Repairing My Ten Stitch Blanket

Remember ages ago I knit a ten stitch blanket? I used 500g of Sirdar Denim Tweed I’d bought on sale and didn’t like when knit up, but poppy adopted it even when it was washcloth sized and so it became a dog blanket.  Cut to the end of April and poppy gave birth on it!   Five chewing puppies later and it ended up with this big hole! 

Naughty Knotter

It’s done! The knots don’t look as scrappy as I was worrying they would, and the white corner looks kind of quirky, in a patchy way. Still, i don’t think poppy will notice, photos of her reaction coming soon!

Really Glad I can put this project behind me as its been a bit of a long slog and it means i can spend some more time worrying about my other projects!

Ten Stitch Wonder

Well it’s been a while, readers, about which I apologise. Since my last update I have moved house though, so I feel it’s not all my fault! In truth I’ve had a number of knitting failures and it’s left me feeling a little uninspired to knit. I’ll go into more detail about that at a later date but for now I’ll show you something I feel a little proud of!

This is the Ten-stitch Blanket I was working on that Poppy decided was for her. Those are my toes, for a sense of scale! I’ve nearly finished it, in fact this is how far I am from the end, but ironically I’ve run out of yarn! I’m hardly about to go out and buy any more of this stuff so I’m weaving in the tails I’ve left as I’ve joined new balls, and then using the off-cuts to knot into one big length to try and get a bit more of it done. After that if I’m still short I’m just going to have to use some white acrylic double knit to finish it off. I doubt Poppy will complain anyway!

In other news, the Garden Path Shawl I started in January has ground to a halt and I’ve started to design a new lace scarf. I’ve also recently started my first cross stitch project, which is going well apart from some fixable mistakes! I’ve not started any new afghan squares, but it’s on my list of things to do. I think I’m about half way through that now, it’s an epic project!

Seal of Approval

At least now I’ve found a recipient for my blanket!  Poppy is almost 9 months old now and still absolutely tiny!  She loves my handknits but has an annoying habit of trying to lie on them whilst I’m still knitting!  She also has a bear I knitted as a test which she carries around by one arm.

 

It’s amazing how big this blanket gets without any real effort though.  It’s now got to about the size where I can lay it on my lap instead of leaving the weight of it to hang annoyingly from it’s ten stitches on my needles.  I’ve already knit up all the yarn from my failed project and have almost knit up a further 50g ball as well.  I have 250g left to use (which is only half of what I bought) but I’m worried if I’ll have enough to make a big enough blanket!  At the moment one 50g ball goes around about one and a half times so I’m looking at maybe another sevenish revolutions, maybe less.  Watch this space!

Ten Stitch Blanket

This is what a Prosperous Plum Tank Top looks like when it’s been undone and reknit into a ten-stitch blanket.  I’ve had to quickly learn how to do short row corners and they’re coming out pretty well, even though I’m still a bit under confident about doing them.  The pattern gives a really easy method though so that’s really helped things along.

The yarn is Sirdar Denim Tweed in Hyacinth, which I bought from Dianne’s Knitting Yarn at a great discount, since the colour had just been discontinued.  It looked great in the ball, but horrendous knitted up (especially in stockinette stitch) although the colours haven’t pooled as badly in garter stitch.  Some of the yarn has gone to waste as it barely survived a first knitting, let alone a second.  The yarn has a tendency to unravel as you knit no matter what you do, and even worse is that the plies break rather easily.  In my balls I found little hard bits of cotton, a bit like you sometimes find in cotton wool, and you can’t remove them without breaking bits of the yarn.  This was probably just a dodgy batch because Sirdar still produce the yarn in other colours besides hyacinth, so they can’t be all bad.

On a Roll

Ta-Da!  I’m on a real roll with finishing stuff, and this is the latest to breeze off my needles.  I think I was right in my decision to change the collar, and it’s worked out pretty well.  It’s quite loose so I shouldn’t have worried that it wouldn’t fit over my head!  After a good wash, the whole jumper relaxed a little and now even the cabled waist isn’t quite so tight.  I’m quite proud of this one - I played around with the sweater recipe I found and then added the pattern, so it’s now technically my pattern!

