I knitted the sleeves both at once, so they would be exactly the same, and to eliminate 'second sleeve syndrome', and finished them last night. This morning I pressed all the pieces, and finally spent the rest of the day sewing it all together!

I learned a new technique on this cardigan - the three needle cast off, to join the two sides of the collar together. It was really easy, and as the rest of the cardigan was a very unchallenging rib pattern right the way through, it was good to at least learn one new technique while doing it.

I am delighted that the sleeves are exactly the right length - I ignored the length on the pattern and estimated the length to knit it - I have very short arms and this is the only long sleeved garment I own that I don't have to roll the sleeves up! I am completely delighted and proud of myself.

It is warm, and cosy, and looks good. I'm actually really surprised with how nice it looks on me. The colour will go with almost anything. I can see myself wearing this every single day because I love it.

My ribbed cardigan now has a back and two front sides, leaving only the sleeves to knit!



I'm still surprised at how much I am enjoying this knit. 2x2 rib is normally less than inspiring, and this entire cardigan is 2x2 rib throughout, but maybe because it is nice thick, soft flexible yarn, it is really easy to do and I get into the rhythm of it and just keep going.

It is looking quite likely at this stage that this cardigan is going to stay within the limits of 1 400g ball of aran - if that is indeed the case then this cardigan will have cost me £4.95! And probably, if I can manage it, then it will be the only cardigan I have ever had in which the sleeves are exactly the right length and don't need rolling up by about 6 inches!

I have had a day of much knitting today! Daughter was at orchestra this morning and it was my turn to take her. That is one of my favourite jobs as it means I get to sit in the car for two and a half hours while she is in there, knitting, and listening to podcasts on my mp3 player! It is a bit of enforced rest and I love it.

Today while in the car I listened to four podcasts, finished the back of my cardigan and cast it off, cast on for the front left panel of the cardigan and knitted a few inches up it. It is growing so quickly and I can't wait to wear it! Since I got home I have managed to sit and knit quite a lot more, and now the front left panel is nearly 12 inches long :-) I really thought I would be bored stiff of 2x2 ribbing by now, but I'm surprised to find I'm still really enjoying it.

Tomorrow we are out and about quite a lot, so I will take the current sock with me and work on that. It's always really odd changing needle sizes, and especially at the moment, as the cardigan is on 10.5mm needles, and the sock is on 2.5mm ones! It always takes my hands and brain a little while to adjust.

Now it is late, and I need to put down the knitting and back away - or I will be fit for nothing in the morning and will end up making silly mistakes in the sock! ;-)

Current works in progress:

- A very complicated cabled square for my stitch pattern squares blanket. The pattern is called 'Celtic Hearts' and it is beautiful but I really need to concentrate on it! I have to sit in complete silence for this one so it's growing slowly - and no photo yet.

- Blue socks for my younger daughter. The stripy blue socks pictured previously were extremely well received by my son, and I was fairly sure I had enough yarn left to make a smaller pair - not stripy though, these ones are dark blue, with a light blue toe and heel. These are my 'take out and about' project so are growing in direct proportion to how many meetings/waiting rooms etc I am sitting in!



- And my sitting at home project is the ribbed cardigan featured on the front of the March 08 issue of Simply Knitting. I am doing that in a charcoal grey aran yarn so that it will go with almost everything - because when it is finished I intend to wear it all the time! It is a lovely easy knit and is growing quickly on 6.5mm needles. I'm thoroughly enjoying it and it is just 2x2 rib throughout, so mindless enough that I can knit it whatever else is going on around me! Not a very portable project though as I'm knitting it straight from a 400g ball of yarn!

I knitted a hat today, in fact - I think actual knitting time was about three hours.

I lost some of my knitting virginity in a number of ways today:

- I knitted my first ever gauge swatch (yes, really... well socks and mittens and blanket squares don't really need them, do they?) It worked, because the hat fits so my maths must have been correct!

- I knitted in the round on a circular needle for the first time ever.

