness it causes and I end up rinsing it off too soon.

I did knit the under-bust rib (which cinches the dress in) a little shorter than I did for my blue House Dressing (below). I'd intended to wear this one on Christmas day and was trying to accommodate the bump but also to reduce any likelihood of the garment stretching out of shape.

I do wonder whether this will be the last time I knit this pattern combination (House Dressing/Ruis). I love the big skirt and the fitted bodice

Felix Cardigan

Felix is a jumper pattern by US designer Amy Christoffers. I like Amy's patterns, they bob in and out of my queue (one day I will knit a Larch cardigan). Anyway, this one popped up in my Ravelry pattern recommendations list, along with a cardigan variation, to which I thought "ooh!". A quick browse through my stash unearthed 4 hanks of gorgeous Berroco Alpaca Classic worsted weight yarn I had bought to knit a shrug in 2018 - Felix cardigan was happening.
I've been methodically finishing all my projects-in-progress recently, working towards a clean slate. I've found that as I've settled down and am feeling less stressed that I have less of a burning desire to cast things on "right now!". I worked this cardigan up alongside my current crochet project, the fabulous Matisse cardigan - it's always good to have some plain knitting to bundle into a bag. Matisse isn't quite as readily portable due to my working method which requires that I bring MANY colour options for the next round, but I'll share my progress/method in a separate post at some point.

Here's the finished cardigan, all ruckled up on one side, still, you can see how good it is for layering. I knit the first size as it gave me 3" positive ease (currently) although once my bust returns to its usual size this will mean the cardigan will fit with the recommended 6" of positive ease. The sleeves seemed small once I had cast on the underarm stitches and knit a few inches. I decided to cast on an extra 6 stitches (I was knitting them flat, top-down) and then I knit a small rectangular panel  to fill the subsequent gap and stitched it all together once I had cast off. Of course I only needed to do this bodging on the first sleeve, the second one had the addition of 6 stitches to the recommended underarm cast-on number right from the get-go. You can't see the fix really as I'm fortunately good at seaming stocking stitch, I quite enjoy it!

The colour is a little less vibrant in real life, it seems to have more of a pastel sherbet feel to it instead (I love it). I was a little worried it might be slightly itchy due to the alpaca content of the yarn but it's next to the skin soft for me. I'm a little fussy about yarn softness, I find that I don't wear the garments I have knit from so-called 'itchy' yarns (which many people find to be not itchy at all!), a good example here would be Istex Lettlopi which is beautiful stuff, lovely to knit with, just not as soft as Shetland wool (my favourite).

I found some pictures of my other Amy cardigans, above, Pomme de Pin, a cardigan I knit in cotton yarn and which would have been LOVELY knit with wool.

And the lovely Maxfield cardigan, finished just before Oliver was born in 2013. This pattern used a variegated yarn for the CC and was the first time I had seen a pattern I liked which used variegated yarn (I used to really dislike the look). I have to say, my preference remains with 'flat' uniform colours, although sometimes they're a little less fun to knit with.

Greis

I started a Greis dress (pattern by Kate Davies, part of her Knitting Season club) after feeling quite swept up in the enthusiasm of Stacy who had been planning her version ever since she saw a photo of Kate wearing the dress at an awards evening. Stacy's dress is absolutely perfect, as is the version knit by Beverley, both knitters have added very useful notes to their projects - I love useful notes, I get annoyed when people on Ravelry leave a low star rating for a pattern and no notes to explain why/warn others of a pattern issue, thanks for that! (not).
Anyway, I wasn't about to buy more yarn to knit this one, luckily I had a cone of J&S 2-ply jumper weight in a lovely rich tea biscuit sort of a shade. Perfect! Knitting began during all the uncertainty about starting university and was quite a comfort.

I've decided to frog the finished garment (I know...) only because it is so massive. I assumed I had chosen my usual needles, sadly I had not and had instead knit the entire garment on 4mm needles. Being a horribly "whatever!" sort of a knitter, I'm OK with this, the yarn will be re-purposed, I had the enjoyment of knitting the design, the comfort of the colours and the wool. Knitting did its job.

Looks fine here doesn't it? Certainly hides the protruding stomach. Well I can tell you, it's way too big, it's like a big sack! A big beautiful sack and even with the temporary baby-related bust enlargement it's not doing me any favours (in my opinion). I'm absolutely NOT fishing for compliments here, just sharing my opinion on my own finished project and the mistake I made/the result. Gauge, tension, swatch, swatch, swatch. I just wrote those final words in the full knowledge that I'll likely not swatch any future projects. I may check the gauge as I'm knitting though!

