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!