This year I made a knitting New Year resolution to knit at least one large item and one small item per calendar month. This month, I may just finish my Louisa Harding ‘Tide' cardigan that I started last summer but then couldn't finish before the cooler weather in the Autumn. The smaller project that I aim to finish this month should be Danny's socks, but I think realistically that they could be finished sometime in May. I'm also past the armhole shaping on the back of RYC's ‘Vanessa' but considering that I spend most of my free afternoons in Class 1 at the moment, and my mornings working at preschool, I don't often have time to sit and knit! Anyway, here's the progress on ‘Tide' :

I did place an order for my celebratory yarn purchase however, which arrived today from Get Knitted, my online yarn store of preference. In addition to my two sets of Brittany Birch short 4mm needles which I want to use to knit sleeves and fronts of cardigans, I received 12 balls of Diploma Gold DK in Berry which is a gorgeous shade of deep reddy claret, 12 balls of Diploma Gold DK in plain ordinary black, and 12 balls of the same in Natural. I do have plans for this yarn, but it really is boring and you probably wouldn't be interested. Suffice it to say that I need sweaters and cardigans for teaching practice (hee hee!). I was unsure whether to choose Berry or Plum, but I think I made the right decision after all as it is a GORGEOUS colour. Diploma is a lovely soft yarn to knit with and is easily washable and I would say mid priced; after spending this week seemingly covered in orange, brown and green paint and mixing up several bowls of Plaster of Paris in Class 1 yesterday, this is the exact specification of the yarn I need for the classroom!!




I also ordered 9 balls of Sirdar Luxury Cotton DK in Venetian blue for Matthew which you can see in the picture above, as he wants a knitted something in cotton. It's a very pale denim blue, so not something that I would have chosen myself, but as Matt chose it he must like it! I've already done the ‘rub test' on the back of his neck and it was awarded the thumbs up Matthew seal of approval! Get Knitted also sent me a packet of Love Hearts (bless ‘em!) A Get Knitted pen, and Get Knitted notepad and a small bar of lovely smelling soap.

Now that's Fantastic Customer Service indeed! Thank you, Get Knitted.

I have been a bit naughty though, and despite publicly announcing a yarn lockdown on the Crafty Threads forum have succumbed and bought a few balls of Sirdar Spree chunky on special offer at Ekemps Woolshop. And a few balls of Sirdar Breeze DK. Well they were only 69p per ball and at least 60% cotton. Bargain! All for teaching practice sweaters of course, so Natalie-Who-Knows-These-Things says it's not officially stash in the true sense of the word, and I'm not one to disbelieve her ;-)

I'm Better!!
The ten days' worth of penicillin worked and I'm back to my old self again , and many thanks to everyone who wished me a speedy recovery, I'm sure that it helped the getting better process

Here's a few things I've been up to in the past week:

Galaxy Truffle - A rich chocolaty merino 4 ply cardigan that I finished and sewed up at silly o’clock on Saturday night so that I could hand it to my mum on Sunday morning when we went to visit my parents.

Mum has tried it on and proclaims that it’s ideal in length, sleeve length, neck depth, yarn weight, ..... in fact EVERYTHING!! So much so that she wants several more cardigans and several sweaters worked to the same block. A true indicator that something is appreciated and well liked I think.

I went to a crochet course at Wool in Stockport on Sunday and met several ladies there who I’ve chatted to online for ages but never met! I thoroughly enjoyed the day and came home with this goody bag from the workshop complete with five balls of Debbie Bliss Angora cotton yarn and a hook in a yummy pink bag, amongst other things *wink*


I have been so enthused by the workshop that I've been able to start, and finish, two granny squares in James Brett Supersoft aran baby yarn for a baby crib blanket that I shall call Stockport as a tribute to the workshop. I want to add a few more colours to the blankie, and think I'll do this by making some two colour squares to intersperse between the white ones:

Holidays?

Why am I always ill during school holidays? The only time I actually get any time off from pre-school and school itself and I'm ill again. This week I've been really quite unwell with another bout of pharyngitis which left me with a temperature of 38.9C and the shakes, along with the usual symptoms of not being able to swallow, feeling nauseous, aches and pains and general lethargy. The doctor prescribed a double dosage of penicillin over double the usual amount of time, so it must be a particularly nasty bug this time round. He did say though that he'd seen quite a few of 'these' throats recently, so it's obviously doing the rounds. I have even closed my little bitty eBay shop for a week so that I can rest and get over my infected throat before I have to start chasing round to the post office again. I couldn't bear the thought of that at the moment.

You'd think that I would have had loads of time for knitting, but I haven't :(
I have frogged my ChicKnits Ribby Cardi though because... well... I'm a bit bored with it and there's too much to do on it to even put it aside until the cooler months, so it's been frogged. But I have managed to get round the heel of Danny's first beigey brown sock (the colour choice is unbelievable for a five year old, but he has something in mind I assume) and so I'm now chasing down the foot to the toe.

On a more positive note, I literally only have a few more rows to knit on the collar of my Grace cardigan and it becomes a finished article. Hooray!!

More Progress


The never ending march into finishing WIPs continues as I'm just finishing off the collar of the Grace jacket that I started last year. Suddenly the jacket has regained its appeal when there is only a small amount to knit and finish!


With one WIP almost down, I cast on the stitches to knit Vanessa from RYC Classic Art this evening, so there's a new WIP waiting in the wings to take Grace's place once she's done:




It's another case of an unplanned project taking over, but I took some Sirdar Denim Tweed DK out of stash to play about with and possibly cast on to knit Tulip from the new Rowan magazine 41, and ended up looking through summer pattern books this afternoon. I had the needles free, I had the pattern in front of me and the yarn to hand; how could I resist such temptation?