- I knitted on the widest needles I have ever used (6.5mm - I think 6 was my previous largest).

- I knitted with Bulky weight yarn for the first time ever (The thickest yarn I have ever used previously is DK. That's right, I haven't even ever used Aran weight. All this can change now I have my wonderful Denise needles!)

- I used the magic loop technique (when the decreasing got too small for the circular) for the first time in a real project, rather than just to knit a thimble sized hat to see if I could do it!

And at the end of it all, I have a hat! A lovely, purple, eminently wearable hat! And doesn't it go well with my pink dressing gown? ;-)

I have been unwell the last few days and have been doing very little apart from sitting and knitting away at the blue stripy sock! I finished it last night, and kitchenered it this morning (I was too tired last night to trust myself to grafting properly), and I have now cast on for number two, having ascertained that it fits its recipient!

I'm really pleased with it, and love the 3x1 rib pattern, somehow it looks more 'professional' to me than just ribbing down the cuff and then doing a stockinette foot.

Just a few quick knitting-y notes before I let the children have the laptop for a while (during which time I shall retire upstairs and knit, of course...!).

1. My knitting speed has improved. I've always been a 'thrower' and have always let go of my right needle while putting the yarn round for a stitch. The letting go of the needle has been the main thing slowing me down, but I didn't think after all these years I would ever be able to change my ways. But when I was knitting the Monkey socks, I started experimenting with a way of wrapping the yarn round the needle without letting go, and it felt really really peculiar for several days, and slowed me down, until suddenly it became second nature and now I never let go of the needle and I am convinced I am faster than before!

2. Yesterday I took my son to the market and he chose two colours of plain sock wool for stripy socks. He chose light blue and dark blue, and asked for wide light blue stripes and narrow dark blue stripes. So I am knitting him these socks, in 3x1 rib, with 8 rows of light blue and 4 rows of dark blue. I've never knitted 3x1 rib socks before and I really like them, they look fab. And having started them about 24 hours ago, I've done the cuff, the heel flap, picked up the stitches, done all the instep decreases and am partway down the foot. I have never knitted a sock this fast before - which is why I am sure my knitting has speeded up!

3. While at the market I picked up a cheap ball of purple chunky acrylic, because now I have got my Denise circular needles in many sizes, I want to knit myself a hat in the round. I've never knitted with chunky wool before in my life, because I never had big enough needles before, so I'm quite excited about having a go at this. I've also never knit in the round on a circular needle, so that will be new too.

4. I dropped a stitch a few minutes ago, and for the first time ever I managed to use a crochet hook to pick it up neatly and invisibly, the way it should be done! I have always kind of fudged it before, but today I worked out the correct way to do it and am very pleased with myself.

5. The more I knit, the more I can see myself improving. And the great thing about knitting is there is always something new to learn, so the improvement never stops! What a fantastic hobby it is!

I have new needles! Denise Interchangeables to be precise, bought this morning from Knit 2 Together in Wolstanton (the high street shop presence of Cucumber Patch). I have tried them out and so far I am not in the least disappointed; they are just as good as I hoped they would be!

I transferred my current blanket square from my 4mm straights to a 4mm 17" circular and finished it off (knitting flat still of course, just backwards and forwards on the circular). That square was a happy mistake - I started off intending it to be plain 3x1 rib all the way up, but on row 7 I went wrong and didn't notice till I was halfway through row 10, by which time I decided it made sense to carry on as though I had meant to do that all along, and so the rib alternates every 6 rows and makes a sort of stripy chequered-ish pattern!

I find the Denise needles to be very light indeed and very easy to knit with. It's lovely to be able to keep my elbows in, and I will never use straights in public again now I can be so much more 'contained' with these!

Then this evening I decided it was time to find out about something I have seen talked about for ages and ages, something that sounds terribly complicated and something I was sure I would never be able to manage - Magic Loop! It is a way to knit small diameter circular projects on large circular needles. People knit socks with Magic Loop, and gloves, and finish off hats with it so they don't have to switch to DPNs.

