Current Project – February Lady Sweater

My current project is the February Lady Sweater. I found this pattern using Ravelry and this link leads you direct to the designer’s blog.

This is my first proper attempt at following a knitting pattern. Before this I’ve only knitted things that I can make up as I go along, such as small baby blankets and covers for my mobile, etc. In the end I just decided to jump straight in and am so glad I did! Youtube has been invaluable – everytime I’ve come across something I don’t understand I’ve just looked it up and watched and rewatched the video until I do understand!

To knit this I’ve used green double knit wool from the recent Aldi offer, 4.5mm circular needles for the main part of the cardigan and 4mm circular needles for the cuffs. I’m currently finishing off the second sleeve and have used about 3 and a half 100g balls of wool. I didn’t have a clue how much wool I would need so bought 2 packs of 5 balls so will possibly be making several more green items!

Here’s some pictures I took a few weeks ago before I started the sleeves:

I’m hoping to have finished this within the next few days. For some reason the sleeves seem to be taking me ages!

Back Again!

Hello Again!

Have just returned from a lovely holiday in Cornwall, one of my absolute favourite places! We were blessed with a fantastic week of weather which made the horrendous drive there and back worth it!

I’ve got hundreds of photos to load up and organize but for now, here’s one of the beautiful St Michaels Mount:

I didn’t get much knitting done whilst we were away but I did manage to finally finish ‘Angels’ by Marian Keyes. As I find with all Keyes’ novels, it takes me a while to get into them but then, all of a sudden, I seem to get drawn in and am disappointed when it ends. I do like that her books are a bit more chunky than most of this genre too. I’ve now moved on to ‘Rachel’s Holiday’, which I didn’t realise comes before ‘Angels’ and includes some of the same characters, although briefly!

I’ll be back soon with some photos of my current knitting project.

Granny Square

Here’s a photo of the largest granny square I have made to date:

Here’s another shot:

I can’t quite remember how long this took me to do but it was fun working with the lovely bright colours!

Introduction

Hello and Welcome to my Blog!

At the beginning of 2010 I taught myself to crochet using Youtube. I wouldn’t say I’m great and definately not that confident with stitch names (particularly with the confusion between UK and US stitch names)! Despite this I am a dab hand at granny squares and really enjoy amigurumi.

At the beginning of 2011 I decided to challenge myself again and learn knitting. Again, I used Youtube, using knitting needles that came out with the first edition of a part-work at the beginning of the year. Progress was slow and patterns looked like some alien language to me so I stuck to plain knit and purl and set about making simple items such as a cover for my mobile phone and netbook and a snood for myself by making them up as I went along. (And scarves for just about every stuffed toy in my home!) The next step I took was to make a couple of preemie blankets for a knitting charity I found online.

In March I learnt that there was going to be a great offer on in Aldi for wool so I popped in and went a little bit mad! I also popped in a few weeks and ago and the remaining wool was reduced to half the orginal bargain price and so obviously it would have been rude not to buy some more!

When I oringinally bought the Aldi wool I had vague ideas for making stuff out of it but nothing definate. With all this wool I knew that I was going to have to bite the bullet and learnt to read patterns! After much searching of the net I finally decided that I might as well just go for it and make something I really loved the look of and just teach myself as I go along, using youtube everytime I didn’t understand a stitch. I settled on the February Lady Sweater on Ravelry and I’m really pleased that I just went for it as I’m nearly half way through it now and it looks great!

The plan for this blog is to share pictures of my knitting/crochet efforts, along with other bits and pices thrown in!