30 December 2011

Mosaic Yoke jacket

This project has been so frustrating.

First of all, since usually even the smallest sizes are too big for me, I knitted it in the smallest size on a slightly smaller needle. It came out way too small, and I had to rip it all back to nothing.

The silver lining was that I was able to correct 95% of the mistakes I had made the first time around: I had done the yoke incorrectly, it was too short, I didn't like the colours I'd chosen for the yoke, I messed up the collar.

So it's looking much better - the length is good now, I'm happy with my colour choices (though they're far less than the pattern calls for), the fit is right:


There are so many nice details:


But I still made a mistake and will have to rip it back. At least, this time I don't have to undo the whole thing, just the border. I didn't read the pattern carefully enough, so I missed that picking up stitches for the border starts at the yoke, not at the top of the body. So, as you can see here, the front buckles. Also, I think I may have to make the border bigger, as it is still not quite wide enough across the front. I'm still going to start the border at the top of the body, just with more stitches this time. I'm also not sure I like the green bit under the collar.


I'm hoping to finish it in time for an upcoming trip to NYC... We'll see. I'm psyching myself up to undo the hem, haven't been able to face it yet...

In the meantime, between knitting the first draft of this piece and the second, I finished R's beau in time for Christmas, which he likes a lot (the jumper, not the holiday). He's worn it almost every day.



I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

26 November 2011

A Good Day

Today, when the mail came, I had a package from Siga - some beautiful yarn, a card with her beautiful handwriting, and some chocolates. I couldn't take a picture of the yummy mini Ritter Sports, because... well you can probably figure out that they disappeared long before I got the camera out!

Thank you, Siga!




So, that was an absolutely lovely way to start the day. 

Then we went to Islington to visit my friend Philip's new place - the Islington Barn - where he has pop-up dinners, a fresh veg & fruit shop, which is very festive right now. 

If you live in London, I totally recommend checking it out - the fruit & veg are amazing and super cheap too. I'm making some cauliflower soup for dinner with beautiful cauliflower that I bought from him today. That's my olio verde olive oil in the background, from my friend Gabi in Sicily. How did I get so lucky in terms of my friends???


All in all, it's been a really nice autumn Saturday here in London.

I've also been making trial runs of Christmas cookies, which isn't as fun as making them with my sister. 



Finally, here's what I've been knitting: it's Beau in black for Rog:

13 September 2011

Hawthorne


Finished it just in time to wear out to the South Bank tonight!

14 August 2011

Plum Jam

Our plum tree has had so many fruit this summer, and as R is in NYC for work for a few weeks, there is no way I could eat them all. And I've given pounds of them away to friends already. So I made jam.


 4.5 cups pitted plums
3 cups sugar
juice of 1/4 lemon

I'm still working on my mosaic yoke jacket, but I made it too small - usually the smallest size is still too big for me, but not this time. So I had to undo everything but the sleeves. I'll come back to it...

In the meantime, this is my new project...




01 July 2011

Just cos I haven't been blogging...

doesn't mean I haven't been knitting... (rav link and another link)