Blackberry completed

I've been waiting for days for the weather to clear up (it's been dark, misty and gloomy in London) and for hubby to return from a business trip to photograph Blackberry. There's one done by Aidan, my lil one, but it's slightly out of focus and has more of the ceiling in the picture than me. I have enjoyed knitting this cardigan and it's been getting a lot wear in the cold weather at the moment. The pattern is from Knitty Fall o5 and designed by Jen. I made a few changes to the pattern including resizing the sleeves to fit my puny arms, omitting the bobbles (mine were just too messy) and reversing the cables, because I liked them that way round. Here's a side view of the sleeves and cables. Here's the full frontal view. (Sorry about the messy hair - didn't have time to do anything with it!)

Aidan also wanted to be in every picture today. He's so cheeky. I also forgot to mention that he had his third birthday last week. I can't believe I have a 3 year old and an 18 month old and I have new found career as a full time mum. 3 and 10 months ago, I was having a lot of fun, working hard and partying hard. I was never home. Now I wouldn't change my life for my previous life, apart from the lack of income!

On the slight subject of anniversaries, hubby and I got together in the first term of the first year of university 16 years ago. That's a lot of my adult life. We've had our ups and downs and we've grown up, grown as a couple and grown as individuals. Love you darling!

What's brought on this post, I guess it's Thanksgiving and I'm being thankful for what I've got in my life.

Thank you

I really do love the knit-blogging community. A few weeks ago, I sent Ra my spare ticket to the Knitting and Stitching show which she was going to use to go to the show in Harrogate. Look at what she sent me as a thank you, which was totally unnecessary but gratefully accepted.
Included in the gift was gorgeous yarn in lovely autumnal colours (yellow, orange and purples), geranium and rose petal soap, a pair of gorgeous earrings and incense leaves. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What does my birthdate mean

I have seen this little test at a few sites and thought I'd try it too.

Your Birthdate: February 1

You are a natural born leader, even if those leadership talents haven't been developed yet. You have the power and self confidence to succeed in life, and your power grows daily. Besides power, you also have a great deal of creativity that enables you to innovate instead of fail. You are a visionary, seeing the big picture instead of all of the trivial little details. Your strength: Your supreme genius Your weakness: Your inappropriate sensitivity Your power color: Gold Your power symbol: Star Your power month: January

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

I guess with all these things, some of it is accurate and others not so. I really don't think I'm a leader, natural born or otherwise. I'm really not a follower either, more non-conformist. I do believe I'll suceed in life (gosh that sounds arrogant, but I don't mean it like that!), I don't think I'm doing too badly at the moment. I hope I have creativity and I'm really bad with details. You should see my performance reviews at work and I used to be a (sad) auditor!! Don't think much of my strengths or my weakness or power colour or power symbol. Oh well.

On the knitting front, I am stuck on seaming Blackberry which is taking forever. I have forgotten how long it takes to seam things. More on that soon.

Completion and progress

I really must make an effort to post on a regular basis, otherwise I have a huge number of photos and things to write about on one post.

First up, progress on my Blackberry cardi. I have completed one sleeve (I frogged the original sleeve for being too big and reversed the cable onto the knit side of the fabric) and started on sleeve two. I am hoping to complete sleeve 2 fairly quickly, seam it and start the ribbing. The weather in London is absolutely freezing at the moment and Blackberry would get a lot of wear. I have also just played netball tonight, so I can confirm it is Artic out there!!!
Next up, I was stressing a week ago about finding Adriafil Globe Multicolour to finish Clapotis. I managed to score some from an advert in one of the knitting magazines (I find those details). So, a few hours of knitting later and a few more hours of light blocking, I present to you the finished article. I love it! It is going to keep me so warm. I love those colours too. One day when I run out of projects (ha ha!!) I will knit this again in a variegated yarn with longer strips of colour. Here is hubby showing how big it is, Clapotis that is.

Finally, I also started on some Christmas presents. I knitted this scarf in Noro Tubu (small) which I purchased from Get Knitted in summer (ages ago). All it took was one hank of 100g. I think this yarn has been discontinued. I have a few more hanks and a few more presents to complete.

It's a disease..

I've got startitis and I've got it bad. In the last week, I've started 3 new projects. I kinda stalled on my Clapoti as I ran out of yarn and I'm waiting for new supplies to arrive. So I thought I'd start a new project or three.
First up is Blackberry from Knitty winter 05. It's knitted in Rowan Chunky Print in shade 73 Temper. I bought that in the Liberty sale for GBP3 per ball. It was destined for another project but I liberated it to make Blackberry. I love chunky knits, blink and it's almost complete. I started it on 27 October but took a trip to Chicago for a few days and didn't fancy taking heavy yarn and heavy knitting so I left it at home. It got restarted on 3 November and I have completed the back and two fronts and most of a sleeve.
Here's a picture of the sleeve. I tried the bobbles but I didn't like them, that's probably to do with my poor bobble making skill. I ripped back 25 rows and started again. I've now got to the armhole shaping and I've decided I don't really like the shape of the sleeve......

I think it's huge at the wrist. See I've got it pinned up and it's probably 8 -10 stitches too wide for my liking. Does anyone else feel the same? I'm thinking of ripping it out and starting again. And if I was going to do that, I'm going to reverse the cable. I prefer the knit side too. Hmmm....????? As I couldn't take Blackberry on my trip, I thought I'd take a smaller project. This is the complete opposite of Blackberry. It's Arisaig, again from Knitty Winter 05 and knitted in 4 ply wool and small needles 2.25mm and 2.75mm. The yarn is Rowanspun 4 ply in Sugarspun ( a totally me colour!) Man, it takes so long to knit lil itty bitty stitches on lil itty bitty needles. In probably the same amount of time , I've only knitted a small amount of the ribbing for the back. It's going to be a labour of love project. I fear progress will be slow.



So in my infinite wisdom, I've decided to start a new project tonight. I am making the Chevron tank from Rebecca 29 in HipKnits silk in Stormy which I purchased from Ally Pally. The yarn is beautifully soft and the colourway is gorgeous. But I seem to have some problems with it already. It snapped twice as I was casting on and it seems to pil. As you can see, I've only really just started so I'll going to progress a bit more before I make my mind up about it. I'll let you know!

Aaahh.... Chicago

I just had a wonderful long weekend in Chicago with hubby and without children (how I missed them in 4 days, pathetic I know!). It was lovely just to be able to go out have dinner with friends, go to a club (without worrying about babysitters etc), go shopping without the hassle of a double buggy, have cuddles (and more!) in bed without interruptions! We stayed in the W hotel on Lake Shore Drive. Fantastic views of Lake Michigan and a short hop away from the Magnificent Mile (lots of shopping!) I have taken loads of photos but the battery died and I can't find the charger. So it's going to be a photoless post. Sorry!. For anyone who's not been, Chicago is a fantastic city. Great architecture, friendly people, yummy food, good shopping (apart from if you wnated children's toys in the Downtown area).

I basically just shopped and wandered around in Chicago. I also managed to find my way to a few yarn stores in Chicago. A few which I wanted to get to were shut on Monday & Tuesday so I didn't get a chance to visit, so I'll have to try next time I visit Chicago. I'm going to have to write another post about the yarn stores as I need to show my purchases and I can't do that without a camera.

I have also been knitting a storm. I have a severe case of startitis and have started 3 new projects. Madness. One's a chunky knit and it's going so quickly. If I don't get a progress shot soon, I'll just have a completed FO shot! More about that soon!