Swatching for my dad’s scarf ground to a halt shortly after I started.  The logo I was going to have at each end didn’t turn out well in colour work so that idea got scrapped.  My other plan was to use cabling instead, but I hit on some problems:

1. I’m using Double-knit not Aran or Worsted like I intend on using
   
2. I don’t want the curleyness of  stockinette/reverse stockinette so I’m trying to use garter stitch with two stitches either side of the cable in reverse stockinette. complicated isn’t the word
   
3. The pattern for the logo is too big, and finding/making something smaller is far too much brainwork for me right now!
   

I’m sure it’ll get done soon, and I know i keep saying that but it will!  I’ll just have to sort the logo out, and then there will be an excuse to buy more yarn.  I have after all just finished TWO new things, so it’s not like I’m not using it up as I go!

Not much to say on mum’s knitting front except that she’s working methodically if not particularly quickly.  She’s done about two inches so far, but each to their own.

Remember that yarn I bought ages ago that was on offer, the pink, purple, blue and white “denim” cotton mix that had me in a twist about this?  Well I’ve finally found a use for it! I’m knitting a Ten-stitch Blanket (link to PDF File) which happens to look relatively ok with a variegated yarn.  Mine is certainly turning out less like pink camouflage so it’s all good.  Pictures when it’s a bit bigger!

Update

As normal, Ive been meaning to update this but just havent gotten around to it.

Finished a few bits and peices and have finally uploaded the photographs for it! So, in no particular order:

The little baby hat I knitted ages ago and didn't post photos for... if it looks an odd shape it's because its perched on a spindle of cds! I think you can just about see the yellow flecks in the bobble, it came out quite well really!




This is the palindrome scarf i half-knit on holliday in about 3 days, the other half took another 2 weeks! It's made from wendy serenity Aran and is in colourway purple haze. I never ever take it off, it's just too warm. Oh, and it's 6 foot long! A quick note to anyone considering the pattern - there is so much cabling that your hands will fall off. Seriously.





This bookmark took me about 2 hours to knit in total, although i did it in little bits because 2-stitch cabling is hell on my fingers, and I'd already knit enough cables to last me the year when i made my scarf! I used a stitch pattern from a dictionary, and added the border, a tassle and an eyelet to feed it through. If anyone wants the pattern, I'd be willing to pass it on, I prudently wrote it down as i was doing it!



These are my first pair of socks I've knitted - I bought a lovely set of 5 2.5mm dpns called "purple pins" from Knit n Caboodle (prompt delivery, didn't charge until dispatch) which have been my inspiration, after all you need to have the right tools to start with! I knit them with the super expensive chi sockyarn which i bought at The Natural Dye Studio open day thingy i went to in the summer, and they're so comfy, but i feel so guilty about wearing them cos they're handwash only... The surprising thing about the yarn though was that i only used 45g of it to make this pair of socks, so I've just started a second pair...

This is little blue teddy, the first of two i intend to knit (one in blue, one in fawn). This little chap is for a little boy being born in early january, and will be sent off along with all the other little things i knitted. The pattern is from jean greenhowe's Traditional favourites - The knitting was as easy as pie but the sewing up was another matter. The head, no matter how hard i tried, would not go on straight. I matched up seams to the best of my ability, but after sewing around the neckline, looked more like one of those tortured teddies that end up being used as some sort of voodoo doll for children! I eventually managed to get the neck so that he was looking in a more healthy direction, but it's still not straight and I'm not unpicking it again! The scarf was made from some white acryllic, couldn't tell you what it was though except that it was the first ball under my questing fingers. And thank god I've always got half a ball of some sort of black yarn lying around! Now all i have to do is work up the motivation to get the other one done too (will be posted to a lovely friend who is attempting to help me through my degree, more on that later!)