I watched a video on knittinghelp.com and that made perfect sense, so then I had a go myself. There is a lot of talk on Ravelry about how difficult it is to magic loop on Denise interchangeables, and I can see that it is a bit fiddly and would be easier on a needle with a thinner cord, BUT it is perfectly possible, and to prove it I have knitted a teeny weeny hat, with 12 stitches, on a 27" circular. The hat just fits my finger so I suppose at a push you could call it a knitted thimble! *g*

I'm not sure how often I will use it - I like my DPNs for socks, and anyway the Denise needles don't go down small enough for sock knitting really. But I can see it could be very useful for hat knitting - and now I have the equipment I am dying to try out a hat on the 17" circular!

But at least now whenever I see magic loop mentioned, I will be able to think to myself 'yes, I can do that' instead of 'eeeeeeek scary new words, help, run away....' ;-)

Well this didn't take long! I used the remainder of the 50g ball that I made the handbag with. I began it just before lunch, took it out with me to a pancake race (and the mayoress who with her husband was opening the race said 'look at that young lady over there knitting' and came over to have a better look and a chat - I haven't been called a young lady for a while! *g*), and I finished the knitting part while we were there. I started lining and sewing once the children went to bed, and finished it at about nine o'clock this evening. Probably about 3-4 hours' work altogether!

It fits really nicely inside the bag and so now I have a bag and a purse which match my fingerless gloves! I didn't buy anything specially for them, just used what I had in the house already, and my free clasp, so they have cost me nothing! I am really pleased with them and intend to use them all the time. :-)

...is finished!



I can hardly believe I made that! Since taking the photo I have modified it slightly by sewing the I-cord right up to the top of each side of the bag; this has fixed the problem I had previously of the top flopping over when I held it by the handle.

I tried putting my purse in it earlier on, and the purse is a bit too big and fat, so I started pondering on if I wanted to spend money to buy a smaller purse specifically for using when I am taking this bag out. Then my rather slow brain caught up and informed me that I should knit one!

I think there is enough yarn left for a small simple purse. Tomorrow I will cast on for it and see what happens. Sadly I threw the excess teatowel material away after I cut the lining for the bag, but I am quite tempted by the idea of using a bit of the duplicate green sheep teatowel for lining the purse. Watch this space!

I feel like a total genius at the moment. Knitting is so incredibly good for the self esteem!

I started again with the lining this morning and followed Nicola's and Dawn's guidelines - thank you very much to everyone for all your helpful suggestions!

( I'm cutting this as it is photo heavy )

When I had finished sewing on the lining and read the instructions for the next bit, suddenly I realised that I had done the whole thing wrong - I had misinterpreted the instructions and didn't realise that 'Place the knitting and fabric together with the right sides facing' actually meant 'facing each other', not 'facing outwards'!! Maybe if I had done it the way the pattern suggested in the first place, I wouldn't have had all the hassle with the hemming etc! If I ever make another one, I shall know...

This means that the lining looks a bit peculiar, as there is a good half an inch gap of knitting round the edge, where the lining should really fill the whole of the inside of the bag. But hey, it's the inside!

Also I am a bit unsure about the clasp and whether I should have sewn the bottom corners of it on as well - they hang out a bit at each side and look a bit... 'odd', but when I tried to sew them on afterwards, they kept coming undone every time I opened and closed it. The part I mean is the hinge at each side where there is a small round hole - it looks as though it probably ought to be secured to the knitting, but mine aren't, never mind!

I've looked up instructions for knitting i-cord and it looks pretty simple, so I'm going to have a go at that for a handle.

All in all I am really pleased with this bag, it's been a good learning experience and while I can see where I could have done some things differently to make it more professional, it actually looks really good. I think I will be able to fit phone, keys and a small purse in it, and I hope to use it very often. ( The fact that it matches my Fetching fingerless gloves is an added bonus! ;-) )

I know I was completely and utterly crap at sewing at school, but I thought I could overcome this for something I really wanted to do!! Now I am not so sure!