The Big Marl again

I made a big marl in 2018 as I had splurged on lots of hand-dyed yarn I had no idea what to do with, also because it looked so cosy, also because it is garter stitch! I love garter stitch! The blanket worked up fast, I remember taking it along with me to a wedding reception and working on it both en route (was a long drive) and while we waited for the food to be served.

I gave this first Big Marl to my sister Sam but it ended up downstairs as my mum also likes to use it, when Josie visits she also likes to curl up underneath it (Josie is the most nesh person I've ever known!). As Josie really liked the blanket I decided to knit her one for her 30th birthday present.

I've used more colours than I first intended. Josie is really fussy about colour, loves lemon yellow, dislikes mustard... I had forgotten just how much yarn this blanket takes to knit however and ended up just having fun with it and using colours I felt worked fairly well together. I added pom poms because Josie likes that sort of thing :-)
It's been a good project to be finishing up over the last 48 hours after the boiler broke, it's been lovely and warm on my lap... Every year the boiler breaks, always when we really need it, it never likes to break in the Summer! Unfortunately replacing it (as I would like to do) isn't up to us as the house is rented. I can't tell you how much I hate renting, everything simply being left to break before it gets fixed or replaced. The carpets.... The carpets are always the cheapest thinnest carpets and always seem to have been fitted by an odd-job man (because it's cheaper) and they subsequently ruckle up because fitting carpets is similar to stretching a canvas, they need stretching and fixing into place by a professional! Oh well. I have to remind myself that life isn't about home ownership (although that is one of the reasons I am re-training, so we can get a flaming mortgage).

But the Big Marl! The pattern is a free Hedgehog Fibres one, the only modification I made was the increases, I did a single increase per row into the second stitch, decreased the same way (into the second stitch of each row) and I omitted the I-cord edging.

Eunice Cardigan

I can't remember where I spotted this design, I think it was probably on Instagram and as often seems to be the case with me, it proved to be a 'must cast on now' sort of project. It's been quite a long-term project, I find colourwork cardigans often are (I lose steam with them). The pattern is by Mary Henderson and is called Eunice Cardigan (The Knitter, Issue 136 - available digitally).

It is such a warm and cosy cardigan, I'm absolutely delighted with the finished garment! You can see the deep corrugated rib edging, this took ages but I started using a technique mentioned by Constance on her podcast (Stitching Over the Days), said technique simply involves working on a particular project for 30 minutes a day. I think Constance said she learnt of this idea from another podcast and found it really helpful - as have I! A row of the corrugated rib took me half an hour, so it was quite slow-going but I found that as I chipped away at it that the cast-off began to loom! Hooray!

I think I mentioned before that this cardigan was inspired by my return to education as a mature student and by my time at the wonderful Leek College. I had intended to get this cardigan done to wear during my first term at university this October, however my unplanned pregnancy put paid to that. I'm loath to describe it as being a disappointment as I am aware just how lucky I am, I think it was more the practicalities, plan changes and worries that I'm going to be spread a bit thin this time next year.

I have been thinking about my plan to knit loads of dresses over the next year and shaking my head at my queue as I have been planning lots of cardigans instead! I recently stumbled upon the fabulous designs of Helene Arnesen, aka Fabel Knitwear... Uh oh, I want to knit ALL of her patterns, they are so chic and feminine. Helene has a podcast too, if you search Fabel Knitwear on YouTube. I don't watch many podcasts but I like hers very much.

An unnecessary challenge for no real reason!

I am a little bored this morning and having subsequently made my way to Ravelry I was mulling over all the dresses I have queued and then un-queued over the years. Add to this all the dresses I have knit, the ones I have loved and the ones I have frogged. I really love knitting dresses, possibly as the shops often don't have knitted dresses that I particularly like.

This dress is based on a Kate Davies tunic cardi pattern called Scatness. Learnt a lot about shaping with this one! It still needs some TLC/editing (I'm going to cut out the 'saddlebags' and seam the gaps at some point).

Frogged! A version of Caviar Dress which lacked drape.

Anyway! I was thinking about the Ravelry personal challenge feature (I like this) and then thinking about challenging myself to knit/crochet as many dresses as I can during a 12-month period of time, not starting in the New Year because I have time NOW as I'm not able to start university as planned this month.