Thats all my finished objects... now i look back I've actually done quite a lot!

Update on shawl - it's still not finished - the sewing of the border has gone badly, it is in the naughty corner and will probably stay there til after christmas now. After hours of faffing about and arguing with my mother about how the corners should be sewn, we finally decided on a corner shape. The long and short of the problem is in the fact that she got the measuring tape out, made lots of precise calculations about how much of the work to use for the corners and how much would be needed in between, then completely disregarded them and pulled a different number out of thin air. Guess what? It doesn't fit. I don't want to talk about it anymore, it makes me sad.

Been planning as a future project a pair of rather theatrical armwarmers from some mohair that Mo sent me, with pointed cuffs that come down over my hand, and a big thick ribbon to lace it up the side, since I'll be knitting it straight I think. Unless i pull off the 3 rows i knit to start a top on my 4mm circs... Now there's a thought!

In other news, my love life still sucks and will remain in such a condition because there is no such thing as men when it comes to the equine industry, seems like what few there are go into hiding or something! It's gotten so bad now that i have various family members keeping their eyes peeled for me!
My degree is confusing the crap out of me but that isn't anything new. It's not the learning bit that is confusing, it's the process of organising to take exams and do coursework and the general administration of it all. I'm not the best person for getting out there and talking to people, and when i get worried about things i have a tendancy to get over-emotional about it and panic over nothing.
And I've still not had my refund from angelyarns yet. And it's been 2 months. Not Happy.

I have a tangle of snake-like border sat in my lap. Yes that means I've finally finished knitting, I knit the last row at work today! I now have the arduous task of sewing the damn thing together but first I think I'm going to iron it to try and get some of the curliness out - I think it could be a little unruly otherwise! More to come on this late next week as I'm off on holliday on Friday!


I'm a little irate with angel yarns regarding my purchase I told you all about.I ordered some yarn from them and the payment was finalised and I thought that was that, but no! I had an email about two days later saying that it wasn't in stock and wouldn't be delivered for up to a month, which was really awkward since it was intended for a holiday project.I knew I was cutting it a tad fine by ordering about 12 days before I was due to go, but I don't think I could have prepared for a whole month's shipping time! On their website they state that they don't accept cancelations by phone, only by post or email, so I sent them an email on Friday morning to cancel the order (I received their email late on the Thursday night) and I've still not heard back yet, or had the money refunded to me. Quite cross about that!I'm going to give them another week and if I still havent heard anything I'll have to call them (eek! i hate calling people!) But on the plus side I then went on the kemps wool shop website (links on the left) and bought two balls of Wendy's "Serenity Aran" in "Purple Haze" which arrived two days after I ordered it and only cost me £6.54, a saving of about £8 compared to what I'd bought from angelyarns, but then kemps wool shop is known for being super-cheap! Will definitely order from them again!


I'm going to go and mull over what needles I'm using for my new scarf, i think i may have to frog something else that I've been avoiding to steal those needles for it, and I have SO much sewing and ironing to do!

