A Blessed Christmas

card from : crossdaily.com : lights from our Christmas tree

Would you?

Would you frog this store bought hand knitted Aran cardigan if you had several dry cleaning burnts on it? I don't send my woollies to the dry cleaners anymore but those were the days when I thought wool keeps better minus the water !


It was bought 10 years ago and has seen me through many winters. There's too many memories associated with it, like I was travelling with my late father when I gave some lame excuse for going into this shop near Hampton Court to buy it. I remembered explaining why it costed much more than 'Made in China' machine knitted ones......

I'm sure if I give the recycled wool a good bath and knit it up into an Aran vest I'd have many more years out of it still. Well, I got as far as taking the scissors out this morning but they went back into my sewing basket after the photography session! One of these days....

I've got 2 WIPs, one of which cannot be blogged about till after the New Year since I'm taking part in the celebrating Christmas and New Year the KC way mystery project.


This is Thorn and Thistle from IK Summer 06 and I'm knitting with Catania cotton.



I'm a little undecided about adapting the cardigan sleeves shown in the ensemble into short sleeves for the top. Anyway, that can come later.

On time..

Phew! so I made it, but I'm not planning to get into another 'deadline' situation like this again. (I hope!) Dilly dallying and wondering off to other projects, serves me right really.

I never got round to the pair of matching socks......

DH's jumper was finished late Thursday night, blocked and ready for packing by Friday. It's on the way to the airport now and I've finally got something to blog about!

Pattern : none, measurements from an old jumper

Chest Size: 48"

Yarn: Rowanspun 4 ply ( 100% pure new wool )

Amount: 16 x 25 gm x 162 yds (with some yards left over)
Needles: 2mm and 3mm

The body and sleeves were worked in the round, shoulders with short rows and 3 needle cast off. I find the shoulder seams (pic below) are definitely neater compared to the step-cast-off and seaming method.

And here's the last of the hats for 3 teenagers on a skiing trip tomorrow. That's our Christmas tree in the background and the cyrstal globe used for all my hat pictures.

....................
I used 2 strands of black DK wool and I'm not certain if this is 'broken rib' but I think it's a nice 'hat stitch' and more interesting than the usual k2p2 ribbing. The stitches are dense and give the hat better structure, that is, if you don't intend for it to go into a smallish handbag since it's bulkier than a Beanie.

So!, it is now ME time and I'm about to make myself a nice cup of tea while I decide on what to cast on this evening :)