My Betty Mouat dress, I only re-knit the bodice this June due to my bust shrinking after breastfeeding. Said bust has re-grown over the summer, I remember saying to Rich that I couldn't understand why ladies had boob jobs when they could just take the pill I was mistakenly attributing my bust growth to (I had been off the pill for some time due to it affecting my mood). I sometimes wonder if me re-training to be a radiographer is the best course of action as I can be a bit thick sometimes!

Stretching out my poor old Kiloran dress when pregnant with little James in 2011. The dress didn't recover from its stretching but did see my through a particularly cold winter (for the UK).

Pleated dress by Vladimir Teriokhin, frogged as I didn't like the yarn, it was very heavy. This one has been on my mental 'must re-knit' list for a long time. Shetland wool + mohair for lightweight fuzz and soft drape with a bit of memory. Below is a second Kiloran which also got stretched out of shape...

My challenge plan is simply to use my Dress bundle on Ravelry as inspiration, I don't plan to queue any dresses (I often go off them if you're sat in my queue for some reason), I would love to knit some Summer ones, oh, and have lots of fun!

SHIFTY

Posting now, 6 months after completion as I'd forgotten to blog about it at the time.

I generally find myself avoiding massively popular patterns, not sure why (must be my inner teenager, resisting the popular). I couldn't avoid casting this one on though, it's a lovely design.
If you aren't familiar with the pattern, it's by Andrea Mowry and utilises the same 'blip' technique (sort of stranded knitting/slipped stitches) as her previously released cowl and shawl patterns. She's a good egg, if you sign up to her newsletter you generally get a discount on newly released patterns, which of course I took full advantage of here. There are endless colour combinations to be had, I wanted a fairly soft colour palette and needed to use up some Rowan Alpaca Classic I had bought for a cardigan I never knit. The Alpaca Classic is very lightweight, fuzzy and soft and is a sort of caramel colour, I held my counter colours doubled to make up the correct thickness (mostly used Scheepjes Our Tribe).

It was quite slow-going at points, not like whizzing round doing stocking stitch, definitely worth it though. I think I went up a needle size or two after seeing quite a few people's projects had turned out tiny, I like a loose fit (like Shaun Ryder). Another thing which was annoying me was the beginning/end of round 'jog' in the centre of the back. I used tips by Dayana Knits (on this blog post) and once I had weaved in the ends this helped a little too. After separating the arms/body I moved the beginning of the round to one of the underarms so it runs up the side instead.

It was a real pleasure to knit this one was. Sometimes it's nice to follow the crowd!

Autumn

It has been a lovely summer here, the usual UK sort of summer, alternate weeks of heat and a good amount of rain. I started the summer excited about meeting my university offer conditions, happy I had finished my access course and a little anxious as Rich's work was very quiet (he's self-employed). Rich ended the summer with work (phew!), I ended the Summer querying my bloated stomach, taking a pregnancy test to rule it out and finding that yes, I was very pregnant indeed.
We had just returned from a lovely family holiday in Wales, late afternoon and I suddenly had a very worried feeling about possibly being pregnant so I nipped across the road to the pharmacy before it closed for the day. Of course I rang my mum immediately and she came over, palpated my stomach (she's an ex-midwife) and guessed I was about 14 weeks along. I then had the entire weekend to stew over the facts and debate it at length with Rich.

Monday came and I hoped to access a dating scan to confirm what stage I was at, however the doctor I visited could only give me the option of being referred to abortion services or the midwife, from whom I could gain access to the desired dating scan. I chose the midwife and booked a private scan for the following day (good thing I did as the NHS midwife referral took a further 3 weeks). The scan confirmed the pregnancy to be 14 weeks (my mum's fundal height memory is very good!) and having seen the little one all curled up, perfectly formed and moving about simply solidified my initial feelings. I believe that I am very much pro-choice, but our situation simply didn't justify it, to abort a foetus for convenience and because it doesn't fit in with my plans? No. Rich's only caveat was that whatever I decided, I wasn't to resent the baby (little did he know that by this stage I had begun to feel tiny movements and was feeling very protective over the tiny baby).
One thing I've learnt during my life so far is that some of the very best things happen when they're unplanned, the best days/nights out, the best walks, the best beaches have always been ones we've accidentally stumbled across. I'm not sure a person can ever 100% plan their life out in any case, there will always be twists and turns and bumps in the road.

Welsh sea-glass including a marble! I was very excited about the marble... I will write a little about knitting next time, my knitting went completely to pot after finding out my news. I cast on a couple of things and stopped working on both my Christmas dress and the colourwork cardigan I was knitting for my first term at university. I've picked it back up though! I'm heading very much into finishing mode, including the Christmas dress which won't fit this year in any case, but which is getting finished!