I will do it, and I will do it well, and I will be proud of it. But not tonight. Tonight it is making me incredibly grumpy and now I am close to tears and I don't want to go to bed feeling like this, so I'm abandoning the bag while it still looks good and I'll have another go tomorrow.

I started off really well. First I pressed the bag and pinned it to the teatowel lining:



Then I cut round the lining material so there was about 2cm extra fabric:



And finally I folded all the excess material underneath so the lining fitted the bag, and pinned it:



And then I pressed it again, and started to sew. I started twice, and both times the thread got tangled up immediately and I had to cut it off and start again.

Then I did just over an inch, painstaking backstitch, making sure it was really neat.

And then I looked at it and realised that my neat (Well, okay, fairly neat, let's not overstate this!) stitching was perfectly adequate on the inside lining of the bag and the outside of the bag had all the messy back part of the stitching on view!!

GRAGH GRAGH GRAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!

I simply just am NOT a sew-er. Never have been, and never will be.

But I am determined to overcome this bloody bag (it is a wonder it isn't literally bloody given the number of times I have stabbed myself on the pins and the needle!!) and I will pick it up again tomorrow when I've calmed down.

In its current state, I still love it. But I am a bit scared I'm going to hate it if I mess up the sewing again!

The knitting part of my bag is now complete, and I have just woven in the ends. I've earmarked tonight for the actual bag construction - and I am terrified and keep putting it off! So far I have read lj, caught up on my Facebook Scrabulous games, and investigated Google Reader to keep up with all the different blogs I read!

And the bag is looking at me accusingly. I really really want the finished product, but I am scared in case I make a mess of the sewing - how ridiculous is that?!

I have sewn up Clangers, I am sure I can sew up a bag... can't I?

Watch this space... I really am going to get on with it now!

Was discussing bag linings with Pim and JackieP this morning (hijacking Pim's lj somewhat). When this bag is knitted, it needs to be lined, and I am a bit scared of that part as I Don't Sew. Also I have been thinking that I need something fairly sturdy so that I could potentially keep DPNs in the bag with a portable sock project. From Jackie's mention of towels, I started thinking about the old terry nappies in our cupboard, that we use for mopping up spills these days.

Thought some more, and decided that I don't have the right sort of love for the terry nappies for a special and nice bag. My mind wandered up a drawer, to where we keep the teatowels - we have loads of the things and most of them never get used!

A family friend sends me teatowels with sheep on for Christmas every year, and this year for the first time ever, we had a duplicate! So I went and dug around in the drawer and found the older version of the teatowel - green, with sheep all over it. Perfect for a wool bag that is going to be used as a knitting bag, thought I. Only drawback is, it's green, and the predominant colour of the bag is red, with only a very tiny fleck of very dark green now and then.

And then I remembered. Years and years and years ago, when I was a student, I was given a sheepy teatowel (by a friend this time, I think) - red, with sheep all over it. For years it hung up on display on my wall - but I haven't seen it for a very long time and didn't know if we even still had it. Further digging revealed that we do! Hooray! So seeing as it has been buried in a drawer for years, not even used as a teatowel, I am going to use it as the lining for my bag, and the sheep will make me smile every time I open it! :-D

Also, having such a lovely lining might even make the sewing it together feel a bit more cheerful ;-)

If I continue knitting at the rate I have been, I should be able to finish the knitting part today, which is rather exciting!

I have completed the knitted gift set for our friends' baby girl when she arrives (due in about 3 weeks I think).

Sorry the photo is a bit dark! I do hope they are pleased with socks and mittens - and I will be interested to discover whether the smaller mittens actually fit a real live baby - at the moment they look to me as though they are only big enough for a doll!



