And the results are in

She loves it:


Or at least, she loved it once I took three repeats off each sleeve and adjusted the collar a bit but that was easily done and these pictures were taken today in the garden at my parents' house. I am so relieved. Phew! They say that you should never move house and get married and change jobs all at the same time - I'll say you should never knit to a deadline, for a person that isn't there to be measured and when you're making the pattern up as you go along!

We've just come back from spending a long weekend with Mum and Dad which was a wonderful escape from the real world - I rashly suggested that we go on a long cliff walk, and by long I mean that the cliff length is about 12.5miles and the path itself goes in and out and up and down all the way. It is really beautiful though:






There were sheep:

goats:

Seals on the rocks off the Lighthouse:

An ambitious seagull nesting on the dormer roof (and 'decorating' the roof) of a newly built house in Hallsands,

And 'helpful' sign posts like this:


(this is about 2/3 of the way through the walk just as you feel that your legs have turned to pure lead - we decided to go to Poole!)

[NB - H is reading this over my shoulder and would like you all to know that he was still flying along at this point - it is true that he raced up every hill we encountered, of which there were several - the rest of us plodded along]

And in all of this exhausting exercise there was time for a little knitting and finishing:

First to debut - my Silk Dream



It's a hit, need I say more?

And then we have and unusual development in the Red Hot Poker bed - could it be a finished Firestarter?

I really must improve my garden to offer more room for floral knitting photography - perhaps that's a project for tomorrow!

A study in Orange

The Quarterpint cardigan is finished. Cast off and sewn up last night, and soaked in Lavender Eucalan tonight - it's currently blocking on the spare room bed and I think it's going to take a couple of days to dry so I'm glad I'm not up against the wire this time.

I'm pretty pleased with it at the moment, I can't say for definite until crunch time next Thursday but hopefully Mum will like it.

It looks like this:


Only knitted up (what you thought I would spoil the surprise so close to her birthday after keeping it hidden and having no blog fodder for ages! - if I've made it this far I can keep a secret until the end). Mum chose the yarn so no surprises there.

All of which fervent finishing left the needles rather empty and in need of a travelling sock. It also coincided with the end of summer (seriously, I think last weekend may have been it) and a sky too dark grey and cloudy for any decent daylight photography so I dived into the stash and pulled out a birthday present from last year (see Zee, I do knit the yarn you give me, please don't stop) - Koigu KPPM in a colour guaranteed to cure all known cases of SAD:

See, here I have my own little ball of firey Hydrogen, Helium and other exciting molten things - guaranteed to burn itself onto your retina without any provocation - I love it, it's my perfect bright orange.

I've spent some time trying to find the right kind of firey pattern but a lot of the lacey flame patterns just seemed too tame. But now, it is


A Firestarter - it shows off the colouring and then down the sides we get this:

A twisted firestarter. It's all about the orange.

Celebration

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I approach all major high days and holidays with a need to provide one of two things: cake or knitwear.

Occasionally the celebration is sufficiently meritorious to demand both. Today our lovely friend A is 28 (a full month and a half older than us) and he definitely comes under the knitwear AND cake category.

The socks you've seen on my last post and it was just too hot today (30 C) to make him try them on for a picture so imagine him smiling and saying that he likes the colours because they're a bit like LandRover colours.

To make up for a lack of pictures - here is a vision of a sunny day in case it rained where you are

The cake ... well the cake comes with a backstory. My parents-in-law tend to go to the US every year just before Christmas to stay in a cousin's house in Orlando and they tend to do their Christmas shopping there. My Christmas present? a William-Sonoma cake tin. This year it was a set of little car cakes and what better for our petrol-head friend.


The unpolished state is pretty impressive but add a trip to Lantern Corner (a wonderful sweetie shop in Leamington) and you have this:



Add candles, and you have this:

And more recently this:

A loves it and when we finally recover from eating the BBQ that H cooked (delicious but substantial) we'll try some cake.

