Finished, at last!

Oooo, doesn't time fly! It is now over a week since the Grandgirls visited and I finally got photos of L's finished jersey. Not a good photo as the days have been nice and sunny lately (yay! Spring's here at last!) but you can sort of see what it ended up like. I am not very happy with some of the weaving in of colours but not unhappy enough to do anything more about it. Off the body, the neckline looks a little stretched at the edge but it goes over L's head really easily, which is what I wanted. Nothing makes kids hate jerseys quicker than one that they have to force their head through! I used a needle 2 or 3 sizes larger than the one I was ribbing with to cast off and used a stretchy cast off as well.

As you can see there is a little room for growth in the finished jersey. I was planning for this as there shouldn't be a lot more jersey-wearing days left in the season so I was hoping L would be able to wear it next year as well. It isn't a terribly good photo of L, or the jersey, as I had to take it quickly. When H, L's older sister, sees a camera she wants to be in the photo! Not easy to take one of L without H! It is amazing how quickly these little ones grow - it doesn't seem that long ago when she was crawling around. She definitely has her own little personality - she doesn't say many words yet but certainly understands everything we say to her!

Since finishing this jersey I have been working on Mermaid. The first front is finished and I am now partway across the back. Photos to come when I can find the right lighting for it (and time, of course). As it is a fairly fine knit (3mm circular needle) it is slow going but not too bad. I don't mind working in garter stitch as I mainly knit while watching tv at night. Not a good thing for me to try working a complicated pattern when I am tired. The knitting is straightforward but Hanne's pattern is a little challenging to decipher at times. Very clever, though.

Spinning has been progressing slowly with another skein plied and many more to go. I will probably take my wheel to our "weaving" day this week (originally the fifth Thursday in the month was set aside for the weavers but, now that there are not many willing to cart around their portable, but heavy, looms, the day has been opened to anyone) so may get some more accomplished then.

Stell, thanks for the suggestions for the boucle jersey. It is still sitting in a corner of the cupboard in disgrace - I will think some more about it another day, probably at Tara!

A month later!

Has it really been a whole month since my last post?!! What has happened since then, I wonder?

In knitting, I finished L's little slip-stitch jersey (yes, I haven't yet converted to americanisms, Stell!) and gave it to her last weekend. I haven't seen it on, yet, so no photos. Yes, bad blogger that I am I forgot to take one of it before we took it up to her. But, all going well, the two little girls will be with us for the weekend so just maybe I can get the camera out! The jersey is nowhere near perfect, but it will just have to do. I must learn to weave yarns in better as one or two show on the right side. Darn. But lesson learned, I will NOT use two or more colours at once in the round unless they go all the way around!

I tried going back to the circular, raglan-sleeved, v-necked, variegated boucle jersey I put away from me in disgust many moons ago but as I looked at it I didn't have the heart. I messed up the decreases in the raglans and need to rip it back. Not a problem but I also was fast running out of yarn and, no matter how fast I knit, there wouldn't be enough to finish it and I will not be able to get any more. Also, looking at it, I felt totally out-of-love with the whole thing! I put it away again until I can think of another approach. Probably will end up frogging the whole thing. Double damn!

So, being the good little knitter that I am (who do I think I am kidding here??) I pulled out yet another UFO - this time it was the Mermaid I started goodnessknowswhen. I had already done a little ripping on it and I was able to find my way back to where I was in the directions. I was only halfway through the first gusset so not very far through at all. I am now past the second gusset and halfway into the following striped section so a little bit of progress has been made. I am quite enjoying working on this at the moment as long as I have good lighting.

I even worked on a little spinning again this week - I plied up a bobbin of some coloured rovings (yes, there are two different ones I am plying together) which I don't seem to have a photo of. You will have to wait patiently for that too! More plying to go (I have four bobbins needing to be plied together).

On the work front, things are coming together. A replacement has been found and time will tell if he is reliable. Soon, I hope, I will be able to hand everything over to him. That will be very nice!

Our pellet fire is continuing to under-function despite a "technical expert" from the supplier coming to have a look at it and announce it was working perfectly! Why do we need to have the heat setting so high when others are perfectly warm with the fire set on low? I have tried to get the company to take the fire back and refund the cost as per the Consumer Guarantees Act but the amount they offered was laughable. I have therefore put in a claim to the Disputes Tribunal so we will see what happens in about a month's time.

That brings us more or less up-to-date with what is going on in my life at the moment. Maybe next time there will be pictures!