Late Post

Crikey, talk about late posting! I skipped one week because I just KNEW I'd be done with the centre part of the shawl and have it all sewn together and photographed by the next week. Well I have it all knitted and sewn together, but the only photographs are on my phone and it turns out not to like my pc very much! Guess you could say I'm not very good at this photography stuff!
I was really looking forward to finishing the centre part and starting the border of this shawl (it counts for only 20% of the finished piece) and I thought it'd take me five minutes and be an absolute breeze compared with the rest of it, but oh how wrong I was and in some completely unexpected ways! I'm getting used to the pattern now, but in the beginning it was hard to remember and I kept having to refer to the pattern a LOT, but now I'm finding it's so repetitive and completely boring that it's hard to just get down and do loads in one go, unlike with the centre panels which were quite varied. So it's taken me since the weekend (about 5 daysish) to do a sum total of 4,232 stitches (not including cast-on). Which in all honesty, is completely crap and means that all I have to show for my dedication (hah!) is a long, thin, curly (damn stockinette stitch!) snake thing, with funny coloured markers!
In my boredom I have been planning my next project (whilst looking at UFO's rather guiltily!). I've just ordered some Wendy Aran in Blackberry (like a darkish purpley pink in normal language) from the Angel Yarns website and like the name suggests, it's Aran weight so will be used for the Palindrome scarf in my Ravelry queue (it's a free pattern for cables that look the same on both sides!). In my error I thought that Aran was just the British version of Worsted (the pattern is for worsted weight yarn) so I'm a little concerned that my gauge won't exactly match that of the pattern, but I've been assured that I'm worrying too much and being silly, so full steam ahead (and if it goes horribly wrong , I have the names of who to blame!). Lets hope the yarn arrives before the end of next week though because I'm off on my hols next Friday and the idea is that I can start it and get a lot done whilst I'm there.
I've also discovered the clearance section on the kemps wool shop website and oh my god it's so cheap! I think coming across this site might have been a mistake, the trouble with cheap yarn is that you buy more of it, start (but not finish) more projects and then before you know it your stash has taken on a life of it's own and is suddenly demanding remote control rights and slamming doors and borrowing your car...
In other news, I've been knitting so much I broke my row counter, and had to buy another one. The new one is all clean and bright, but somehow it's just not the same since the old one was passed down from my mum from her mum!

Christmas already?

It's my Nan's birthday today and I haven't knitted her a present. I know that's really awful, but she's in a care home and I couldn't think of anything to knit (hats scarfs and gloves are all out of the window since she doesn't go outside, and a lot of things tend to be stolen as well!) and now I have no time left. I feel like such a bad person :(

I've had migraine after migraine this week so I've stuck to knitting the christening shawl - mum's scarf has taken a back seat for now until my eyes can focus on the yarn without feeling like they're about to fall out. Don't get me wrong, the yarn is gorgeous and a dream to knit with, but it's so fine that I'm going cross-eyed just to differentiate between it and the needles!

Actually, that's not the only reason I've been trying to crack on with the shawl, I've been getting a few emails enquiring about knitting services, and there's one in particular I'm really intrigued about, it'd mean regular(ish) orders which would be ideal for some extra saving money. Trouble is that where I'm a fairly competent knitter, my negotiating skills are inversely proportionate! I know I knit to a good standard, but putting a price on my skills just seems to blow my brain out of the water for some reason, which is bad when I'm trying to pimp out my services!

The shawl seems to be doing a tour with me at the moment, everywhere I go, people seem to want to see it. There's a lady where I keep my horse who wants me to bring it down and show it off, then I'm taking it to my counselling session tomorrow too. I'm actually part way through the 11th triangle, after this another 5 to go and then the border! I feel like I've been knitting this for ages and although I feel the achievement of casting off each triangle, it seems I aught to be a lot further through it than I am! Still, can't wait til it's finished, but I'm worrying now that I may have to post it instead of giving it to her in person. I'm already planning the box I'm going to put it in, which is going to get bigger and bigger in my head as this things continues to grow - I sewed together two squares last week (really proud of my seeming, it looks so neat!) and without any sort of blocking was nearly as tall as me when I held it up! This is going to be one warm baby...

As knitting time until D-Day (Christmas) diminishes, I keep thinking what I should knit for family and friends. Mum's already had her early Christmas present this year - I bought her a Wii Fit for her to play with and hopefully lose some weight. Bought dad some books for his birthday so I was thinking of knitting him a bookmark to go with it, but the only patterns I've seen are for sock wool at the heaviest, so I might have to make it up as I go along - I've some left over DK acrylic in red green and white (lovely christmas colours!) so am tempted to do something colourful, maybe with cables. No idea what I want to knit for friends yet, I've a special friend who is hopefully reading this right now and will soon be moving into his new house, so I'd like to knit something cool that he can use, but will look cool AND be thoughtful at the same time, Thinking hats on please!

