Weekend FO

My hundredth post on this blogger-hosted blog! How exciting. Only took me two years. I hope I get to 200 before this time next year. I wonder how many posts I've done in total - I'll have been blogging for an entire decade this autumn. Wow, that makes me feel old.

This weekend's FO was sadly not finished until Monday but if you do a bit of time swapping and pretend I did the coursework marking today and the knitting yesterday, you can just about stretch it...


Pattern: Liesl by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Maya - leftovers from the Central Park Hoody. I think I used 3 and a bit skeins, but I was dumb and didn't count, and I can't remember how many skeins I started with. 3 and a bit works out to be the right yardage, but it might have been 4 and a bit.
Needle: Knitpicks Harmony, 7mm
Mods: None, really, since this pattern is made to be modded. I knit the wider neckline, stopped at hip length, and went for elbow length sleeves. I also knitted the 38, which is 2 sizes down from what I would normally choose for a cardi meant to have a little positive ease, but I wanted something tight. Drapey cardigans are not friends to girls who really have to show off their waists to prove they are not completely rotund.
I did just mean to knit one size down, though. Not sure how that happened.

I used the icord bind off again, it looks good. I also bought some big poppers for closing, but I am not sure about them yet - I might have one popper at the top, and then stitch some ribbon half way down so I can tie it shut.

I am moderately pleased with it. It certainly busted the stash (though I have just under 2 skeins left...) The sleeves are a little tight - just means I can't wear it over anything long sleeved which is kind of the point anyway - and they might not be quite long enough, but that would be easily fixed if I changed my mind.

The picture was taken at knitting group last week so I could get an idea of the length. I am having a fat day today and can't manage to take a good picture of myself in this, and Mr Z is sleeping, so the blurry camera picture will have to do. There might be a better picture in the future.

Friday blues

It's a very grey day outside - in fact, it's been drizzly all week, after an unusually sunny Bank Holiday Monday. I haven't marked any coursework, mainly due to the fact that I'm into day 4 of the first cold of the school year, which has now settled into a grinding cough - but at least I haven't slept most of today, as I have during the rest of the week. Henry the Ka is refusing to start, probably due to some blockage in the fuel line or maybe the fuel pump or something. And worst of all, I just found out that my favourite Playscheme kid died this morning after several weeks of illness. I am gutted.

My favourite story about him is this....his mum dropped him off one morning looking very tired and when we asked if she was OK, she started laughing. It seems she'd got J into her room - on the third floor of her home - and they'd been playing, when the phone rang, and she went to answer it. While she was down there, J...made very good use of his nappy, shall we say....and then managed to get it off, and had a good roll around on her white-linened bed, and then decided to investigate where Mummy had gone, so dragged himself down three flights of white-carpeted stairs - on his bum.

She said she was cleaning until nearly 2am and crying the whole time, but all the while she was telling us this story she was giggling away and ended with a "Serves me right for having white carpets!"

I suppose this is part of the territory when you work with special needs children, but it's still a very sad business.

Hey ho.

I am starting to be a bit concerned that I won't FO anything this month, which would break my good habits of 2009. So far I have six FOs for this year, and I have another seven projects OTNs - although three are in very deep hibernation, and one I began as a ski hat and don't like how it has turned out so I will probably just not finish it....and not frog it either, because it was 50p yarn from Shaw's.

I have been working hard on the Baby Poonan for Jen's baby (which she had a couple of weeks ago - a girl, Abigail, over 9lbs, difficult birth but mother and daughter both blooming now) but I am not so keen on how it is turning out and I made a mistake with one of the cables and couldn't fix it so I am not very motivated to finish. I've also been working hard on Liesl, a stashbusting lace cardigan I started in February with the yarn left over from the Central Park Hoody - but, even though it grows quick, the feather and fan pattern is kind of dull and it's hard to keep up the hard work on that, too.

Still, I have knitting group tomorrow and a burning desire to finish SOMEthing for the month of April, so watch this space.

Embarrassingly, I totally misread the pattern for Liesl, and decided I would email the designer on ravelry to correct her mistake, on the basis that I would like to know if it was me. I double and triple checked and was certain it was an error in the pattern. I sent the message - and then almost instantly saw that I was wrong and had to send a second message saying sorry. I never heard back. I have the urge now to buy all her patterns as a way of apologising for my mistake.