Bits and Pieces

It's not been a particularly exciting weekend. The cold I have been trying to fight off for the last week laid me flat on the couch for most of it and I haven't felt like doing much of anything, including knitting. I haven't even really been able to concentrate enough to read Unseen Academicals.

We took the Boy to his first swimming lesson yesterday. He seemed to go okay but he has trouble relaxing in the water, especially when he is on his back, so we will have to see how that goes. We've booked him in at the pool at his school, which is just around the corner from home, so the 9am lesson on a Saturday morning is very convenient. The teacher seems better and more attentive than the teachers he had at the last place he did lessons so I'm hopeful that he will get something out of it.

I've got 31cm done on the alpaca vest - there's 8cm to go before I split at the armholes and knit back and forth for the fronts and backs.

 

I searched through all my easily accessible knitting boxes (the ones in the house as opposed to the countless ones in the shed) yesterday in an unsuccessful attempt to find my runaway 4mm KnitPicks options tip, and found the Ribbon Tied Wool Vest (rav link) that is destined for the soon-to-be-born child of a colleague and has been sitting nearly finished in a box for over a month. I need it for before L goes on maternity leave in November, and yet I've been ignoring it and working on a vest Dad won't be able to wear until next winter. I'm not certain why, except that the Wool Vest needed sewing up and stitches picked up and the collar knitted, and the alpaca vest was just mindless knit stitch round and round and round. I forced myself to get the Wool Vest out this morning and now I only have the collar ribbing to knit so I'm hoping to get that finished tonight, after I go searching for a more elastic cast off than the bog-standard one I normally use.

While going through all the boxes I kept coming back to the 10 balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Daffodil that I won in Jacqueline's competition for those who had donated to the Victorian Bushfire appeal in March this year. I've been a bit stumped with what to do with it, because, while it's gorgeous, it's not really a colour I would usually (or ever) wear. I'm thinking of making a Kiri (rav link) and deciding when I finish whether it's something I would ever use, or whether I will give it away.

I don't think it's going to be the next thing I start though. I've been thinking about my wardrobe lately and realised that I would really like some more cardigans. I wear them virtually all the time in the office as the air-conditioning can often make it quite cool. I've been surviving on three or four that I got years ago at a cheap clothing shop but they're starting to look fairly tatty and I'd like to replace them with some basic cardigans I've made myself. I'm thinking of a couple of Chicknits Eyelet Cardys in Bendigo Luxury, and maybe a Franken-Cardy using the top of the Eyelet Cardy, the concept of the February Lady, and a lace pattern I haven't chosen yet.

I've also got more babies to knit for, and there's always the Cabled Cardy I promised Mum, and the jumper I'll knit for the Man when he picks one he likes. I think perhaps there's just a little too much on my plate!

Oh well, I've got to start somewhere, so I'm off to try and finish that wool vest.