Stripes

So, the Not Nautical or Striped, nautical striped sweater now has stripes. Confused? Yes, so am I. But I seem to have got round the problem of discovering I had two different colourways in my stash (oops) by introducing the stripes into the top section. I'm planning to echo this on the front as well. And, depending on the light in the room, it's not actually that obvious.

The garter yoke cardigan is coming along well, and I'm now well down the body. It's quite quick to knit, despite being in DK.

 I was worried that it might not fit (I'm knitting the smallest size), so I tried it on once I'd got a bit further along. It meets comfortably at the neck at the front (not that you can tell from this photo) and I think will be fine.

In other news, I have done a swop, thereby reducing my stash a little more, then promptly acquired 800g of free 4ply which the barman (who is a knitting designer in his spare time) was giving away in the bar where we meet for knitting group. But I haven't taken photos of any of that yet, so it will have to wait for another post.

Postcard swop

I've been doing a postcard swop via Ravelry. Two postcards of London (I couldn't find any Olympics ones, so just got London touristy ones) winged their way very quickly over the Atlantic to the US and Canada. And I've just received one myself from Long Island, which looks very summery. And it's from another librarian!

I got the Essential Cardigan finished. And I'm rather pleased with it. Not only does it fit (!), it's very comfy to wear, the yarn feels lovely and soft and it's actually smart enough to wear for work - which was my original aim. Now that I've blocked it it's ended up longer, with longer sleeves - I'd been aiming for 3/4 length, which is pretty much what's happened.

I did make buttonholes down one side but I haven't sewn any buttons on as I usually wear cardigans open like this so they'd never get used. I could always add some later if I feel like it!

Hooray, something I've made that I can actually wear (other than socks!).

Happiness Swop

I recently took part in the Happiness Swop on one of the boards on Ravelry. The idea was to send a small present to one of the others. Kate sent me a parcel containing these:

A groovy tin containing a row counter (She says you put your needle through the hole with one bead for row 1 of the pattern repeat, and move it for each row. For row 11 you put a safety pin in the bead's space, and the needle through 1. So, for 25 you'd have the pin in "2" and the needle in "5".) Clever, isn't it?!

And:

Daisy stitch markers!! Very cool (and very cheerful!). Thank you Kate. It's taken me a while to blog about it as I was waiting for some daylight to take photographs in...

I can't decide what to do about the No-purl Monkey sock. It's already had 3 attempts at being a Herringbone sock, and now I think I'm going off the No-purl Monkey pattern for this:

I've turned the heel on them, but they're working out quite big, and I think I've made the leg too long so will be in danger of running out of yarn. Now I'm thinking about frogging them (again) and making some Leyburns instead. Or am I just being even more indecisive than ever?

New laptop!

I haven't disappeared. I've been trying to buy a new laptop and finally succeeded on the third attempt, after spending a week with a fraud alert on my bank account (as the Man at the Bank said on the phone, "you don't normally spend several hundred pounds with Dell computers, so it looked like suspicious activity"!!) Presumably if I bought a new laptop every month it would have been fine...

Then there were a few problems with my bank address (home) not matching my delivery address (work) but finally Claudius (the new laptop) arrived on Friday! I am half swopped over from Caligula (the old laptop), as I haven't had time yet to sit down and sort out which files are going where, or install the software for my printer, phone and scanner, but soon I will be embarking on a wonderful new world of being able to access my email and Flickr at home, able to post pics onto Ravelry without everything crashing and other similar exciting activities.

I'm waiting for a swop parcel to make its way across the Atlantic to its recipient before I post pics of the finished item(s) so I'll leave you with pics of the two wash mitts I made as Christmas presents: