Random Ravings

There's a few things that I need to fill you in on. I apologise in advance, I think it's going to be a long one.

I've been knitting the Puff-Sleeved Cardigan from Stefanie Japel's Fitted Knits. As knitabulous commented previously, on 4mm needles, I was flying along. It was my first ever top down raglan and I was really enjoying it. See I'm happy in this photo.


This was all way back when I was making the strawberries. I was avoiding the felting stage of the first strawberry by knitting the cardigan, until I realised the date (about December 1st) and had to get my A into G and get back to the strawberries. When I came back to the cardigan I was approaching the peplum, this was where I began to hit problems. The pattern calls for a simple garter stitch lace pattern. After knitting to the second last row of the pattern (and encountering the error in the pattern) I decided that I hated it. So I frogged back to the start of the peplum and did my usual thing and avoided the problem by moving on to one of the sleeves. Now, I have to say that the sleeves are not particularly puffy for a cardigan called the puff-sleeved cardigan. I thought it might just be me and my big fudubuduhs, but after checking out how others had gone with this pattern on Ravelry, I found that I was not the only one with this issue.

Anyway, I eventually sat down with my stitch dictionary and settled on the "Ears of Corn" lace pattern. I knitted it up with the same number of decreases as the pattern called for and then tried the cardigan on. O-oh! While I was happy with the look of the lace pattern, the peplum was way too big and sticking out at all funny angles. Aaaargh! This is where this was a bit of a break through for me. In a previous life I would have just made the decision to live with the defect and then have been forever unhappy with the finished product relegating it to the back of the wardrobe, but not this time. This time I frogged back again and re-knitted the peplum for the third time, dramatically reducing the number of decreases and letting the negative ease (that I am so fond of) do it's thing. Yay! It was looking much better! It was at about this point that I realised that I was going to run out of yarn. Fan-bloody-tastic! So now the cardigan minus it's second sleeve and button bands is sitting in a bag waiting for supplies to arrive. That's all I have to say about that! I will post more pictures soon, I promise.

Speaking of Ravelry, I'm new to it and I just have to say, I lurve it! When I looked up the puff sleeved cardigan I was able see what everyone else had done. I was able to confirm that I wasn't going mad, yes there was an error in the lace pattern, and to get lots of ideas on how I could improve the pattern. Love it!

Okay, the next thing I wanted to ramble on about was the amazing Christmas present that Zena bought me. It's a gorgeous canvas bag that is just perfect for a big knitting project like a sweater and it has all these cool pockets for bits and pieces. The bag and it's pockets were filled with all sorts of fun things like Tim Tam Balls (already gone West) and Natural Confectionery Co. snakes (working on those) and Claire Bowditch's new CD (on high rotation). Thank you sweetie!

Here's the bag! I wish I could be more creative and have taken arty photo of it.


Are you still with me? I still have a few more things to get through.

Since the I ran out of yarn for the PSC I have been working on another red cardigan. Yes I know I have a bit of a thing about red cardigans, but this one is not for me. It's for my surrogate niece Ruby. Here's a pic of the progress about four days ago. I have since finished the back and am getting through one of the fronts. Nothing really that exciting to talk about with this one. It's a straight forward pattern from a Patons Kids Knits book and I'm knitting it in Knit Picks Merino Style in Strawberry (yes I have a bit of a thing about those too!). I think it will look cute on her.


Last thing I wanted to say was, Happy New Year! I'm a bit late I know. We (Chi Wai, Brian and I) went to an Italian restaurant that was having a special New Year's dinner. Here's Chi Wai and I at the start of the bottle of French champagne.


Here's me with Brian at the end of the bottle of champagne!


Tee hee! I wasn't that drunk, honest!