Baby knits

These fabulous little balls of yarn came in a kit from Socktopus all wrapped up in pretty pink tissue paper in a silver package. It's the Tulip Baby Cardigan made from Dream in Colour Smooshy yarn. And smooshy it is ! It's so soft , perfect for a little baby.

No I'm not making this for myself , althoug I almost wished it was. It's so cute ! I was hoping to get a reason to make this little cardigan ever since i first saw this and now there is one. There is a new baby girl in the family so I ordered the kit Monday morning and got it on Wednesday. Shipping from the UK is normally very quick but this was super quick ! I cast on right away and now have this finished so far. The sleeves still have to be made but I had to wait for some dpn's in the right size that I didn't have. So Wolhalla came to my rescue and send them to me right away, they came in the mail today.

I'm in a kind of hurry to finish this in time because next week we will be visiting our family and I want to give it to them then. Isn't it cute ? Or did I say that already ?

More colourful knitting was done. This is the Double Dayflower Scarf made in Noro Silk Garden color 228. If you want the pattern you can visit Nancy. She made 2 beautiful versions of it herself and made a free pdf file of the pattern.

The knitting on Imogen was on a little hold because ( again) I didn't have the right size circulars for this one. Luckily I found out that I could order KnitPicks needles at Get Knitted in the UK . It's impossible to order from KnitPicks if you don't live in the US or have an adress in the US to send it to. Unfortunately when I ordered them there was a Postal strike in the UK so I had to wait a little longer to get them. I do have a basic set of interchangeble needles because my FIL visited the US early this year and brought them for me but the size I needed wasn't in it.

The leg is doing MUCH better, so now I can walk around again. Which is a good thing because next week we will be going to Brugge in Belgium for the weekend. A gift from our daughters because we were married for....25 years. Yeah that's right, 25 years together already with my hubby (and still love him to bits). And isn't this such a sweet gift from them, 2 nights in a hotel with breakfast, such luxury !

Just wanted to show you my youngest daredevil, isn't this a great picture ?

New starts

After finishing the Drops Jacket I really felt like making myself another cardigan or sweater. While reading through one of my favorite blogs http://seedstitch.blogspot.com/ I stumbled upon the Imogen cardigan from Perl Grey. It´s knitted in one piece and sideways, so after it's finished it will be quite a gamble if it fits or not. Scary ! I ordered it from Ebay in the color Mineral.


The back is already finished and now I have to start the sleeves . This is on size 10 needles , 6 mm. The yarn has wonderful colors of browns and greys, the picture really doesn't do it justice. !
And a joy to knit with too ! It's Aran Alpaca from Fleece Artist, a wool/alpaca blend and very soft. The stripes will be showing sideways.



Right now I have a lot of time to knit. Forced knitting time really, because I have to sit a lot due to a injury on my leg. I tore a muscle in my calf and walking is quite painful at the moment. How this happened ? Nothing spectacular, just a little step backwards and auch ! So while I sit and knit the rest of the family has to take over some of my tasks, like doing the groceries and cleaning the house a bit. I love to see others work don't you ? No, I'm not a slavedriver, really I'm not !

And what about this ? Oh, it's nothing, really, just another little cardigan I started too.

It´s Brier from Rowan Magazine nr. 36 in Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply in Slate and Dale of Norway Baby Ull in Black held together. The back is knitted in two halves and sewn together later with the seams facing. The back is ready and the left front is on the needles now.

Told you I had lots of knitting time right now !

P.S.

I was tagged for a book meme by Wanda from http://fiberjoy.wordpress.com/

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why ? Hardcover books are my favorite, they tend to stay neater, no floppy ears and such things.

2. If I were to own a book shop , I would call it....I really have no idea, but I love those old English bookshops, so it would definitely look like one of those.

3. My favorite quote from a book ( mention the title ) is... This is a quote from Deepak Chopra that really appeals to me : A man's goodness is truly measured by what he is, not what he does.

4. The author ( alive or deceased ) I would love to have lunch with would be... Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot. I really love her sense of humor AND she could teach me something about knitting too ! I recently bought her book Knitting Rules , very funny.

5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survvival guide, it would be... It's not really a book, but I would bring my little album where a lot of people,who I loved and have now passed away, have written a little poem in. It's from my childhood and very, very dear to me....

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that... would hold up the book and turn the pages for me when I'm in bed , reading and tucked away under the blankets......

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of...the holidays spent with my grandmother where I visited the library almost every day. I read loads of books when I was a child.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book ( mention the title ), it would be...nobody I guess. I am perfectly happy with the life that I live.

9. The most overestimated book of all times is...probably the Da Vinci Code ?

10. I hate it when a book ...... has many errors in it, or is badly written. It also bothers me when I borrow a book from the library and it is filthy , people should ought to have some respect for books.

Danielle ( knittingmom) you are hereby tagged !

Let me show you...

the finished Drops jacket !

This took me longer than expected, despite the fact that it was knit on big needles and the pattern was very easy.

It's almost 3 weeks ago since my last blog post and this is almost the only thing I knitted on during that time. I felt there wasn't anything worth to show you exept some dull grey unfinished parts. Knitting this wasn't very inspiring to me really. First there was the issue with the yarn, it's a kind of a loose fiber, with hairs flying around if you unwind it. This started to make my eyes become sore ( like there was sand in them) and my hands red and itchy. So I had to stop after shorts periods of knitting and let it rest for a while. I still liked the effect of it though so I thought I'd better move along with it. What else to do with such a big amount of bulky yarn ?

Then I had to redo the back part because it came out too big, despite the fact that my gauge was correct. Lucily I was only about halfway when I discovered this. So then the front parts and 1 sleeve and the knitting was done except the collar. So I thought...

When I went looking for buttons I found out that I forgot to make the buttonholes ! Really how stupid can you be ? So I ripped back one of the fronts and made some buttonholes. Finally ready to seam it together and to block it.

I gave it a good soak in Eucalan, but boy what a smell came out of it ! Very sheepish ! Some rinsing and another soak didn't change things much so I decided to just let it dry and hope the best of it. After 3 whole days of drying it still wasn't quite dry. I took it out and left it to dry a bit on a drying rack so things would speed up a little. Finally I was able to put the buttons on and take some pictures of it in it's finished state.

Some details.


And a picture youngest daughter took of me. I don't look really hope in it, want to know the reason why ? The sun was shining directly in my eyes AND I had to keep an eye on Hubert who was planning to jump up at me with his dirty hooves. Besides I always look awful in pictures, really I do ! That's one of the reasons I don't have many of myself, and because I'm mostly the one taking the pictures.

Beware of the monster goat !

I'm not sure about the result yet, maybe it's just too bulky for me. I DO like the pattern though, I only found out after I already bought the yarn for this that there is also a version in this pattern with thinner yarn. Maybe I will try again some day and then I will make the sleeves a bit shorter too. Now they are something in between 3/4 and full lenght. I don't feel sorry about it being not quite what I expected it to be though. It really was a good experience and it's good and warm for wearing outside, but it's far too hot for inside wear.

Pattern specifications:

pattern: Drops 103-1 jacket in Eskimo

yarn: Garnstudio Eskimo, color 14 Dark Grey

needles: US 11, 8 mm.