I was surprised and delighted to find that my replacement Addi’s had arrived already when I checked the post today. With Robyn still here I was able to knit while she and Isabelle played together at the Magic Yellow Bus.

I also got some more knitting time in during the car ride home after dropping Robyn at the airport and fetching Jesse from work. The good news is the armholes were shaped stress free:

The bad news is that these new needles were much better the the ones I returned but they still had one join with a rough spot which caught the yarn every time I pulled it across the join on that side. I just want to get on with my knitting so I got out my nail file and now it’s perfect. I really must follow Maggie Righetti’s advice and buy nail file for my knitting bag.

I am not the only one in this house that likes to make (and bake) things. Isabelle is awfully fond of “baking” using the tray from the lovely PLASTIC tea set Jesse’s aunt Maris gave her. Today I helped her out by turning the oven on.

Needless to say I ended up not roasting that chook.

No, not exciting new needles. Sadly yesterday’s efforts in the car confirmed my fear that my new addi 5.5mms were not quite right. So today I wrapped them in bubble wrap and shipped them back. There will be no shaping of any armholes until the replacements arrive, probably on thursday.

Even if I did have my knitting on neeldes instead of stitch holders I would probably not be knitting tonight anwyay as my glands are doing very bad things and I rather expect I will be in bed not long after Isabelle.

I feel like I haven’t been doing a lot of knitting the last week, it seems like I have been constantly busy with something else but I made up for it today in the car. Jesse’s mother, Robyn, is in town and after spending the first two days of the weekend taking Isabelle out without me, so I could work, we all went for a day trip together. Hours and hours in the car made for good hooded jacket progress.

Isabelle thought all this knitting was very dull and she slept through it.

Jesse and Robyn were too interested in the scenery to pay attention to my knitting.

We had a great day - and it wasn’t just because i finally got to do some knitting.

Even with all that fun I did indeed make a lot of progress on the jacket - partly because Jesse, the designated driver, let me have a light on so I could keep knitting after darkness fell. In fact I made so much progress I had to stop knitting and wait to get home and get out my books. I am about to shape my very first armholes and I need to decide a) whether to bind off or hold live stitches and use them for seaming later, and b) if I bind off whether to bind off both sides on the same row and therefore rejoin yarn to keep going, or to bind off over two rows so I can keep using the same yarn. I hope to have this question (or two) resolved by tomorrow night. In the mean time here it is waiting for armhole shaping:

The brand new addi 5.5mm circs I am using for the red hooded jacket are rough at the join on one side. Every other row is like knitting with a rough fingernail. I am getting a similar feeling to being in a room with someone repeatedly dragging their nails down a blackboard. I have contacted Janette from styk and she says to send them back. I will knit a bit more before deciding that is definitely the needles as I will feel a fool if she finds nothing wrong with them.

As for the jacket it is coming along nicely, my gauge is spot on width wise, off a bit in the length but they give the instructions by cms not rows so I am feeling ok about that. I have a few loose stitches and it seems like that will be much harder to fix in garter stitch than it was in stocking stitch. I will post a photo tomorrow when I have some decent light to take it in.

Pattern: Big Bad Baby Blanket, Stitch ‘n’ Bitch
Yarn: Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran in Quartz, Alabaster and Ricepaper
Needles: 5mm Birch circ/5mm Addi Turbo
Gauge: 18 st/ 10cms

Here it is, my big bad baby blanket, blocked at last! It took ages to dry as we had no fan but I am very pleased with the result. And now it is packed away with a block of soap (grandma Mary’s technique for protecting her hand knits) in the hopes that we will one day have someone small to wrap in it.

As in a red swatch for a tiny hooded jacket. I love baby things. I forgot to take a photo of the swatch but I did make one, really I did. I almost got gauge too, at least in terms of stitches, but when I did the math on how much extra width my one extra stitch per 10cm was going to give me I found that I should get the exact measurements given in the pattern. On the other hand my calculator tells me that if I had perfect gauge I would actually have 1.5 cms more fabric than expected…I decide 1.5cms here or there wasn’t worth worrying about, the babe isn’t even born yet - who knows what shape it will be.