Football? What football?

Apparently something terribly exciting to do with fooseball is happening in South Africa at the moment.  I am reliably informed that:

(a) England had a rubbish start.
(b) This is apparently surprising (really? Has no-one watched England play sport before, we always start badly, frequently end badly, and occasionally, and in proper sports (cricket and rugby) we win a world cup)
(c) South African supporters were the original reason why it sounds as if there may be a giant hornets' nest just around every corner, but as the saffa population of Warwickshire is tiny, it appears that the English have taken the vuvuzela to heart.
(d) Very few people in Leamington on a Saturday morning can get a decent noise out of them.  Whilst this might seem a blessing in disguise it merely appears as if we are being chased by consumptive hornets (can hornets even get consumption?)

Happily, as you may have concluded that I am not the world's greatest football fan, I spent yesterday evening watching Trooping the Colour and this afternoon watching a brilliant Canadian Grand Prix as H spent much of the weekend playing hockey dressed as a pirate, and I have been knitting:

It doesn't look much but that's two out of four and a bit pattern repeats - there is still a chance that I'll finish the blanket before the baby arrives, yippee! The slight hitch with this most engaging knitting is the need to engage brain to knit it - and at the end of a working day there's often just enough brain left for cooking supper and sleeping (and, given that the Dominos' delivery man accidentally came to our house on auto-pilot the other day*, you can tell that often there's not even that!)

My other more portable knitting is just as intriguing but a little easier going on the brain cells:


It's another baby jacket (because clearly I will have failed as a mother if my baby is not wearing a different jacket for every day of its life, regardless of potentially high ambient temperatures in early September), and it's not a Baby Surprise Jacket.

Phazelia's Mitred Baby Jacket has a similarly clever construction, is virtually seamless, and uses sock yarn, all of which appeal hugely.  I've also not knitted it before, although I think it's going to meet a repeat performance for a friend's baby before too long.

Essentially it's a very pointy top-down yoked jacket, and as you see it has that all-important facility of bemusing anyone who looks at it.

This is the yoke and the sleeves before I whip stitched the sleeves together and started on the sides.  Trust me when I say that it looks much more like a baby jacket now than it did yesterday when I took it KIP-ing to confungle passers-by outside Web of Wool.

Actually it may have been the giant knitting needles or the giant french knitting that had a few people seeming to circle the one way system for a better look (they may have thought that they were looking for a parking space but we knew better).

It was wonderfully sunny and the perfect way to catch up with friends that I haven't seen in a while - what more could you ask for?  And just so that the baby didn't feel left out:


I stickered the bump!

*He was delivering to the next door neighbours and no we didn't get to keep a piece.