Life's a Beach

Ho hum. I'm off work sick again this week; still trying to shake off this pleurisy. I'm on another course of stronger antibiotics, and resting as much as I can. It seems to be doing the trick; I do feel like I'm on the mend and the chest/back pains have subsided. It probably explains why I felt so low and lifeless last Friday.

So what is a girl to do whilst recovering - why, start a new project of course! I know, naughty me, but I wanted some no-brain stocking stitch to keep my hands busy. So I got out this stash (yes, stash!) yarn:


Sand, water, surf, shells.. can you hear the seagulls yet?!

It's Narvik Young Touch mercerised cotton obtained from ebay a couple of years ago. I just adore those beach-inspired colours!

I had to be careful with the design I created using my Knitware Sweaters program as I only have 300g (630m) of this yarn and no chance of getting any more. I swatched, measured the gauge, frogged the swatch, and measured the length of yarn used. Then I created (hopefully very accurately!) a garter stitch edged cap sleeve summer top pattern; here are the schematics from the program:


A picture says a thousand words - or a couple of pages of knitting instructions anyway

On Saturday I created the pattern in about 2 minutes flat and started knitting at the regular Beatties Knit Chat meeting; so far I've done the back:


Of course it has to pool - it's beach-inspired!

I actually love the pooling - it looks so, well, pool-like! Also quite funky and retro I reckon.

Can you make out where I did the shaping? I decided to incorporate more into the body to add a little feature and make the seaming easier! I've always wanted to try this, and now there it is. Not sure it looks entirely as I wanted, but it's there and it's ok I think.

By the time I got to starting the front the antibiotics had kicked in and I was feeling a little more competent. So I decided to add a little lace panel to the centre front, as inspired by recent posts at Wendy's blog:


Lace shovels digging in the sand? I think I need a holiday..

I love it so far; Rose - we'll have to wait and see if I need to wear a vest underneath it.. ;-) The lace panel is from my "Harmony" Guide to Knitting Stitches: v. 1 and has the very grand title "Vandyke Lace Panel II"! Note the careful use of my beautiful co-ordinating beaded stitch markers from my wonderful SP4 pal - many thanks Leslie!

Oh yes, I nearly forgot, the yarn for my youngest daughter's crochet poncho arrived a couple of days ago:


Look up - there's a rainbow!

Yes, it's definately rainbow and blue! She does spend a fair amount of time gazing skywards, so it's only to be expected I guess.