"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves..."

"...and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

Finally finished my Viktoria cardigan!

This pattern (Ravelry Link here) is by MillaMia Sweden and it was a really quick and fun project.
I particularly liked that you knit the borders of the front while you knit the main panels, so it reduces the number of stiches you have to go back and pick up. The neck band was a little tricky, but if you read it carefully and think about it, it does make sense.

I did run out of the cream wool I was using though. I could have bought more, but as the whoel point of doing this was to use up stash wool I really didn't want to ultimately be in the same position I was when I started.

Instead I used another ball of creamy wool I had lying around. MISTAKE.

The new wool is horrid. Very plasticky feeling and an odd drape. I also had a clear delineation between the two. Now, for the record, I know I should have just ripped it out, bought more of the original wool, and re-knit. But I didn't. Instead, I knitted a little pocket to disguise the mis-match. I mean...it's a jumper for a newborn.It will be outgrown in the blink of an eye.

The pocket looks quite sweet I think. It takes attention away from the yarn change, which is what I wanted it to do. It was more work than just buying new wool though and if I could do it all again, I'd probably just buy more wool. But at the same time I have no regrets.

Anyway... to go along with this bad boy I swiftly crafted a little hat to go with it:

This pattern is called Sea Monkey Baby Hat (Ravelry link here) by Kelly McClure and I think it's adorable. I knitted it flat, then grafted the top so it would be seamless, though I seamed the back (it lays pretty flat though).

I think I gave it too much height, or maybe I didn't make the ears big enough? Either way, again I remind myself that baby will outgrow this faster than the time it took to knit it. And it was a very quick knit!

*Quote from Antoine de Saint Exupéry

"Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot..."

"...Them heavy people help me."

A terrible thing happened.

I was a happy little thing knitting some mittens for CB, when I open my bag one morning and see that my project has gone from this:

to this:

My needles have snapped and half the stitches fallen off. Not even gonna bother watermarking that one. Luckily I still have these guys to get along with!

Happy Knitmas everyone!

*Quote from Kate Bush

"I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily..."

"...than as a flawless clown."

They’re done. They’re finally finished. They need to be blocked, but I’m counting them as done.
And they’re beautiful. There is a slight hole where the neckline joins the neckband, but I think blocking will smooth that, and it’s really not noticeable unless you’re me.

I feel such relief getting these done. It was quite a stressful build up. I have other things to finish/start and finish before Christmas comes, but I feel as though the lion’s share is done now. My mountain has been climbed. My fingers can regrow the skin around the knuckle without fear of being immediately rubbed away again.

I love how the cables meet at the joins, and although you’d never notice it, I love how the increases on the sleeves look running along the bottom of the arms.

I take my hat off to knitting designers. A lot of time and effort go into designing these little details and you wonder if half of them go without being noticed. Plus it would be very easy for me to go wrong and mess it up, either in the knitting or in the joining.

I really enjoyed making these (other than the deadline stress). I like the pattern and I like the wool. The pattern is interesting enough to keep you going, but simple enough that you can commit it to memory and knit away happily. The finished jumpers are lovely and soft, but they have some heft and mass to them. Lovely cuddly squidgy things.

I would definitely knit more of these in the future – depending on how these two wear. I’ve heard that they can stretch quite a lot sideways so we’ll see.

*Quote from Margaret Atwood.

“Examine for a moment an ordinary mind…”

“…on an ordinary day.”

I’m currently writing this with four projects still on the needles. I am hoping to get them all finished by the 
middle of December (the only trouble I think I will have is summoning the willpower to continue those socks for CB) and I can’t help but think of my next lot of projects.

Obviously I still owe CB a jumper. I have a lovely pattern for it (Navigate - Ravelry link here) and some lovely wool (Cascade Yarns Heritage in navy). This will be the next thing I cast on.

It would also be a snip to knit up a couple of baby hats. That will allow me to give the most recent new mothers in my life a little gift, but not mean I am once again putting off Navigate. I should also be able to use up some of my stash on them, which is always a nice feeling. 

But then what?

My queue will then be empty. A bizarre occurrence. Obviously I have plenty of patterns in my favourites, but I have to actually decide what to make. And buy some wool.

The only reason I feel I should make this decision now is because I can buy the wool for the next few projects at a reduced cost in Black Friday sales…but it seems a little premature. It feels disrespectful to the projects I need to finish (and start!) first. 

So what’s on the long-list at the moment? Too many similar things!

Not including Navigate or two baby hats, I have 39 faves:

• 17 jumpers
• 6 cowls/scarves
• 2 things for CB
• 6 knitspo
• 4 baby things
• 3 tops
• 1 hat

From those numbers I’m think I should knit a jumper and a cowl. 

And always something for CB. Even if it never gets made...

*Quote from Virginia Woolf

"You can catch more flies with a drop of honey..."

"...than with a barrel of vinegar."

I don't think I ever posted about the Honey Cowl I was knitting for CB (blogged about here).

Well I did finish on time, casting off literally minutes before going to meet him from the station after work, before we flew to America the next day.

As you can see, it turned out really well. I have messed up a few lines so the pattern sort of flips on itself, but honestly you don't notice it unless you really look up close and hunt for it you can see it in the picture below actually). And even then it doesn't look bad, just a design feature.

The texture is really nice too:

As is the drape of the resulting fabric. I did run out of the Rowan Summerlite DK I was using (colour is Ocean if you're interested) when I was casting off, so we do have a darker wool right at the very end. This is hidden, however, as the edges curl in on themselves. Can you tell how smug I am for getting away with this?

