Hooks and needles!

Wow - the urge to create has really gotten a hold of me at the moment - I can only put it down to the impulse of all those creative hormones flooding around my body at the moment, combined with the need to conserve energy by mooching around the house.  

I now have no less than 4 active projects on hooks and needles, and I stress the word 'active' as opposed to my usual trick of starting something, getting a bit bored and abandoning it to the excitement of starting something new!

I picked up this yarn yesterday and cast on to make the Honey Cowl I have been seeing on so many blogs lately.  The pattern is really simple, knit in the round on circular needles, and hopefully won't take too long to knit up.  Great for cold February days!

I can't quite describe the  colour of this yarn.  It's a Sirdar Click wool and acrylic mix - nothing too fancy for my first attempt, but it's nice and soft and hopefully won't be too itchy.  It was also on offer for £2 a ball!  The colour could be grey, but has accents of blue, green, and red or pink, or possibly brown, so the overall effect changes with the light.  It's a bit like oil on a puddle, or the North Sea under a British sky!  It will be my mirage cowl! 

I have replenished my yarn supplies to continue working on my ripple blanket, although the perfectionist in me is tempting me to frog it and start again now that I know I made such a significant error interpreting the instructions!  I shall have to see which wins out - my OCD leanings or my or my reluctance to start over!

I've made some progress with the dress for Baby Bjorn.  I've customised it a fair bit as the bodice was a little too tight to slide on over the dolls legs.  I added in a few rows of double crochet (English!) whilst joining the sides - of course I had run out of pink yarn by then so had to go with stripes!  For the same reason I decided not to join the straps on to the back of the bodice (it made the neck hole too narrow to pull on over the legs) and instead lengthened them slightly and added buttonholes.  I also wanted to add some scallops to the straps to make them look a little more finished and to cover up Baby Bjorn's rather chunky shoulders!  Unfortunately I wasn't concentrating and managed to complete both sets of scallops beautifully before realising I had the dress inside out!  Doh!  So I shall have to unpick them and do it again.

And finally....

I have cast on to make another February Lady Sweater - an awesome cardigan pattern with a terrible name!  This is another free pattern made available through Ravelry.  It's the only large item of clothing I have ever attempted knitting for myself, and it was really successful (shock!).  I wear it all the time, so much so that it's already starting to go bobbly.

I tried to take some photos of the detail, but my lighting wasn't great and it was really hard to reproduce the colour - it definitely looks best in the sunshine above!  The yoke is knit in garter stitch, then the arms and body continue in a gull lace pattern.  It's lovely and goes with everything!

Admittedly, this make might take me a while.  I blush to admit that this first one took me a year and five months to complete (eek!).  Not that I was working on it constantly.  A sudden fear gripped me three-quarters of the way through that it wouldn't fit, and I completely stalled, putting it away for months.  Thankfully I did finally dig it out and make the final push to get it done.  Then came the moment of truth, and - VICTORY, Hoorah!

So, I now have several projects on the go with enough variety to keep my hands and brain busy as I sit and wait for the baby to arrive.  39 weeks today - won't be long now!