…but maybe a piece of cake.

I had one of those ideas last sunday which I knew from the start was never going to actually happen.

I thought “I have a number of projects on the go, and some of them need to be finished soon, and some of them should have been finished AGES ago, and therefore need to be finished as soon as possible so that they are late, but not OMG!LATE!.

I know! I will promise to only knit a certain project on a certain day, so that each project gets some knitting time each week, and thus will get finished quicker (than having no knitting time spend on them at all.)”

I even made a table with the days of the week in it, and next to that, the project I should knit each day, and then added the information into my diary.

Then I totally ignored my careful plan, cast on Tatami, and have knit only that so far this week.

Ooops.

 

Mind you, despite being on 3mm needles Tatami is coming along. The 21st Century 4ply that I originally (bought for a large but ultimately dull shawl that I abandoned) is as lovely as I remembered it being, and apart from my worry that I’m not compensating enough for my slight lack of row gauge, it’s all going pretty well. Even when I add in both sleeves the stitch count only goes up to just over 200st which is totally manageable.

That said, the barbara shawl and the dreaded looks-like-fairisle-kinda-but-is-really-evil-intasia waistcoat still need finishing well before Christmas.

(It’s a nice shawl, but it grows alot, and maybe I’m just not in a shawl mood? - though I hope that’s not the case since I like knitting shawls generally. Anyways I’m having a break…)

(PLEASE NOTE: This is the original - not the one I’m knitting. The one I’m knitting looks like this:

Or even worse - like this! [Turn you face away if you’re fainthearted!].

(Luckily other Bluestockings have offered to maybe help darn some ends in. It has been suggested that it gets passed around the table, one darned in end at a time. As thanks, they all get invited over to my house to watch my hands shake as I cut the steeks for the armholes and neck.)

 

Yes, I’m slightly in denial about both of those projects at the moment. So tatami it is. Well tatami, and some Saartje’s Bootees (pdf), for our wedding photographer Sarah, who I’ve just found out is about to give birth. *raids sock yarn half balls*

Firstly I want to say a huge congratulations to Liz, who finished her first London Marathon last sunday with a time of 04:25:03.

\o/

Ok this is not my knitting. But this is what my knitting needs to look like.

It happened like this. I love W’s mum. She’s very lovely, and it’s a pleasure hanging out with her. We have shopping trips to Boden in london, and last time she came back from the US she brought me handpainted sock yarn. what’s not to love?

Anyways she also knits, but either her confidence got knocked, or she’s just realised that basically, i’m her bitch when it comes to wooly things (which i am. really. damn. ;) )

So last time she came to see us, she brought with her a waistcoat that i’ve seen her in a number of times over the years, and which she loves to bit, and which has started to wear out. (she’s been wearing it for something like forteen years so really, it’s not doing badly.)

Anyways… I CANNOT HELP MYSELF.

So she and W go for a walk and i spend a good hour and a half not watching track cycling on tv with my sister, but obsessively copying down the details of this waistcoat. For I am going to make her a replacement!

And this will be her present for her 70’s birthday in June (which means I can get W to pay for the yarn.)

We will not mention that this is my first fair-isle. And my first steek. However I am using proper shetland wool from Jamieson and Smith, and wriggling my way through Alice Starmore’s Fair Isle knitting book at the library*, so I have no excuse but to suceed.

In other news, I have finished a cardigan that I haven’t even mentioned here. However I mayhavenotproperlysortedoutthegauge (eeep) and really it turned out more of a jacket in length. So I am in the process of shortening it. I’ll post pictures when it’s done.

However Lara: you’ll be glad to know that it has ironed out alot of the problems I was having with the cable-round yoked cardie, so I’m going to get back on that pretty soon.

*I really need to go on about the library. But that will have to wait for another day.