Alice Cardigan completed

Pattern: Alice Cardigan by Karen Bourne
Yarn: Alpaca Select 4ply
Colour: Black
Used: about 550g
Needles: 3.75mm Addi Lace circular needle
Size: 14, but cut 10 pattern repeats off each sleeve.

Got gauge, but should have checked the measurements of the sleeves. I am considering this one to be my trial run, as I really would like to make another one, this time with the thumb holes! It is a lovely design and the pattern was a lot of fun - should be easy now I know how many pattern repeats I need to do to get the blocked sleeves the right length.

I Want That One

Through sheer determination, I have finished my Christmas shopping (except for a few last minute food stuffs like pork pie which I cannot have in the house before because it will be eaten as soon as it gets home, and then my Christmas food plans will go all to pot - and I have a spreadsheet and everything.) I finished the last of the gift shopping during my lunch break today and, feeling a little smug, drove back to work. The queues at the supermarket turn off were incredible and I am sooooo pleased I don't have to spend hours in there, battling with wobbly trolleys, lists, last minute decisions and other shoppers. I try to make grocery shopping less painful by careful planning and list writing, but still dislike it. Apart from one thing that almost makes it worth the trip. Almost. I find it really funny to see what people put back. Me, if I change my mind about something, I will trudge all the way back to the place where I got it from to return it to the shelf, but there are wonderfully carefree people out there that just abandon stuff on the nearest shelf when it occurs to them that they don't want it. I like to think that it's because they decided that what is there on that shelf right in front of them when the decision is made, is what they really, really want instead. And I like to take photos*

Some previous examples. Ooh look, fabric softener. No need for these scones.


What to feed kitty today? Gourmet gold / Alpen? Kitty loves the muesli bars.


And today: No yummy chocolate drink for me today - I'll be just having these here tinned vegetables...

*That said, I don't have photographic evidence of the funniest one I ever saw (sometimes you have to pay the consequences for not keeping your phone charged) which was a pack of underwear left in the booze aisle in exchange for a bottle of wine.

Surviving Steeking

Backstitch down centres of two adjacent diamond patterns.
Tiny stitches and tiny needle with black cotton - not the pink basting.

Steeking. Slightly terrifying.

Taking no chances; securing edge with sewing machine.

And a finished wristwarmer.

Notes: picked up and knitted 56 stitches on 3.25mm dpns, and then knitted 10 rows of 3x1 rib and cast off knitwise on 4mm needle.

I really would rather not have had to do the steeking. It was not an enjoyable experience, particularly not because it could have been avoided if only I had taken the time to check out the width of my knitting, while I was knitting it, and when it would have been far simpler to do something about it. But still, this isn't the first time I've made this mistake, and sadly, I'm certain it won't be the last. And I did get a pair of lacy wristwarmers out of it.

The ends of the cardy sleeves have been finished off in a similar way, and it is now blocking.

I appear to have italics all over this post, and I've tried but can't turn them off, so they are staying. This is annoying me more than it has any right to, I've had a traumatic day and I am going to bed.

Hiatus

I have been off knitting for a while. I finished my lace cardy and the sleeves might just fit an orang-utan. But, as my other half helpfully pointed out, we don't know any orang-utans to give it to. There were the usual stages of denial (it's not so bad, I can live with it - as the sleeves hang 6 inches off my finger tips), anger (stupid pattern, and how could I miss noticing in the pictures in the magazine that the sleeves are too long, and all the other people with projects on Ravelry have commented about the sleeves being too long, why didn't I take heed?) and finally acceptance (I really have to do something about this, I spent too long knitting the cardigan for it to end up pushed to the back of a drawer.) So I came up with an extreme plan, which *touch wood* seems to be working out ok at the moment but it's very stressful. I don't know if I can bring myself to tell you what I've been doing - are you sitting down??

Okay. Deep breath. The lace cardy is knitted from the back upwards, then increased over the sleeves, decreased and split for the two fronts. So it's not possible to simply frog back the sleeves to make them shorter because the knit stitches are sideways. So I steeked them, and am making a pair of fingerless lace mitts out of the ends. Yes. I CUT my lace.

Photos to follow... if you are brave enough to look.