I finished!

I have finally finished the Lucille cardigan. Not that it took insanely long- perhaps about a month. But it feels like it took quite a while...  However, I'm so pleased with the result, and it's my first proper item of clothing I've done for the bump!

I chose some pink buttons to complement the purple of the wool, and there are technically meant to be six buttons, but there was actually an error on the pattern (the only mistake that wasn't my fault) which led to the sixth button hole being out of line with the rest.  So, rather than try and muddle something together, I decided it was easily fine with five!

After all of the faff with the sleeves, I am pleased to have a) finally mastered (in the least masterful sense of the word!) working in the round and b) have made some pretty sleeves with no seams!

Excellent. I'd recommend this as a project if you are looking for something fiddly to get your teeth into- but bear in mind it is fairly labour intensive.

Right. Off to cook dinner. We are having an amazing (yet ridiculously simple) Jamie O pasta dish with bacon, savoy cabbage, mozzarella and pine nuts- A recipe we have loved in our family for years! Mmmm! What are your favourite recipes?!

Have a lovely weekend.

Take three, and lots of tractors and trains.

These past few weeks Elyseé has decided that he really rather likes colouring.  For some reason this particularly delights me, and it's lots of fun cooking dinner with him colouring (or telling me what to draw) in the kitchen with me.  At first there were quite a few flowers and butterflies, but now we're pretty much down to Tractors and Trains most of the time.

So, the knitting-in-the-round saga continues, but I am determined I shall get there eventually.  After doing about 14 rows of lace pattern down the sleeves, I discovered that I seemed to have been decreasing (quite evenly) row by row - or at least every other row! Quite how I was doing this remains a mystery, but I'd imagine it was as I finished off a round, I missed out on a Yarn Over instruction or something.  I was tempted to leave this, but decided this would annoy me whenever she wears her cardigan.  So. Another laborious unpicking and re-knitting session ensued.  It is particularly difficult to evenly pick up all of the stitches a) in lace knitting generally and b) in the round! Still.  I am now counting my stitches every row, and have done 12 rows without decreasing.  I have however noticed a small area rows and rows back where it doesn't look quite right, but I don't think I can cope with redoing that one again!

Hopefully one day I'll finish the sleeve!  It's Saturday night, and Al and I are both fairly exhausted, so a film, a spot of knitting (for me!) and a good night's sleep is in order I think.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Home made pizzas and knitting in the round.

Last night a friend and I made the family home-made pizzas.  It's such fun, and nice to get individual  "orders" and make everyone their own special one.

Al ordered one with an egg on top....!

They were yummy.

My friend has been staying for the week, and she's been re-learning how to knit. After having a little trawl of ravelry.com we found a fun pattern for a type of knitted headband- called "Calorimetry". She finished it today and modelled it in the cold weather...

The body of the Lucille cardigan is now complete, but I am finding the knitting in the round a challenge! I started trying to use circular needles, but I gave up after a while, and I am currently progressing on smaller DPNs.  So far this has been the most challenging bit of the cardigan, (and I have been tempted to knit it 'straight' and sew a seam down it!) but I am determined to conquer this!

Any tips for knitting on circular needles are always welcome!

Wish me luck! Enjoy your Friday- it's nearly the weekend!

Today I am....

Perusing a book lent to me by a friend, which has lots of fab suggestions for saving money and living thriftily (I recommend it!).

Knitting with an old friend over cups of tea and Chocolate crumb cake.

Laughing at our cat's ridiculous sleeping positions.

And cooking shepherds' pie for dinner. What are you doing today?
Happy Tuesday.

Corrections

With the knitting of my lucille cardigan I have been living in fear of making a mistake on the lace patterning.  It's not that it is ridiculously complicated, or that I don't know how to correct myself when I go wrong (a skill I have only honed in the last year or so!) but it's just that the wool is pretty thin (4 ply), the needles likewise (2.75mm) and there are 281 stitches in the row.  With a pattern that is essentially a repeat of about 6 stitches, it is not an utterly absurd thought that I might miss one stitch, and, then.... a lot of correcting will be needed.

Last night the dreaded occurred and after finishing a row and looking at the emerging pattern, I discovered that I had gone wrong about a quarter of the way along the previous row. Ugh. After undoing a portion of the previous row (which in itself is quite a laborious job given the amount of fiddly knitting involved!) I reached the rough area from where the problem had originated, and a good 30-45 minutes of trial and error correcting followed. I think I managed to sort it all out though, and so I am quite buoyed by the whole experience, as I was thinking that I would have to resort to undoing reams in order to correct any mistakes I'd made (and part of me wondered if I could really do it at all!).  Now that I'm about 8 rows into the lace work, the pattern is starting to emerge quite nicely...

Yesterday a lovely friend gave me a home grown hyacinth.  It's a fabulous pink colour and adds cheer to the more grey of the January days.

Also adding cheer to most days is Elyseé (my cheeky, incredibly talkative, energetic and mischievous 22 month-old little boy).  He was entertaining himself for a long time in the garden this morning with our playful cat, Stencil. 

Now however, is one of those precious moments when he is catching a few winks, so I shall go and enjoy the luxury of a little more knitting before he wakes up and gets going again.

Enjoy your weekend.

Cold and Crisp

Today I have made two fish pies. I never used to be into them particularly, but I have developed a love for them in recent years, and even more so during this pregnancy (in the early days I had major fish and prawn cravings!), but I am still experimenting to find the perfect recipe! Holly, the cook at a local Children's' centre makes an amazing one, but says she makes it up as she goes along. Hmm. Today's ones are smelling good though (with smoked mackerel in them for a change), and one is about to be delivered to a friend who has just had a second little baby- Hooray!

The teacup cushion cover is taking shape nicely, and I am enjoying rediscovering blanket stitch...

My two baby cardigans are progressing well, if rather slowly (perhaps because I have several projects on the go!).  I haven't yet got to the more tricky lace knitting bit of the lucille cardigan...

... and I have just learned how to 'insert' a pocket into the Debbie Bliss cabled cardigan.

Right. That's about it on the craft side of things today. I am enjoying a few more minutes of peace before I go and get my energetic toddler out of bed.  Today we had a rather long walk into town, as I decided (given family resolutions to be more thrifty this year) that I was not going to pay the exorbitant parking prices to get into town, but instead I was going to walk from the nearest possible free parking (about 1 hour round trip once we had gone to the one shop we were going in for).  This was a lovely bit of exercise on an absolutely beautiful day (cold and crisp- my favourite!) but my back is now suffering a little with the extra weight that one gets 31 weeks into pregnancy. Oh well- I think I shall need to do a bit of taking it easy for the rest of the day (as if!).

I hope you are all having a lovely week. I'm off to deliver fish pie, and to hopefully glimpse a wee new baby for a moment or two!