Full Metal Wheelbarrow

Knitting folks might like to contribute a penguin jumper for oiled penguins in Australia.

The page says "Penguins caught in oil spills need the little jumpers to keep warm and to stop them from trying to clean the toxic oil off with their beaks. "

I shall try knitting some I think.

Except apparently the jumpers are actually to go on toy penguins in the gift shop and not for real poorly ones at all.

http://www.giantflightlessbirds.com/2011/10/the-great-penguin-sweater-fiasco/

A bit naughty of them to imply otherwise methinks :(

Thanks to choptliver  for the link.

All finished!

Not the most impressive knitted object ever, but not bad for my first project in a several of years methinks. I am rather pleased that I managed to get the stripes lined up correctly when I sewed the bits together.

Now I just have to decide on what to knit next. In the meantime I'm keeping in practice by knitting squares.

I've finished the knitting part of the cardi now - all that remains is the sewing-up.

I was delighted to find, on knitty.com, a lovely clear description of how to sew a virtually invisible seam between stocking stitch pieces. And what's more, it  works. Even for someone as hopelessly cackhanded as me. It's fairly slow to do, because it's a little fiddly, but worth it because the result looks so much better than anything I've done before in that line.

There will be pictures when I've got it all together.

Meanwhile, the weather has gone decidedly horrid again, so here's a flower that I photographed this morning when it was a bit nicer:-

Today I had to buy a set of yarn needles to sew up my cardigan, because I still can't find my needlecase.

On the up side they were only 60p and I found a little wool shop in the craft centre in the village that I hadn't known about before.

We have a new wormery.  The old one is just a big tub with a tap on it, and quite hard to get the compost out of - this one is a set of trays so it should be much easier. We put it together this evening and I shall start moving the worms into their new "Des Res" tomorrow. I hope they'll like it :-)

Finished the second sleeve of my cardi tonight - so tomorrow is the moment of truth when I iron the bits flat and try to sew them together.

Then comes the least fun bits - picking up stitches to do the neckband and button/buttonhole bands. Hopefully it'll all work and I won't run out of the mohair contrast yarn halfway through the last cast-off...

I went for a walk out to Staunton Harold Reservoir today. It was nice and bright and sunny, albeit still windy and cold.

I was rather saddened by the sight of dogs which had obviously been swimming in the reservoir. I don't blame the dogs, they can't read the zonking great signs that say not to swim in the water or drink it or let your pets do likewise (because it's full of blue green algae which will make you and them ill), but I would have hoped their owner could. Apparently not. Poor dogs.

At least there were plenty of snowdrops to cheer me up


In other news, I've now knitted both front sections of my cardi and have started the first sleeve. I thought I'd be slow at this after not touching knitting needle in anger for several years, but it's getting done remarkably rapidly.

I was making decent progress with the left front of my cardi last night and then I realised I'd somehow managed to drop a stitch right at the beginning of a row about ten rows previously. How do I do these stupid things and not notice them?

At least this time I was able to unpick back to it and recover without unravelling the whole thing and I've already passed the point that I had to start unpicking from. I just wish I wasn't quite so dozy.

I finished the back of my cardigan last night and cast on for the first of the front sections. This bit's a bit odd because you cast on 60 stitches and then decrease one in the middle of the last rib row which seems a bit pointless really.

I think I might have to do what you're supposed to do (but I never do usually) and iron the bits of the cardi flat before I sew them together  because the back has curled up like a very curly thing that's practicing being extra curly. I'd forgotten how satisfying it is to watch the knitting grow too.

I got almost half the back of my cardi done - and then realised I'd dropped a stitch several rows back, leaving a Hole. Bah.

Being rubbish at retracing my steps in knitting, I unravelled the whole thing to start again, only to find that the mohair stripes had tangled themselves up with the main colour such that it was impossible to unravel them into one thread and in places I had to actually cut them to make them let go. Double Bah!

So now I have multiple little balls of mohair. Hopefully these will do for the casting on bits for the other sections (you cast on in mohair and then do the rib in the main colour) and I won't have to buy another ball of the stuff, which cost nearly three times as much as a ball of the plain stuff.

I also have multiple little balls of the main colour, but that doesn't matter as much because I can use it to sew up the finished cardi, and in any case I had 50g more of it than I needed (the pattern called for eleven 50g balls and the wool I wanted was in 100g balls, so I bought six).