It seems to have been the day for presents as I had not one but two parcels arrive this morning. I seem to have had an extraordinary run of luck recently - Marisol chose me as the winner of her funky sock monkey kit, and I won the drawing for finishing my last Socktopus club sock (Neighbourhood Tunnels) before the last ones were sent out - and boy am I happy:


Look at this yarn - see, looooook,

it's soooo pretty, and the monkey pattern is so very cute. AND it's the perfect excuse for a little STR aquisition as I need a contrast colour for the monkey extremities.

And the Socktopus prize is this:

A copy of Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee's latest book - it's very very funny (no surprises there then) and perfect for a hot day when moving was just a little bit too much effort. Yes, I know I didn't help matters by putting the oven on either!

Tomorrow H goes to play hockey for the whole day and I have to knuckle down and get going on the last sleeve for Mum's cardigan - 12 days and counting, here's hoping it's sunny again

Rainy Sunday Afternoon

I can't believe it's Sunday again - where do the weekends go?

My weekend has been spent going to the gym (yesterday morning) and then creaking around the house (the rest of the time). It was a killer gym class.

I've also finished the back to the quarterpint cardigan and I really like how it's looking (still not showing you any pictures though) which means I got to spend a little quality time with the Noro:

Hurrah! 8 squares finished now. I think I might be heading towards an extra-large Lizard ridge (7x5 rather than 6x4) which means there is still some way to go but I'm not loosing any of the love for this project so as H said - "it means more Noro and more knitting; you like knitting".

H has exams this coming week so it's been a quiet weekend, apart from the gym class my role has been to supply moral support and encouragement. I am reliably informed that this:

is an appropriate form of encouragement so I'm going to make a lemon meringue pie this evening for pudding as an extra revision incentive!

Glad Tidings!

Today is my MIL's birthday and therefore the day of delivery of the Raspberry Monkeys socks. She has just phoned to say that she loved them and that they have been much admired - I am so relieved and pleased because as she is an occasional knitter I know that she will take care of them.

H told her he was glad she liked them because he had spent a lot of time knitting them. Whilst he did do the odd stitch I think this is utilising the marital get-out clause under which two-become-one rule I fitted our downstairs bathroom and regularly mow the lawn and he sews all the buttons back on his shirts, re-hems his trousers and regularly goes shopping for groceries!

It seems only appropriate that on one Mummy's birthday I'm knitting for the next one! Mum chose the yarn for her Christmas present and I'm designing and knitting the finished article. It might mean that the blog goes picture free for a while because I want it to be a surprise. It's orange - imagine me doing lots of orange knitting!

If you're interested in whimsy then how about the Wee Tiny Sock Swap - signups close today so hurry if you're interested.

Decisions decisions - please help

The Baby not-Tulip-but-Crocus sweater has been missing from the blog for a while (mainly while I knit other things that will fit babies this year rather then when they can speak) but I've been plugging away on it in spare moments, pretty much picking out the next colour stripe according to mood.

Sunday afternoon it looked like this:

And after it got dark I finished off the bottom by completing the blue stripe and then adding more 1x1 rib in bright red. All I have to knit now is the sleeve (pretty straightforward, just copy the other one) and do something about the neck and front bands. The original inspiration has a few rows of moss stitch and then i-cord ties but I think that moss stitch bands would look odd given the rib on the cuffs, and I subbed the rib for the moss stitch because it was too bulky and rather rough to the touch in 4ply cotton.

So here is my question for you - so I do a ribbed neckline and ordinary cardigan button bands, ribbing and then the i-cord ties, or something totally new and original (lots of i-cord ties!). I think that size wise I'm looking at 18 months to 2 years so I worry that i-cord ties are too easily fiddled with. Let me know what you think.

Meanwhile in the "knitting for mothers" category the Monkeys are coming along nicely for the MIL and I've started swatching for the Quarterpint Cardigan. All this swatching and cardigan construction is bringing out the latent engineer in my husband - he has declared that "we" need a stitch dictionary so that he can check that I'm making the nicest possibly cardigan for Mum. I may be wielding the needles but structural decisions apparently need joint input.