In the pink

Pink roses and little girls. The rose is growing in my neighbours garden but it has made its way accross to our side. The rose smells lovely and sweet.
The ribbed cardigan is grwoing fast. I have finished one sleeve. Only one more sleeve, border bands and collar to go.
Time to think about new projects to knit.

My sister-in-law is expecting her fourth child. She has two boys and a girl. We think the baby is going to be a girl. I hope it is, I want to knit the cardigan on the left for her. It's in the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino 2 book. I still have a lot of yarn left from darling daughter's ballet cardi.
My Niece is 3 1/2 years old, I want to knit her a big sister poncho. The pattern is in the latest issue of Knit Today. A new knitting magazine here in the UK. I don't know excatcly when the first issue came out.
The poncho is knitted in the new Rowan yarn called Romance.
So far I have resisted the temptation to cast on. How long will it last? This afternoon there is more golf on TV. Time to knit?

Shale

Shale the coat for my mother-in-law is finished. My version of it, without the borders. I think it looks more elegant without them.
I used the Rowan Plaid yarn. The pattern was spot on, it said I needed 9 balls and that is what I used. I knitted the pattern as if I had to do a border. The garment is the same lenght as if it has a border. I just ignored the part where it says knit 2, purl 2. I am sure doing the border would not have used up more yarn.

My darling daughter did not want to model for me. She did not want to close the coat with the kilt pin.
I am happy with the finished coat and I hope so will my MIL.

Sunflowers

I love Sunflowers. I would say they are my favorite flowers. There are very easy to grow. Noor and I planted the seeds late in June. But now that we have a wonderful warm and sunny September we have beautiful Sunflowers.
Once the flowers are gone the birds will come and eat all the seeds. I am looking forward to seeing some cute birds outside our windows.
Perry has better things to do. I sometimes wonder what makes him so tired.
Can't be my knitting.
I have some stuff going on in my life that keeps me very occupied. Knitting has helped to keep me calm and focused.

I am in love with the new Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK. The book and the yarn, I love them both.
The yarn is wonderful to work with. It is also a good reason to support our new local yarn shop.
The pattern for this Ribbed Jacket is easy enough to follow but difficult enough to keep me on my toes.
I am also getting very good at cables without a cable needle. I am very tempted to knit one of the cabled coats from the same Cashmerino DK book.

Purple coats

The Rebecca coat os finished. GGH yarn Aspen was a joy to work with. I bought a Rowan horn button to go in the one button hole. Now the weather should turn cooler soon and I can start wearing my two new jackets.
The Shale jacket for my mother-in-law is also coming to an end.
Lara had nearly no seams to sew in, this Shale has loads.
I just hope my MIL likes this jacket and wears it.
Only three more months until Christmas. I better start thinking what projects I want to knit.
Maybe this new website can help with some funky patterns.

Lara

Lara is done. I even managed to go to John Lewis and buy a kilt pin.
See the close up for my little piece of bling.
I am amazed at Lara, the sleeves are long enough. I love having slightly long sleeves. That can only happen if I make something for myself. Usually clothes that fit well will have sleeves that are a bit short on me.
My darling daughter took this photo of me. She doesn't have much patience. Only one photo will do. She was off to play outside with her friends.

Weekend knitting

More purple knitting has been going on here.
This is a long jacket using the Rowan Plaid yarn.
The yarn looks like three yarns held together, one pink, one purple and dark blue. I am using the pattern for Shale. I am doing it without the ribbed border.
My MIL only wears Sari suits. The border would look naf. Hopefully some blocking will cure the curling up.
The yarn knits up lovely. I got it on sale, otherwise it used to be an expensive yarn.
I really felt I could not justify knitting another purple thick cardigan for myself.

Perry of course came to see the mini photo shoot outside. Each time I kneel down to take a picture of him, he runs up to me for a cuddle.

One piece knitting

How cool is that? Almost two projects finished in the same week.
Lara has all her knitting done. All that is left are nearly 40 ends of yarn to be darned in.
Then a few seams to sew.
But first of all - blocking.
The log cabin balnket is having a break. I ran out of yarn while casting off a long row of stitches. I haven't made up my mind; should I rip back two rows or add another ball and carry on knitting. Whatever I decide, I'll have to go back on my cast off.
That would mean, I have no knitting on the go.

I started on a long jacket in Rowan Plaid yarn. The jacket is going to be for my MIL. Her birthday is soon.
I'll take pictures once I have a bit more to show.

Perry first wanted to help with blocking Lara, but he has more important things to do.

Nearly a coat

The coat is almost done. I only have to go out and buy a button. I have something in mind but I don't know if my new local yarn shop has any buttons big enough to fit this coat. Perry in the meantime is having a nap next to Darling Daughters books. He even poked his nose in on of the books. But he either didn't like the book or he could not be bothered to read.
Lara is also off the needles. More about her later.

Half of Lara

Knitting a garment in piece is great. See how it already looks like a cardigan, well half a cardigan at least. Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk is a wonderful yarn to knit with. The only problem is that it has only 65m per 50gr ball. I feel that I constantly have to add yet another ball.
The purple coat is doing great. The coat is being blocked at the moment then all the sewing can start.
Here in London we are having nice warm weather. Which is very luck for us, on Thursday night, early Friday morning one of our old, old water pipes burst. We recently had some piping replaced. The strain of more water pressure was to much for an old join. Water, water everywhere. Well we were lucky. It started in a corner in the attic and the bulk of the water ended up in the hallway and porch. We put down all our towels to prevent the water going in the living room or further bach into the house. Now the heating is on full blast and the windows open. Hopefully it will dry well before the weather turns.
No yarn or knitting came to any harm. Sometimes I leave a bag with my on-the-go knitting in the hallway. But I had shifted it on to the sofa before I went to bed. Don't know why but I did.

The colour purple

The GGH coat is almost finished. Some blocking and all the sewing has the be done.
Purple is one of my favourite colours.
But my camera doesn't seem to like it.
The first photo is the one that camera took without me trying to change anything. Then I tried a whole load with diffrent filters.
See the one with the purple filter.
Everything just looks purple-ish.



Of course Perry had to come and help. Is that Perry with a pink filter?
All I can say is: the coat is in a very deep rich purple.
Since this project is coming to an end I am already thinking of what I should knit next.
The famous Butterfly in Noro Silk Garden comes to mind. I have the yarn for it at home. I have taken it over from my friend Johanne.
Then I also have some Rowan Plaid. Both yarns have pruple in them.

Gwen from Rowan 39

We have a new local yarn shop. Finally we can buy buttons again locally and yarn....
Gwen's yarn is from there it is called JJ Woll
it is next to JJ Electric. Both shops are run by the same family.
The shop now stocks a small selection of Rowan, RCY, Jaeger, Debbie Bliss, Noro and Louisa Harding yarns. It also has a lot of the usual Sirdar and Wendy.
I got 11 balls of Debbie Bliss Cotton DK to knit Gwen from Rowan 39. The Debbie Bliss yarn is cheaper. I also like the colours better. The only slight problem was the yarn quantity. The patttern tells me 10 balls for my size. I bought 11, because the DB yarn is 1m shorter than the Rowan. I used just a tiny bit over 11. So I needed 12 balls. After I finished the back, sleeves and the right front. I started to have panic attacks about it. I phoned my friend Johanne from Switzerland and she went out and bought me two more balls.
Thank you Johanne, without you I would have been unable to finish Gwen.
I am very pleased with Gwen, the only question is how many short jackets does one person need. Gwen was more about the process of knitting than the actual garment.