Finally I have finished! Hooray! I am possibly the slowest Knitting Olympian in the history of the sport but like the tortoise I got there in the end, and I am very pleased with the result.

Click on the piccies as usual to make them bigger, and admire the diamonds which increase in size to shape the sleeve, I am so proud of this shaping! I’m afraid anyone who has already been shown this sweater knows that I can bore for England on the subject of increasing the diamond size to shape the sleeve.
The pattern is my own and based on the modular knitting of Horst Schulz, Vivian Hoxbro, Maureen Mason-Jamieson and several others. The yarns are a couple of bargains I had in my stash. The navy background is a cotton approximately DK weight and the turquoise is an acrylic bargain cone knitted double that I picked up from Uppingham Yarns. In fact this is the cone that wont die, I have so far knitted this sweater, a scarf, a wrap, and a poncho with this yarn and I still have about half a cone left!

I enjoyed the fact that this design was relatively easy to alter as you went along, although I did have a rough sketch from the beginning of how it was going to work. Perhaps this is the moment to let on to the fact that there is actually a third sleeve in the bottom of my knitting bag which didn’t work out 🙂 A Learning Experience (TM).

Another thing I loved about the modular way of working is that you can knit the diamonds in different ways depending on how many sides of the square you have knitted already. Rather like a big jigsaw.

And of course the best bit is there are no seams at all. The U-shaped squares allowed me to join the sleeves into the body where the knitting is coming from two different directions at right-angles to each other. Then there are bulls-eye squares on the tops of the shoulders and under each arm (you will be pleased to know I didn’t photograph my armpits) to join the whole thing together.

Typically I have finished a nice winter sweater just as the weather perks up. To continue in this contrary frame of mind I am now going to go and make some nice hearty soup 🙂

I have been having a bit of a clear-out and discovered some pictures of a wrap I made a while ago but hadn’t got round to blogging about before.

This is the Wave Wrap from Knitters magazine, I can’t for the life of me remember which issue, but I think it was probably Spring or Summer from last year or the year before. I am in the process of organising my books and magazines but haven’t come across the appropriate issue yet. The yarns are left overs I had lying around and I think are all acrylic.
According to the pattern the two lower points at the back are supposed to be sewn together, but I couldn’t make it lie flat when I tried that. I quite like it with the two points anyway.

I really like the turn-back colar too, and think I will do some more experimenting with this shaping.

The weather here is still lovely which does wonders in making me feel like getting on with things! The sort-out is coming along well, although there is a lot to get through, I am finding time for a few rows here and there too 🙂

I am still knitting here! I finished this scarf last week, just in time to hand to my mum when they were visiting (Mother, if you are reading look away now). It isn’t her birthday for another week but I wanted to be able to hand it over when we saw them.

It is a pretty basic sideways knitted garter stitch scarf with self fringe. The yarn is Drops Symphony, 65% merino, 35% polyamide, and feels incredibly soft. It was in the summer sale at the InterKnit Cafe in Farnham and I couldn’t resist. I hope she likes the colour.

I am also doing the happy dance here because not only is it lovely and sunny today, but also our car has come back from being mended (someone drove into the back of P as he was coming home from work about 3 weeks ago – luckily he was fine just rather shaken, but the car was rather squashed). We also now have a working phone line! (the electricity company dug through our phone cable just over a month ago, but luckily they managed to miss the broadband). So a very good day is being had here – I hope you are all having such a great day too.

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the finished shawl. Finishing something has spurred me on to have a go at some rather neglected things on the needles, after all if I finish them I can actually be wearing them. I have been making some progress, and here are some finished socks:

The yarn is Opal Hundertwasser, the colour is Silver Spiral, and the pattern is my standard ribbed sock with short row heels and gussets in the leg and foot. My sister bought me the yarn for christmas along with a couple of other colourways and it is lovely. I love the idea of yarn inspired by a painting and I love the colours used and the long colour repeats.

It has been a busy few weeks since I last posted. Some very long days at work, which weren’t so good, but it was also my birthday last monday which made up for it. I have now reached the grand age of 30, not that it feels greatly different to 29 🙂 The knitting has been progressing rather slowly in the last week due to a rather unfortunate run-in with my new bread knife (birthday present from my parents). It is surprisingly hard to knit with plasters on 3 fingers of your right hand! Luckily the cuts weren’t deep since the second I grabbed for the knife falling off the worktop I realised that it was a very stupid thing to do and let go, so they are pretty much healed completely now.

I have been plodding through my samples for this months City and Guilds class, and they are coming along well, only two left to do now. If I am feeling brave this afternoon I am going to have another look at my Patchwork jumper (scroll down to the bottom). I think I must be the slowest Knitting Olympics participant. It has got to the point now that it is so close to being finished it is just ridiculous. I would really like to finish it before the weekend when I am going to Rosie’s workshop on patchwork knitting. Better go and get a move on …

After all the excitement of dying the yarn, I’m afraid I disregarded all current works-in-progress and jumped straight into knitting a little shawl with it. Progress wasn’t actually that fast, but that is mostly due to the fact that I had to stop and admire it at the end of each row 🙂

Since I wasn’t sure how far my yarn would go I opted for a simple triangle starting in the centre back neck and increasing at each edge and twice in the middle on every other row. I went for garter stitch since I like scarves to be reversible, although I suppose it is less essential on a shawl. I also added a simple lace tree pattern I designed. Although as Diane pointed out the trees are actually upside down when you are wearing the shawl. Oh well, I like it anyway 🙂

So now onto the delight that is blocking!

First we have a shawl in its unblocked state, looking not very lacy and rather wobbly round the edges:

And as if by magic with the addition of a few million pins, ta da:

A gratuitous close-up of my upside down trees:

And even closer – you can tell I am enjoying this can’t you 🙂

This is being blocked on my new super adjustable blocking system, otherwise known as a set of foam recreation mats for 3-8 year olds from the Early Learning Centre . They are 60cm (2 foot) square and fit together like big jigsaw pieces. They come in packs of 4 and I bought 2 packs so I think that will be sufficient to create shapes to block just about anything I can think of. Also they fit down the back of the spare bed when not in use, very handy.

And, finally the shots of me wearing the new shawl:

I was worried that it would be too titchy to be of any use and was very pleasantly surprised. It is a pretty good size, not bad considering it is only 100g of 4ply weight cotton.

I’m afraid I appear to be pulling a strange face in the next one. I am probably instructing the photographer 🙂

Now I am going to be good and go back to all the abandoned projects, and also do my City and Guilds homework before the night before (next class is a week on sunday, I have already done half of the knitting part of the homework).