Pattern: Jacket With Moss Stitch Bands from baby knits for beginners by Debbie Bliss. Flowers from Marnie’s Frog Pond pattern.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in colour 340503. Flower made from kitchen cotton and easy wash merino scraps
Needles: 3mm & 3.25mm Addi turbos

I am pleased to say that I am happier with this colour knit up than I was when it arrived. The yarn was delightful to knit with and has washed well, at least the first time through the washer. The pattern was easy and apart from my little seaming disaster it was a quick knit. I would definitely consider making another one for some future babe. I am thrilled with the flowers and feel that they have really added the feminine touch that this set needed.

Pattern: Loosely based on the Debbie Bliss Simple Hat, at a finer gauge, in the round, with a moss stitch band. Flower from Marnie’s Frog Pond pattern.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in colour 340503. Flower made from kitchen cotton and easy wash merino scraps
Needles: 3.25mm Addi Natura DPNs, 3.25mm Addi Bamboo circular & 3.25mm Addi turbo circular

Well both the hat and my cycle have come through the nail biting suspense of the last week with a fairly decent outcome. The hat is in one piece again, all be it with an ever so slightly visible grafting line, and my transfer is to go ahead next Tuesday. My hormones leave something to be desired but were passable in the end, perhaps it will all come out in the wash like the most obvious signs of the grafting.

After cutting the top off the hat I picked up the stitches of the brim and knit upwards for about an inch. I didn’t actually measure it so I can’t tell you exactly how much I added. I then grafted the two pieces back together. Again, many thanks to Knitty. I think ripping the brim and knitting down from the severed top would have produced the most seamless outcome but I went with the grafting because I was too impatient to wash and dry the yarn from the old brim before fixing the problem.

The cardigan is done too but that will have to wait for another day because I just can’t get a decent photo of it.

Pattern: Moss Stitch Shoes from baby knits for beginners by Debbie Bliss. The strap is my own addition.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in colour 340503
Needles: 2.75mm Pony Rosewood DPNs (used as straights)

LOVE the addis, HATE the birch, tolerate everything in between. I guess I need to come up with some sort of storage system other than the packets they came in, but I am yet to find anything that will store all of them in as small a space and make them easy to identify. can you believe the the size of those honking great straights in the middle? I bought them to knit a scarf with the Rowan Big Wool that Froggy sent me, but I am finding it hard to imagine actually using them.

My cycle is in a similar state to this hat. It might come back together quite nicely. And then again it might not.

Yesterday Isabelle and I went to visit Amber, Ella and Arky. I gave Arky the first Simple Hat and he kindly tried out the moss stich flower version too. The moss stitch flower hat was too short, like an inch too short, so I came home and took a pair of scissors to it. My grafting isn’t bad. Well it wasn’t last time I tried - though that was quite a while ago - and I keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end.

I admit to being a lot less worried about the hat than I am about my cycle, possibly because I won’t have to wait until January to make another hat if this one doesn’t come good.

Isn’t Arky gorgeous?

Well I don’t know that they’re a perfect match, but they’re close enough for me. Now for the straps and buttons.

So I used that last ball of yarn to make a second hat, which matches the rest of the set a little better I think. Now I have an excuse to keep knitting these until I get a pair:

That is shoe number four and I think it might be a match, or near enough, to shoe number three. And there is enough yarn left over to make one more shoe so eventually I may even get two pairs that match. Wouldn’t that be something.

For those of you who are interested my cycle hasn’t been cancelled yet, I think it will probably go through, but my clinic seem less than enthusiastic about my being right, which makes everything a little more stressful than it really needs to be.

Alternate titles considered for this post:

Apparently IVF clinic waiting rooms produce better knitted shoes than Dentist’s waiting rooms…

As much too small as the last one was too big…

I also considered just:

Arrgh…

This is what shoes one and two looked like on Wednesday night post washing (please forgive the crazy late night / bad light photography, would you believe this is what it looks like after colour correction). The cardigan and hat washed beautifully, if only they would dry. Shoe number two washed beautifully - seeming to come out the exact same size and shape it went in. Shoe number one, not so much. It came out not so much a shoe as a floppy mess. Apparently I am unnaturally relaxed about visiting dentists. So I ripped it out while it was still wet, all the better to get the crinkles out and start again.

Figuring that another visit to the IVF clinic waiting room was just what I needed to get a matching shoe I waited until this morning to knit the third shoe. And it is as much too small as the first one was too big, really. The difference is far larger than it appears in this photo.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps I will wait until after the clinic calls with today’s results before I decided on an appropriate response. If they still want to cancel my cycle I probably will cry. It’s been that sort of week.

The question is, should I try to block the third shoe bigger? Rip one of them, if so which one? I guess it would probably have to be the second shoe because I obviously won’t be able to get a bigger shoe from the yarn recycled from shoe number three. Perhaps I should break out my last untouched ball of yarn and keep knitting shoes until I get two that match? Of course the way this cycle is going there is always the chance that the shoes are just going to keep getting smaller and I will never get a matching pair. At least the baby isn’t due for a couple of weeks, it could take me that long at this rate.

Look what came in the post! A very late birthday present from Jesse. I was so excited when I got the box at the post office, so crestfallen when I opened it and then so annoyed with myself for not being able to happier to receive such lovely books, which where indeed right there on my wishlist. The problem is they weren’t at the top of it, or even close.

Pre birthday I hinted to Jesse, or in fact directly instructed him, that as many as possible of the top 6 or 7 books on my amazon wishlist would be very warmly received indeed. In due course he went off and found my wishlist, not via my blog (which would have given him the right list), and ordered what appeared to be the top 6 books. Bless him. Not so many blessings for amazon. For some reason Amazon’s default view when you find a wishlist is not ordered by priority, as any rational person might expect of a wish list (most desirable things first please), but rather it is ordered by most recently added. So, be careful what you wish for on Amazon. Or at the very least be careful about giving instructions to anyone who might misinterpret your wishlist’s multiple views.

Jesse is going to try making a complaint and return them, but most likely I will just keep these books and hopefully get the ones I really wanted for christmas… They are lovely books but they were more the “Well if I can have all of them…” books at the bottom of the list as compared to the “If I can have only one, let it be one of these…” books at the top.

The rest of the books Jesse has already ordered are yet to arrive. Luckily for me half of the six most recently added books were also in the top six by priority, so the next box really will be exciting to open.

I received more markers in the post! I had given up on the rest of my stitch marker swap pal’s sending markers so this was a wonderful surprise. Aren’t they gorgeous? Thankyou Stacey!

I have always loved Lily’s. Before Isabelle was born (when we spent money more recklessly) it seemed there was always a big vase of Lily’s somewhere in the house. Now I couldn’t say when I last bought flowers, until this week that is. I have been inspired by the beautiful Lily’s at ecOasis, that and they were outrageously cheap.