I hope I'm not the only person who is thinking of what they may be receiving on that day either. I've been hearing all the chatter about circular needles with interchangeable tips, and the more I hear about them the more I want a set! The other thing on my list is a ball winder, not because I have no patience whatsoever to constantly wind a bit of yarn around my hand a million times and in the process giving myself RSI, but because when I manually wind a ball it's so untidy, and that's if it doesn't fall apart! I want some pretty stitch markers too, the more horsey themed the better! I'm sick of my plastic ones, they're ugly!

As I'm re-reading this post, I'm realising that not only is there no pictures, but there's also nothing I've spoken about that needs illustrating with any. Which is boring. So I'm going to finish this off with a pretty picture of my pony, who is gorgeous and my reason for being :-)

stroke the yarn....

Went to the open day on saturday, YAY!!! Bought some Chi sock yarn from The Natural Dye Studio, which is a merino/bamboo mix. The bamboo apparently gives it anti-fungal properties which is good for socks, so we'll just have to wait and see how it knits up. Also bought some Laceweight "Angel" in the colourway Moonpearl. Firstly I'd like to state that I am NEVER going to knit with cobweb-weight yarn, this is hard enough! I'm knitting a scarf from it called Moon River (I'm willing to send the pdf to any non-ravelry members as it's a free download anyway) and my main problems are that I can't actually see the yarn against the needles, which is giving me brain-ache. Oh but it's worth it because it's so soft and pretty! Angel is made from a Baby Alpaca/Cashmere/Silk blend and has a very slight halo of fluffyness, a gentle sheen and is a pleasure to behold. Yummy yarn!
The day itself was absolutely lovely, the weather was gorgeous and there was tea and scones laid out for us to enjoy, and by the end of the day we'd gathered quite a crowd. I was sat knitting my most recent triangle (I swear I'm going to be knitting these things til the day i die!) and a couple of ladies were sat with their knitting. The lady from TNDS was sat with us crocheting a blanket together, a couple of ladies were spinning (both with wheels and drop spindles!) and everyone was chatting and crafting away like we'd all known each other years! It was great fun and I really do hope another similar event is organised soon.


Christening Shawl Update: I'm just about to cast on the 8th Triangle, which means that excluding the border, I'm almost half way through! I'm mentally doing a jig just thinking about it!
I sewed together four of the triangles just before i blogged last week, and have since photographed it (pictured right). I love the way the flower comes together in the middle, but there is a slight hole where the points meet, so I'll have to work out some way of dealing with that later.

And thats pretty much it... I'm going back to bed now, to nurse my poor laceworker's headache!

Bugger

This will probably be a really short post today, as I've not been well for the past week and a half. I appear to have come down with some sort of stomach bug, and feel like I've been kicked in the tummy several times by a rather irate mule.

The baby hat I knitted has finally been finished!. My dad made a bobble for it (I think he secretly enjoyed doing it too) and instead of it just being plain white, he put some strands of yellow yarn through it that i had lying around. It looks really pretty, but I've not managed to take photos, on account of spending most of my time curled up in a ball, or in the bathroom! I promise I'll have pictures of it by next week!

When I have managed to knit, I've done more of the triangles for this Christening shawl I'm making. I'm knitting the 5Th at the moment, although I've a horrendous feeling I've counted the rows wrong and it will have to be frogged and started again. It's not so bad, it was only the 30Th row, and there was only as many stitches on the needles anyway. I think to about the tenth row there is barely 15 stitches on the needles, so it's pretty quick to knit in the early stages. By the time I reach the 94Th row, I will have roughly 98 stitches on the needle, so better that I spotted the mistake now rather than later!

