Vintage 'Thing'

Here is the vintage knit that I am doing - not really sure what to call it. This is from the pattern I bought in Harrogate and is the main part to go with the red 'scarf' I posted a few weeks ago.  It looks rather lopsided but the pattern says it needs 'robust blocking' - having never done blocking before I am not sure what robust blocking is - I just assume that it means stretched or blocking to its extreme. Maybe we will see that when we get there.
Sorry for lack of posts but I have been decluttering - following a blog to do a room per week over 20 weeks - next week is the last. And also a month's challenge where you get rid of 1 item on the 1st of the month, 2 on the 2nd, 3 on the 3rd etc. - giving a total of 465 items for April - phew. I did it eventually but it was tough towards the end and it became a real time consumer with many hours spent wandering the house looking for things to get rid of. Hopefully now that is finished I will have more time for craft and blogging - and house work!

A New Talent

This post is showcasing a new talent - my niece with her knitting. My mum and I have been teaching her for some time - she did make purse with some help but the picture above is almost all her own work.
What a difference a year makes and doing knit rather than knit and purl, has meant that she can do this with almost no supervision . She is getting much quicker too and the last time I saw her she doubled the size of the project in an afternoon - such a lovely peaceful time with both of us doing our knitting.
I say double the size - it is perhaps a little more as we do seem to have gained some stitches along the way when the bag is supposed to be straight! But at least when we get to the lesson on increasing that should be a doddle! :-)

Running out of Projects

Phew at last - managed to get a picture to load. I have tried many times and since I upgraded IE it has not worked.
This cake was photographed when I had no projects to show so has long since gone so no requests for a piece - you know who you are ;-).
This is from the fabulous James Martin book of Desserts - Chocolate Coca Cola Cake - it does have  rather nice sauce to go with it but alas there was none left when I was having this piece alone and it did seem a bit extravagant to make some more just for me - yes honest, it did.
Back soon with more knitting etc. and maybe a surprise project.

Progressing Nicely....

...after a setback this week. A tiny mistake and I ended up unpicking around 8 rows - not because 8 rows were wrong but because the pattern is lacy. I have learnt the hard way that even a very simple lace pattern can be tricky to unpick and you can end up unpicking rows that were right! Oh dear.

Now the pattern is right and the unpicked rows are a distant memory. Almost finished this scarf now - so I suppose it ought to be on with the April project :-)

Ahead of Schedule

Catching up now with the blog and unfinished projects - here are the slippers done before the end of the month - ta-dah! One slipper looks a bit bigger than the other but then I suppose they say we all have one foot bigger than the other.
They are really warm and toasty but they do make my feet look a bit fat - one thing my feet are most definitely not!
I have enough wool for another pair and the linings are done already but not the outer. Maybe when I have finished that pair I may put some decoration on - the pattern has a bow but that is not really me - but for now I am going to claim these are finished.
Looking forward to choosing next month's project to finish - think it will be the cross-stitch bag which I had forgotten about until I uncovered it in the corner recently.
Well for now - back to the 1950's scarf.

A Newish Project

Here is the first 'contrast drape' for the vintage pattern that I bought at Harrogate last year - not sure what you would call the overall thing I am knitting but the pattern is called 'Clemmie'. As you can see it seems to be sloping off to the right but the knitting expert at the Tuesday Knitting Group assures me I am doing nothing wrong which was what I thought as I am following the pattern. Anyway I contacted the company who very kindly replied and said it does slope a little and when it is off the needles and has been blocked it should be ok so I am carrying on regardless. That will be a first as I have never blocked anything! Or done a tension square!! I have done over half now so much  more than in the photograph above.

I have also finished the slippers tonight but it was too dark to photograph them so that will have to wait until another day and another post.

March's Project

Here is the first of my slippers - it isn't finished on the photograph but it is now. Had problems with trying to load this photograph a couple of weeks ago - might have been caused by an upgrade to IE - grrrrr.

Still got to finish the second slipper so off to do the NOW!!!!