I needed a bit of cheering up today and ended up buying this beautiful red malabrigo yarn. A cheerful cardigan for myself is in order!

On the needles at the moment – Girasole by Jared Flood (ravelry) and the lovely Soay Cardigan by Gudrun Johnston (ravelry).

I’m planning modifying Soay, it’s a cropped cardigan and just thinking ahead to cooler months I’m going to extend the body a bit and possibly the sleeves. I think I have the yarn for it and I seem to get more wear out of full or longer sleeved cardigans than their 1/2 sleeve length friends.

It’s rainy days here at the moment, perfect for staying in and starting new projects… I have itchy fingers for crocheted blankets and striped jumpers!

I’m so conflicted today! On one hand it feels like a perfect market and beach day, but on the other, knitting with a Northern Exposure marathon would be the perfect antidote to a tiring week. I think staying home is winning, the next two months we have so many weekend plans that I know we’ll both miss having a quiet day here and there.

Did you watch Northern Exposure when it was first released in the early 1990′s? Or have you since become a fan?

I don’t think the show has lost any of it’s charm over the years, I’m looking forward to getting to know the characters again :)

First up is Soay by Gudrun Johnston - see finished example below.

Then we have Camilla Baby, a lovely little baby jumper that I have made for our friends newborn for next Winter… I think it’s going to be way way too big, so I may rip it, or maybe I’ll just finish it and start something else for him saving Camilla Baby for the next baby that comes along.

Last but not least here are the results of a ball winding catastrophe! All I wanted to do was cast on Emelie and instead I’m left with a couple of hundred yards of completely tangled Madeleine Tosh Sock…

I have random plans for striped cardigans at the moment. I’m all flush with the joy of finally finishing Honeybee that all I the desire to knit is more cardigans!

First though, I’ll need to finish the beautiful little Camilla Baby sweater for our friend’s baby due this week or next – I’m in the process of knitting the 6 month old size, which will bring the baby into our Southern Hemisphere Winter. The sex is still a surprise to everyone, including the parents to be, but I was very certain it will be a boy… I wonder if the style of this little sweater is too feminine? This thought only occurred to me last night of course, 55% done :)

I’m very much looking forward to some time off over Christmas, knitting time! and I’m counting down until my last day on Friday. I hope you’re having a relaxing pre-Christmas week and haven’t succumbed to the stress of the Season xx

As corny as it might sound, my Photojojo timecapsule brings me a lot of happiness every time it hits my inbox. I love to look at the selected photos from a year ago and think back to what else I was up to at the time, some times I remember clearly what I was thinking as I was taking a particular photo, and other times I can’t remember the photograph at all!

This latest capsule makes me homesick for that time in a nostalgic sort of way, we were both living in my just-about inner city apartment – cramped but cozy, and my biggest concern at the time was finishing these two crochet projects before Christmas. There were lots of weekends sitting in front of my laptop or the tv, and when finished them they became two of my favourite crochet fo’s.

This was also a time of playing scrabble, going often to the market, our first Christmas officially living together, the seemingly neverending rain, and then of course Qld floods (flood photos from my area only, we didn’t go travelling around sticky beaking).

I can officially call Dahlia complete! I actually finished weaving in ends and blocking it at the beginning of October, but it’s taken me this long to take some pictures of it.

I can’t recommend Madeleine Tosh Pashmina enough, it is such a beautiful yarn, both to work with and have next to your skin. The drap was just perfect for this cardigan, and I promise to take some photos of me wearing this soon.

To recap modifications… I had to completely alter the sleeves, I was running rapidly out of yarn and there was no way I could easily colour match a new skein. By time I realised the dye lot had sold out and I didn’t want to rip it back to start over with a new yarn or rip back all the panels to remove the collar. This was my solution and I’m happy with it, the cardigan does have a different feel to the original design, it’s a lot more casual, but I’m happy with that.

I do think it’s time to get a crack on with summer knitting!

Thank you for your messages from here and over at Ravelry over what I will do with the sleeves of Dahlia.

I realise my last post was a little dramatic, I posted it right at the moment when I was admitting to myself that I was not going to have enough yarn to finish two, below the elbow, with lace panel sleeves…

I can’t get any Madeleine Tosh Pashmina in Steam Age right at this moment, and I know if I tracked some down it is not going to match the body. Solution one is to rip, rip way back so that all I have is the square lace panel from the back, and reknit it all without the section of turned over collar – so both top and bottom of the cardigan would be the same. Solution two is to alter the sleeves.

At the moment I’m trying solution two… I’ve knit the right sleeve to what I think is the shortest possible length I could be happy with, decreasing more rapidly than instructed in the pattern (every 6th row instead of every 8th), and I have begun the left sleeve. If I can match the right sleeve with enough yarn left over to put a seed stitch band on both, I’ll stick to this plan – it will still be nice, just not the same as the pattern. If I run out… back to solution one.

Half a skein left for two sleeves… my solution of knitting really quickly won’t work for long :/