The second triangle I knit for this project was a complete disaster and had to be frogged twice before it would knit up right. The first time I got roughly half way through the second repeat of the diamond pattern when my mind just went blank and I couldn't remember what row i was doing, didn't recognise any of the stitches I'd knit, or where i was up to in the pattern! I decided to tink back the stitches I'd just knit, but then lost a stitch off the left needle when trying to undo a PSSO on the right (don't ask!). Plan B was then to frog back until the purl row before the diamond pattern started, but then i couldn't get the stitches on the needle properly and row after row was torn out, until I just kept pulling at that yarn, with wild abandon... Second time wasn't so bad, just a silly mistake like I've just done with the latest triangle, miscounted the rows (I was watching telly again!) and missed two out :(

It's weird that when you frog, the first few rows you rip out are like ripping out your own heart; every stitch screams to you as it disappears into the puddle of yarn on the floor, and even though you'll probably reknit those rows, it'll never be quite the same stitch, or quite the same bit of yarn. But after the first few rows it's like each stitch ripped out releases the pride you placed into it, and that changes into the hope that next time you will do it right, and it WILL work out...

I did have another slight misshap with the shawl though, and I'm sure you can guess what I was doing when it happened! I was sewing together 4 of the triangles (i wanted to see how it came together) and it's not rocket science to do it either - all you do is mattress stitch the little looped edges together. Very quick and simple, ideal for someone like me. WELL. I sewed all four peices together, it looked so pretty, the little flower in the middle and the completely missmatched diamond patterns around the outside. Argh! I spent most of last night watching "Strictly Come Dancing", and picking the thing apart :( I'm in two minds now whether or not to leave the sewing until before i knit the border, but i can't help worrying i might do something wrong which i would discover sooner if i sew each triangle together as i knit it...

In other news, the BFL open day is this weekend and I can't wait! I really hope I'm better by then since i don't think coffee and scones are a happy bedfellow with a tetchy stomach :(

The (almost) pictureless post!

Reasons to feel bad:
1: Although I finished knitting the little hat that goes with the baby set I was doing, I haven't actually made the pompom for it yet(i got distracted, see below!), so haven't photographed it :(
2: I started a new project from a pattern in the Chevy collection, but for the love of god can i find a single picture of it that i can put here? I can't even find the pattern for sale!

If anyone wants to hunt it down it's pattern 1295, and it contains a pattern for a christening shawl and a cot blanket. I've admired this shawl pattern for a while now, I found it whilst going through some old patterns i was kindly given. It's knit in plain dk yarn, but the yarn-overs and decreases give it a lovely lacey feel, and although I'm actually using pure acryllic it's actually turning out very soft and light too. The shawl itself is knit in 16 triangles (pictured left) with a border knitted seperately, which means there are a very manageable number of stitches on the needles at any one time. I'm really quite proud of myself for even attempting this shawl as a lot of people have commented on how difficult it looks, and I'm half way through my 2nd triangle already! The triangles fit together to make 4 squares, and the petal shape at the bottom forms a little flower in the middle. Can't wait to get this done! Before I get asked, no it's not for me! My best friend's sister is having a baby which is due early march of 2009, so it won't be an impossible task of finishing before then, but i get an awful feeling I'll be swearing at the monotony of the last few triangles!

I'm still searching for a nice summery top to knit out of about 500g of Sirdar Denim Tweed DK that I have under my bed. I bought this as a discontinued pack at an online discount yarn shop that I really like, with the intention of making long fingerless gloves/arm warmers out of them, and then maybe making something else with the remainder of the yarn. I sort of had a disagreement with my double-pointed needles, and the project suddenly was a no-go. I'm half tempted to knit something of my own design after spending an infinity searching ravelry for any free jumper patterns, and searching books and leaflets to no avail. One of the problems with this is that i don't even get past the swatching stage: I cast on, knit half a row, get bored and knit more of my shawl! I think it's probably a project I need my full attention for as I'll need to do some serious maths and design work!