Simply Knitting March 08 arrived this morning, and there is a cardigan pattern on the front I really like (funnily enough I had been walking home from school just before it arrived, telling myself that I will knit myself a cardigan and get over my cardigan-fear!). It also came with a free handbag clasp (well I would call it a purse clasp really but then I like my handbags enormous *grin*), and an easy pattern inside to make the bag. I have a spare ball of wool from when I knitted my Fetchings, so I'm going to use that for it and start it today. :-)

Following the teeny baby socks in the previous post, I have now gone on to knit one teeny weeny little mitten:



and one slightly bigger mitten:



I knitted the larger one as an experiment because the smaller one just seemed far, far too tiny for a real baby, but I really can't remember how small new babies are! So I am going to knit pairs for them both, and then the present will be complete - one pair of socks, and two pairs of matching mittens in two different sizes!

But having knitted two socks for me, two baby socks and two mittens, all one after the other in the same yarn, I am ready for a change, so this evening I'm going back to my neglected stitch pattern squares blanket, and will continue the turquoise square in tumbling blocks pattern.

Dawn has sent me some of her decluttered dk yarn bits and pieces for the blanket and I am so thankful for those; I have lots more colours to choose from now - and as the bag I had my few balls in already was almost full, and Dawn's parcel more than doubled the blanket yarn I possessed, I went out and bought a storage crate for it, and I now officially have a Stash! I have never had one of those before so that is really rather exciting! *grin*

About two weeks until I will be able to afford the Denise interchangeable needles from the K2Tog shop in Wolstanton (the real life home of Cucumber Patch)! I am very excited about this indeed. Not least because I have never visited the shop before and this will be the perfect excuse to go!

I have managed to knit a pair of tiny baby socks, starting with 32 stitches, in one day, between breakfast time and bedtime! I managed a fair bit of normal life in between the knitting as well... ;-)

As the baby they are meant for isn't due for another four weeks or so, I feel very smug (of course it helps that we know she is going to be a girl - if the hospital got it right that is!).

Tomorrow morning I will cast on for her mittens, because there is still yarn enough for those too.

And here is a photo of the little socks - I put them on a coaster so you can get an idea of scale. I have completely forgotten what size newborn feet come out at, so it is a little bit of a gamble, but I trust this couple to give me feedback on whether or not they fit (unlike the last new parents I knitted baby socks for who didn't even acknowledge they had received them until I prodded them several months later... but that is another story...!)

The Monkey socks are finished! I should probably have gone to bed an hour ago, but finishing the socks took priority!

Here are photos:






I am so pleased with them :-)

There is plenty of yarn left and I think there should be enough for teeny weeny baby socks and teeny weeny baby mittens, so my next two projects are all planned out. Will cast on for the socks tomorrow.

I am currently a third of the way down the heel flap for Monkey sock 2. I am planning an evening away from the laptop, knitting and listening to podcasts, so I'm hoping to make some real inroads into the foot tonight. :-)

I now have Cunning Plans for the leftovers (because I have little feet there are bound to be leftovers...) - some friends of ours are expecting a baby girl in about 4 weeks' time and I am going to knit a teeny weeny pair of plain socks for her - casting on 32 stitches. I did vaguely wonder about teeny matching thumbless mittens, if the wool holds out that far, but if it doesn't then the socks will be a lovely gift (and way back when I first found out she was pregnant I threatened to knit socks for the baby and the idea was well received, so I do hope they like them!).

Right, off to get smallest daughter to bed and then give myself up to an evening of knitting!

Inspired by forum threads on Ravelry, I have dug out my mp3 player, re-downloaded the Juice podcast receiver, and subscribed to a whole load of knitting podcasts recommended by various Ravelers!

The most recent episodes of all twelve are currently synching to my mp3 player and I am looking forward to hearing them and finding out which ones I like best. Once I have found a few favourites I probably will not subscribe to so many!

I loved the idea of podcasts when I first got my mp3 player, and used to subscribe to various BBC radio ones, but was never quite interested enough to listen to them on a regular basis. Maybe knitting ones will be different, maybe not - we shall see! Anyway it is quite exciting... :-)

Am now halfway down the cuff of my second Monkey sock - it is taking a lot longer than the first one did but then I am a lot busier this week and seem to have less time or energy for knitting!