princessdeia

AKA the World Cup Cardigan.

Yarn: Karabella Aurora 4 color 8170 (Navy) and Texere’s King Cole Merino Wool Blend 4ply in Cherry (29)
Pattern: Made up.
Needles: 3.25 mm circulars and straights.
Notes: A basic top down cape - like the Anthropologie-inspired Capelet, use a basic increase instead of the yarn-over.

Rather than, stopping the decreasing when the sleeve stitches meet at the underarm, I continued to increase for half an inch more. The arms were worked straight to create the floaty sleeves, ending with an inch of seed stitch in the red yarn.

I am having a very busy weekend in between a quick day trip to Le Touquet for a booze cruise/shopping trip, and a visit to Birmingham for a trade show, I have just got time to start my clean sweep for Project Spectrum.

Tools
My faithful Chibi - which holds all my needles.
A crochet hook.
A kilt pin brooch.
Various buttons.

To beginning, I am rewinding the calander to March and my Pink/Red projects. To complete, (from the bottom of the photo).

1. I have my Striped Sweater, which I cast on just in March and have slowly been knitting over the last few months.
2. Then, my Mum’s Twin Set cardigan which was started long before PS (last autumn), but I was planning on finishing it in March (I am awful I know).
3. Fast forward to June, when I was watching the World Cup and meant to be knitting a cardigan, this has been pushed to the bottom of my knitting bag, as I am so embarassed that I failed the challenge.
4. The Circular Shrug, I was unsure if this colour was more green or blue and unsure when I should be knitting it - so it was forgotten.
Also, am currently blocking my Stash Busting Bag and Cleo Clutch.

It is very hard to update at the moment, as I am unable to talk about a lot that is going on. I am working on a something major and until it is all finalized, I can’t talk about it. As for my current knitting project, that currently for my One Skein Secret Pal, so I am unable to post about that either.

My World Cup Cardigan is still on hold, as it is too big to carry around with me (I am busy travelling a lot this week). After that, I think I will finally start knitting the Felted Tote from the One Skein book, oh and another pair of socks

Well I have to admit defeat - as hard as I tried to finish my World Cup Cardigan, I am nowhere near finishing (I have about 30 rows more to do on the body). Like the World Cup final, I need extra time and possiably a penlty shot-out.

Unfortunately, I an busy over the next few days and have very little knitting time so I doubt it will be finished this week

My excuse for failing this task - I forgot I was a football widow became obsessed with being a WAG and watched far too much football in the pub, rather than staying at home and knitting! I guess there is always Euro2008.

Without a doubt the best thing about this weekend was the arrival of my One Skein Secret Pal Package, from the moment I saw the parcel with the Hawaii postmark I was smiling.

Inside, was a ball of Mohair Premier, I have never seen this yarn before, it seems to be a thicker version of KSH, and is amazingly soft. My pal informs me it is from Japan and pretty hard to get hold. As soon as I saw the colour, I thought of our bedroom walls, as it the shade I am hoping to paint our room later this year. So obviously, this yarn will have to become something for the room, I am thinking a cushion cover.

Also in the package was some Burt Bee’s Hand Salve, as a fan of their lip balm, I couldn’t wait to try this (The yarn also smells on this which adds to it’s yumminess). The yarn was also gift-wrapped with a lovely knitted flower, which I am going to add to my felted clutch (when I finally get around to making it).

In World Cup News, not only was this weekend a bad time for the England team, it was also a bad weekend for my knitting. I am still on the second sleeve and am pretty sure I will not met the deadline :(. But I am going to keep trying.

As the World Cup entered it’s second round, this weekend, I began the second stage of cardigan. As I am knitting this cardigan top-down, I am now at the stage where you stop all the increases, as you do on the mini-sweater.

I am unsure what to do about the sleeves whether to make them full length or three-quarter lengths, so I am starting to sleeves first - over the weekend, I managed to complete over half of one sleeve so hopefully, I should have them both completed by the end of the week. Ready to start the main body during the quarter finals.

Part of the rules of the Knitting World Cup, you have to choose a project you will find a challenge. So what is challenging about my project after all it is a cardigan and I have knitted a few of them before.

Well first off, completing a project in 30 days is a major challenge for me, but most importantly this is the first project I will be knitting without a pattern. I have made a few items before where I have adapted a pattern but this is totally out of my head.

Originally, it was meant to knit the Chanel Jacket (pdf file) from Knit Scene, but I figured that wasn’t enough of a challenge. I love cardigans that are knitted top-down, as they knit up so quickly, so I figured this was the way to go, to insure that I will complete it in time… And it seems to be working!

I am doing a pretty bad job of avoiding the World Cup, the idea of meeting up with everyone in the pub to watch the game or staying in and watching crap television isn’t really a fair contest, especially when there is cold beer involved! I watched the England game in the pub on Thursday, and although my knitting was in my bag, the pub was too crowded and the idea of knitting in the smokey atmosphere did not appeal.

My stash has also been enhanced with some Cascade 220, when I started knitting again two years ago, Stitch ‘n’ Bitch became my bible and the Internet was a constant source of patterns, amazingly a large amount of pattern (especially felted patterned) called for Cascade 220 or Lamb’s Pride Bulky, and these yarns where impossible to get hold of – now Get Knitted has started selling both these yarns so I had to check them out – now all we need is got Knit Picks to export to the UK and I will be able to find out what all the fuss is about.

Luckily I am not on a yarn diet, as I brought more yarn on Friday afternoon, when I was meant to be shopping for my Secret Pals when I invested in some Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran for me – I think I will turn it into a summer scarf.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to knit much this weekend, as we saw the Foo Fighters in Hyde Park yesterday – undoubtedly a gig I will tell my children about, gorgeously hot day, one of the London’s most famous landmarks, 85, 000 people and members of Queen performing the encore – my only complaint was the set was too short!

Today, I have completed a Blue Square for knit-a-river.

This pretty much a “bear” representation of our weekend, Friday afternoon, Jason began his month long marathon of watching football matches and I started knitting, I manage to cast on my cardigan during the Germany/Costa Rica game, and did a little more over the Poland/Ecuador match.

Saturday was devoted to enjoying the sun, watching the England game and catching up with friends. On Sunday, I started knitting some blue squares for Knit-a-river, perfect for stash-busting and also for this month Project Spectrum.

I had a wonderful weekend helping my sister celebrate her birthday, on Saturday we went to Bicester Village, for some extreme shopping, my poor credit card. Then on Monday, we watched Friends with Money and had an amazing meal at Harlem (corn bread and mac and cheese).

Not much knitting has been done, I started the sleeve for my striped sweater, I am going to have cap sleeves, all in wine with raglan sleeve. I am hoping to finishe both of them this evening whilst watching TV.

I have also signed up for World Cup KAL, as I am already a football widow; it is just like the Knitting Olympics, only over 30 days rather than two weeks. I just need to think what I am going to make, I have some lovely Navy Aurora 4 Yarn that I have wanted to make into a cardigan, something like the Chanel Jacket (pdf file) from Knit Scene I guess I could make that in four weeks, or I could make the crochet dress (but this is meant to be a Knitting KAL). Once I have sorted out that dilemma, I can move on to my next one should I watch England in the final or complete the KAL (Yes I do Believe).