Even more finished items and CHALLENGE COMPLETED!

I seem to be on a bit of a roll with finished items at the moment, although most of them are small projects, it's not that I've suddenly become Speed Knitter.

I finally finished the fourth of my challenge projects this year (four adult-sized garments in a year, in 4ply, dk, aran and chunky). This is the Garter Yoke Cardi finished and blocked, although I haven't yet sewn any buttons on it, as I can't decide whether just to go for one at the top or all the way down. I think I should have made the next size up, as I can get into it and it's not tight, but it doesn't do up at the front. I hadn't intended to wear it done up so that isn't the end of the world, but it does affect what I decide to do about buttons.

At the last minute I made a load of mini Christmas stockings to go on a friend's stall at the church craft fayre. Almost all of them sold really quickly, at £2.50 each. These were a good way of using up oddments of sock yarn, and the free pattern is Mini Christmas Stocking Ornaments by Julie Williams.

I used the Knitting Goddess pack of sock yarn I bought at Yarndale to make the OH a hat for Christmas (don't worry, although he reads this blog, he's seen me making it as I kept trying it on him!). I chose the Mini Roni Hat pattern as it comes in such a wide range of sizes. I used about 5 mini skeins for the hat, so still have a couple of the lightest colours to use up.

And I've been knitting another Puerperium, this time for a friend who is expecting a little girl (actually, I know she went into hospital to have a caesarean a couple of days ago but isn't home yet, so I should get this in the post fairly soon!). I used the lime green RYC cashsoft 4 ply I dyed in the summer, with some careful measuring for the sleeves to make sure I used it all up.

Once it was finished though I wasn't so keen on the colour. It had dyed a bit splodgy in places and was a bit pale for a baby. So I got out the Kool aid and did a bit of dyeing again. I used some sachets of black grape flavour, and the microwave technique. This looks more like it! It was actually a lot easier dyeing the finished garment than the yarn-in-a-skein had been back in the summer. It turned out my skein winding was dreadful, so it took forever to disentangle the yarn and turn it into a ball the first time I dyed it.

When I blocked it (do you like my blocking mats? The OH gave me them for my birthday!) it looked a bit disturbingly in your face red, but I think that just the light then.

This is more like the real colour - a kind of deep pinky/purple, which is much more what I was aiming at. The buttons are little pandas, which I think I got free with a knitting magazine a while ago.

I'm pleased with how that has turned out. There are a few other things on the needles/sewing machine at the moment, but they're all Christmas presents so I can't reveal them on here.