It was a nice little pattern and the wool is lovely to work with. And as CB has worn it every day to work since flying back from the States, I call this a success!

*Quote from an old proverb.

“Don't ever become a pessimist … a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist...”

“...but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.”

Well we talked about panic last week, and don’t you know it’s a hell of a motivator!?

Knowing the absolute minimum I need to accomplish is to finish the jumpers for my niece and nephew for the beginning of December I decided to focus on that. And work out how many days I had. Or how many pattern repeats I had to finish each day. The conclusion was that I could just about do it, but only if I knitted on my commutes to and from work as well as every evening I didn’t have a social or work engagement already booked in.

As a result, I have been good as gold, knitting whenever I could, and have these beauties to show for it:

I still have a lot to do, but at least I feel I’m making headway into the cabled mountain I have embarked upon!

Gratuitous pictures of cables now follow...

*Quote from Robert A. Heinlein

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie..."

"O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

The Christmas Panic Begins...

Although still a long(ish) time out from Christmas, the announcement of an early Christmas party has meant that all my Christmas present-buying and knitting deadlines have been moved forward by about two weeks. This shouldn’t be too bad except as the children I knit for grow ever bigger, the jumpers also get bigger and therefore take longer to finish. I also have two friends with babies due by the end of the year and I would love to give their newborns little jumpers.

I have one baby jumper completed, the Green Wonder (blogger about here):

But…I don’t like it very much! And I therefore don’t really want to give it as a present to anyone…
I am most of the way through another baby jumper, Viktoria:

And I have cast on one of the Christmas jumpers, Gabrielle:

CB’s socks have yet again taken a backseat, as has his jumper. I feel really guilty, but I’m just worried I won’t be finished with Christmas knitting in time! To think it was a New Year’s Resolution of mine to knit both of those before the end of the year…that makes me feel very guilty. I wonder if I can have a few weeks of furious knitting come December!


*Quote from Robert Burns

"Without love in the dream..."

"...it will never come true."

22. Friday 28th September - LA (West Hollywood)
First lie-in for a while!
As I found LA a bit too stressful to go for our usual drive/walk about, we decided to go to Venice Beach.

It wasn't the best day weather-wise, so no muscley men I'm afraid...

But it was the perfect day for a walk on the beach, even if I got a load of beach tar stuck to my foot!

23. Saturday 29th September - Drive to Sequoia National Park
We stopped off at CALM (California Living Museum) on the way, a brilliant nature reserve specialising in animals native to California (all too injured to be in the wild). It was fantastic, way better than I was expecting. Big faves were the touch-aquarium, beaver and porcupine.

Anemone

Beaver

Porcupine

Also liked the birds - condors, falcons, bald eagles, vultures, a road runner... Absolutely brilliant.

Peregrine Falcon

Vulture

Roadrunner

24. Sunday 30th September - Sequoia National Park
I don't know if it's the altitude or what, but we struggled with our energy levels today, and yet got really silly mid-afternoon.

We did a few walks in the park, saw shorter but bigger trees than previously (if that makes sense), ending with the biggest of the them all: General Sherman.

I think my favourite thing was Tharp's Log, which was a cabin made out of a huge fallen log!

So cool.

25. Monday 1st October - Hearst Castle
Oh wow. Oh wow oh wow.
Had we known it would be so good we would have booked more tours. We went on the main rooms tour which seemed to fly by in seconds despite being an hour long.

Also saw wild zebras roaming with the cattle, before visiting the huge male elephant seals lounging on the beach!

26. Tuesday 2nd October - Pacific Coast Highway
First off we stopped by the elephant seals again, which are so interesting and mesmerising. I don't know what it is but I could watch them forever.

We then carried up the highway, seeing some beautiful views and some which should have been beautiful but were obscured by the fog!

We had lunch in a remote little beach cove, all very secluded and romantic. Tricky to climb into but very worth it. We did leave pretty sharpish once we realised the tide was coming in though!

We also stopped at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park but, as the hike we wanted to do was closed, we took the ranger's advice and walked another. It was boring, too steep, and it didn't even have a good view! Though my vision was obscured slightly by CB spraying bug repellent in my eyes...

27. Wednesday 3rd October - Monterey
We took a whale watching tour all morning, which I thought was going to be very very dull but turned out to be absolutely wonderful.

We saw a group of humpback whales lunge feeding:

And we saw them breach:

We saw a pod of orcas who were just going nuts having a laugh and showing off for us!

It was so good the drivers stayed out for extra time and actually called their orca-mad boss to come out and see!

Absolutely fascinating and so much fun. Great day.

28. Thursday 4th October - San Francisco
Final night!

On our drive from Monterey to SF we stopped at the Winchester Mystery House.

SO GOOD. We did both tours, so saw pretty much every room. It is mad. Less creepy than I thought it would be, but more historic and interesting and rambling.

A particular fave was the witch's cap room which, when you stood in the very centre made it sound like you were speaking into a microphone whilst underwater, but only to you - no one else in the room heard your voice any different!

Physics is fun.

29. Friday 5th October - Flight home (and CB's birthday!)
To be honest I felt like the holiday was ending as soon as we dropped Drive Boy (our rental car) off  the day before.

I felt sad the holiday was over, but I felt so much more relaxed than I did when still in Sheffield.

It was such an amazing holiday, really difficult to pic out favourite things or even favourite days or places. And it's corny and I've said it before, but honestly the holiday wouldn't have been nearly as good without being there with CB. He's my best friend and I never grow sick or tired of spending time with him. Every day is an adventure - but this month was more so than most!


*Quote from the Grateful Dead.