Trivia and oddments

There's not been much sign of any knitting going on around here recently has there? In fact not much of anything. But you know how it goes: less blogging = more doing usually.

The back of the soya cardigan is finished - and you didn't even know it was started. The yarn is Sirdar "Just Soya" in shade "Hot Pepper".
It's beautifully soft, but very splitty and it has a slight haze already from handling the knitting. We'll have to see what the pillability factor turns out to be!
I've also found that every ball so far has had a join in it somewhere - annoying for a full price yarn.

The bamboo top and beachcomber tunic have both stalled at the seaming gate. I just haven't felt like doing either of them, and seaming is definitely something requiring the right frame of mind in my experience.

Instead I've been busy making frivolities - small items for the summer run of craft fairs and summer fetes.
You've seen some of the beaded jewellery and hairbands; those are now in the West Midlands for a while. Others are currently in my Etsy shop - go take a look!

As a result of that all my recent purchases have been either beads, jewellery findings, or oddments of mercerised cotton yarns. If anyone has any they want to clear out - shout up!

New loves

Knitting makes me so fickle. As soon as I decide on a new project, I see yet more fantastic yarn and designs to lead me astray. Oh well, such is the crafter's life.

This Sirdar Just Soya yarn in shade "Hot Pepper" led me astray when I found it on the Black Sheep Wools website. Together with the accompanying 15-pattern booklet, I couldn't resist.

This is the particular design that I'm going to make - first. I'm sure I'll be buying more of this yarn to make some of the other designs too; many of them come in womens and girls sizes, which my DDs are VERY impressed with.

They've already shown me several that they like. I guess I'd better get them knitting soon!

In the meantime, this is the project I had started whilst waiting for the Just Soya to arrive.

It's the Beachcomber Tunic from Interweave Crochet Spring 2007, and somehow I managed to buy exactly the right yarn from ebay a while back - total fluke. That's Garnstudio's Silke-Tweed in "Rose" - a lovely dusky pink shade.

This is the pattern that inspired me to take out a year's subscription to Interweave Crochet - not something I tend to do much.

This piece is the right front - which I've now frogged and re-knitted. Here we go again! I'd already modified the neckline and edging as I didn't like the way it stuck out by the throat. Sound familiar?!

Anyway I ended up re-knitting it as I wanted it to be longer. The bottom half of the front is crocheted, and at the original length the dividing line would have cut across my boob - not a good look. ;-)

So now it's longer, and also has a friend - the left front, which is finished to match. The corresponding back is in progress as you read..

BTW, we escaped the snow of course. We did see a little snow fall, but it melted as it touched the ground. We were in Falmouth at the time, enjoying a leisurely walk around the harbour and shops on Easter Monday. Ah, life is hard in Cornwall. ;-)