Week Eighty Eight

Lots of craft activity to report:

I sewed the ruffles on to Flo and it is now so close to the finish line. I'm still not happy with my button choice so I will go shopping tomorrow and see if I can do better.

To recap earlier posts, the pattern is Flo by Kim Hargreaves. The yarn is Madelinetosh Pashmina in the colour ink. I struggled to finish this when I ran short of yarn in week sixty four and the additional skein I purchased was much too dark. The replacement skein from Eat.Sleep.Knit saved the day!

I started a new cardigan in Sundara Aran Silky merino. The colour is Green Tea, a limited edition colour from several years ago. I will be knitting another Twigs and Willows. This is for a KAL ("Knitalong") in the Sundara Group of Ravelry.

I was hoping to make good progress this weekend, but I accidentally left it in the city this weekend.

So I cast on another sweater for my daughter. This is in Rowan All Seasons Cotton in Framboise with scarlet contrast.

It will be a simple raglan sweater, using the Sundara Aran merino one I've just finished as a size match.

The motif from the baby suit is in fingering gauge but I think that if I use the chart and knit in the aran gauge of the Rowan yarn it will be a perfect sized motif. My daughter can choose some buttons as crown 'jewels".

A long time ago I had an ambition to make a blanket (or at least a sofa throw). I lost motivation after only a few knitted squares.

On a stash cleaning excercise I decided I wouldn't finish this as I planned so I destashed all the wool. Most of which was Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed remnants from my kids sweaters. I had eight squares complete and out of them I was able to find a "good" front, and at least enough for a back.

Because puppy claws pull stitches from knit fabric, after assembly I felted the whole cushion cover in the washing machine. It took two heavy-duty cycles on hot with dishwashing detergent.

The colours have brightened and I'm very happy with it. It was a good stashbusting excercise after all!

Here are the squares, assembled. I blocked them lightly before sewing them together (and before felting).

Here is the fabric after the felting process.

I hand sewed a zip into the horizontal line of the back.

As promised last week:-

Final button photographs of my daughter's Sundara Aran merino sweater.

And last of all a very small crafting experiment.

A friend loaned me some Dutch craft books. 

I made a greetings card with gold coloured (sewing machine) thread. The books have charts to copy, I punched the holes in and followed the schematic to make a star. I don't speak Dutch but the diagrams were easy to understand.

I don't plan on doing very many, this took quite a while. But I might enlarge the chart on the photocopier to allow for regular yarn and set it up for my daughter to make some cards and decorations.