I'm back!

So a little someone has rather got in the way of my knitting over the last nearly 12 months. I've knit practically nothing, shocking when I have an adorable little person to knit for but there you go.

I am not sure how often I'll be blogging or how many WIPs will be turning into FOs but I am going to give it a bash, especially as I am back at work and can attempt to knit in my lunch breaks.

My current WIP is for my little monkey. A new cardigan that I'm really hoping to finish for her birthday in two weeks...hopefully it won't go the way of the cardigan I was knitting this time lady year and be finished in about July! I am almost done with the back and it's a quick and simple pattern to ease me back to my needles.

Also a gratuitous baby picture showing how she tries to thwart my knitting attempts with acts of terror such as chewing on tape measures! (Cardigan by grandma who has been stepping in with knitting whilst my brain has been steeped in baby fog)

Anyway I will try to blog and knit and get back in the swing of it, she has to see me knitting if I want her to take it up right?! :-)

Wow...a finished project!

As I'm sure you can imagine I don't get much knitting time these days and even less time to write about it! Still the magic of technology and the blogger app mean I've managed to get a picture of my latest FO and can make a quick post about it.

This took forever to knit as I kept picking it up and putting it down again and then when I'd planned to finish it on my maternity leave I had only the sleeve, button bands and making up to go and it was the night before my due date...well Abigail decided to scupper my plans and be one of 5% of babies born on her due date.

It has taken me the last 16 weeks to find the time to finish it off! Still it was done and fortunately it does still fit and will for a little while.

I may not have much knitting time but I have an adorable model!

5 weeks

Abigail is now 5 weeks old, in those five weeks I've knit one row...she's worth it though and my knitting family and friends are making up for my lack of knitting time by knitting for her in my place! It has been a bit warm for woollens lately though!

The best laid plans

My knitting & crochet blog week plans were interrupted by the most amazing thing ever, I don't regret that I didn't get any further than day one.

Welcome to the world Abigail Emily and well done for showing remarkable punctuality and joining me in being one of the 5%ish of babies born on their due date.

She arrived Tuesday evening weighing 7lbs 9oz and is the most perfect and precious little thing ever. I wonder if I'll find time to finish her cabled cardi before she's too big for it!

3KCBWDAY1 - Colour Lovers

Colour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with. Have a look through your stash and see if there is a predominance of one colour. Do the same with your finished projects - do they match? Do you love a rainbow of bright hues, or more subdued tones. How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern? Tell readers about your love or confusion over colour.

Anyone who knows me or who has read my blog before will know I am rather a lover of one colour in particular, I just can't get enough green. Pretty much any shade will do, I love it. It's not just in my knitting, my wardrobe also contains more than it's fair share of green and it's the colour we chose to paint the baby's room (fortunately my husband shares a fondness for the colour though perhaps not such a strong one as me). I did have to think if there were other colours that I tended to be drawn towards so I got out my sock and laceweight stash. Sock and laceweight yarn purchases tend to be my impulse buys so it's here where any clear preference for one colour would show the most. It did and it's not just green. It's a combination of green, purple and shades of blue that are tinged with green and purple.



It's there on my ravelry project page as well. Even where the dominant colours in the yarn are not green or purple there is almost always some of one or the other hiding in there as well.  Also looking through my projects those not in shades of green and purple are almost always things I've knit as gifts!  I need to start branching out more, I do appreciate other colours, honest :)

Clearly I am obsessed with green and purple!  They do look rather lovely together though, don't you think?  Now it's off to google 3KCBWDAY1 to see what other bloggers have to say about their love of colour.

The race against the clock

I'm very much on the home stretch where the baby is concerned now. Officially Baby NM is due on Tuesday so we'll see whether they follow my very punctual and unusual lead and arrive on that date (which seems unlikely but my darling mother keeps saying "well you were born on your due date so your baby will be" I'm not sure it works like that!) or if it takes after daddy and decides to give it another two weeks. Somewhere in between those would suit me just fine!

I want somewhere in between because I am still racing to get things finished before he or she does arrive. You'd think two weeks of maternity leave would mean all my knitting is finished up but it turns out that even when I'm not at work I still seem to have eleventy million things to do and knitting it still largely reserved for the evenings. Also my attention span hasn't made a reappearance so my knitting concentration levels just aren't there. Still, I'm getting there. First, the little plain stockinette cardigan knit in some Regia sock yarn is finished. Buttons were purchased and I'm very pleased with how it has turned out.

Gentle blocking before sewing did make that easier and I used mattress stitch but it's still a bit wonky in places where in spite of counting and measuring things didn't quite seem to go together. Still it's definitely cardigan shaped and I'm pretty sure the baby wont care about my wonky sewing!

I also have one finished sock to match but have yet to cast on the second.

Also less finished but definitely getting there is the cabled cardigan. Whilst the back seemed to take an age to finish I actually flew through the left front and the first sleeve. I am hoping to finish the right front tomorrow and then knit the other sleeve and do the button bands. The pattern is for either a hooded or a collared cardigan, I'm going to go for a collar as I can't imagine the hood being that useful or staying up particularly well. Also I have higher chances of finishing the collared version!

This cardigan is actually 0-6 months size so I'm hoping will fit a little longer than the first two I knit which are both 0-3 but we'll see. I still have lots of baby yarn in my stash which I may donate to my mother along with some patterns and beg of some pretty little knits whilst I don't have time to knit any! We'll see though.

I have other good news, I found my button tin!

Hurrah! This means I have a choice of buttons for the little cabled cardigan when it's finished. I don't have a lot of choice as my button tin isn't exactly overflowing with buttons that go with the yarn I'm using but I do have two choices to go with. I am very fond of the little wooden buttons but at the same time think if I don't use the little white ducks I'm not sure what else I would use them on. Also Mr.NM is a great fan of the little white ducks so perhaps I'll use those because they're his favourite and as supportive as he is of my knitting habit he rarely expresses much of an opinion one way or another on my yarn and button choices! Decisions decisions...

So I'm racing to get the cardigan and second sock done, I expect to win so had better get cracking! I'm also going to give Knitting and Crochet Blog week a good go. I think that having something to focus on daily that is unrelated to wondering if the baby will come or not can only be a good thing and will be a distraction for me. I just need to attempt to engage my brain and be a bit creative which I'm not entirely sure I'm capable of! I'll give it my best shot though :)

Almost but not quite

So the little cardigan is almost finished, but not quite. I do like to block the pieces before sewing together garments, it makes the edges straighter and not curled up so makes the sewing easier. I'm really pleased with how this has turned out and the yarn has gone lovely and soft after it's gentle wash. It's machine washable as well so baby friendly I hope!

Why is it not quite finished you ask? I mean it looks quite finished, the seams are all sewn, the neckband knit but something is missing. Something important.

Remember I moved house recently? Well my button tin (which I can't find a picture of, annoying as I was sure I had one, it's red with white polka dots on and came from Cath Kidston) has done a disappearing act in the move. All the boxes are unpacked, my yarn stash is all together, I have my WIP basket as well but no button tin. It's nowhere to be seen. ARGH. In an attempt to encourage a reappearance I ordered some more buttons from ebay but I am rather annoyed that I can't find my button in. So...no FO post yet, sorry.