As promised I found the dates and address of the open day I'll be going to at the end of the month. As far as I'm aware, the day is hosted by http://www.bluefaced.com with guests including The Natural Dye Studio and FiberSpates. (Please don't hold me responsible if you spend an entire day perusing their websites, unable to tear your eyes away from their AMAZING yarns!) The dates are the 27th and 28th of September 2008, the venue. near Chester, is:
The Croft Stables
Station Lane
Great Barrow
CH3 7JN

I also wanted to spend a minute telling you about the online discount yarn shop i use, http://www.knitone.co.uk/ AKA Diane's Knitting Yarns. I wanted to give them a mention because so far, I've only ever bought online yarn from them and I've never regretted it! I have usually received my yarn about 2-3 days after placing my order, which is usually about half the price of what i would pay anywhere else. The other nice thing is that they often have yarn oddments of discontinued yarns, which is great if you've run out of a certain type of yarn, or you only need one or two balls of something. They do cheap needles and buttons and other bits and peices and get new stock regularly, so it's worth keeping an eye on. I really suggest checking them out, afterall, the cheaper the yarn, the more you can buy, right?

An Introduction, and my current Work-in-Progress

I've always been able to knit, and now i find myself knitting more and more. Popular knitting culture being what it is, the craft suddenly holds a lot more interest to me now than what it did when i learnt as a small child, knitting for my dolls whilst my nan knit my school cardigans. That was some 20 years ago, and now i have far more demands upon my time than simply sitting quietly and knitting all day. So I've learnt to knit around real life: whilst waiting for deliveries; during a quiet moment at work; whilst watching a movie or listening to a podcast. What makes this special is that i own a horse, so deliveries are of the hay and straw variety and I'm usually sat in my horse's stable while doing it, and that i also work with horses and children, so finding a quiet moment at work is like finding gold dust!

It's only recently I've dared to progress past knitting for the sake of holding needles, to knitting with a purpose. Don't get me wrong, I've not stuck to plain stitches or single colours, I've dabbled with all sorts of colour changing techniques. I've tried (with varying levels of success) lace patterns and lots of textures too. Trouble is that if I've no aim in mind, then I knit a few pattern repeats and then think to myself "oo look, how pretty it is", and then frog it and cast on something else. Apart from a scarf i made for my mother a few years ago (which she still wears!) my knitting skills haven't really been useful for much other than entertainment. But this has all changed. I made the fatal mistake of mentioning that i could knit to a number of friends and relatives and I now have a list of projects the length of my arm, only one of which I've actually started. It's a baby set from a pattern sheet by Sirdar (Snuggly Double knitting 3108) and it's simple enough to knit. I've substituted the recomended yarn for one by James C. Brett called "Baby Shimmer" in white, because I found enough balls heavily discounted in a basket in my Local Yarn shop (89p if anyone's counting) and that doesn't seem to have caused any variation in the pattern (so far) and although I have found the yarn to be quite rough on the hands (it's the little shimmer strands that do it!) I've had no other problems with the yarn at all. Knitting the patterm, again, is not a problem either. My real gripe is that I'm AWFUL at sewing. I mean, REALLY awful.
My mother seamed the blanket i knit first, and for good reason. I knit the middle bit, and during a conversation with her (whilst still knitting the border) tried to explain how to block a finished piece. Big mistake. I came home later that evening, after mucking out my pony and settling her to bed, to find that my dearest mother HAD WASHED THE MIDDLE SECTION AND IT HAD STRETCHED! I think i was near to tears, it took me a month to knit it and i had blisters from knitting at speed in any available spare moment. So I swore that she would sew it all together and if there was any problems AT ALL, then she would deal with it. And true to form, it came out wonderful. Judge for yourself.
Well, now I've finished knitting all the different sections of the jacket/cardigan thing and my mother has picked this moment to go on holiday (it's not all bad as she is bringing me back some pretty yarn!) and my sewing has all gone horribley wrong. I thought it might be easier to start with sewing one of the front sections to the back, but low and behold, I've sewn half of the arm hole up too. I've actually given up after this setback and I'm currently waiting for my mother to return so she can undo my silly mistakes and do it properly :(

This was only meant to be a short post as it's late and I'm tired, but it feels so good to rant, and for (hopefully) people to understand where I'm coming from!