Central Park Hoodie

At long last, I had the time to sew up CPH this bank holiday weekend! I took my time with the sewing, using mattress stitch on all seams, so it took quite a while. I like the idea of sewing in the sleeve heads before seaming the side and sleeve seams all in one go, I think the sleeves are the neatest I've done so far.

The Rowanspun Aran (shade Hardy) was lovely to knit with and blocked very nicely, softening somewhat in the process. The only slight down side is that it tends to break when you are sewing up with it. I'd heard this beforehand and even though I took care to try not to leave very much stitching to tighten up at a time, I still had a number of breaks. I'm struggling to remember how much yarn I used in total, I think around 6.5 skeins (time for a stock take in the Rowan department!).

I'm so pleased with how this garment turned out, it's a great fit with some ease so you can easily wear things underneath. I made the 40" size as I'd heard this could run a little small, but after blocking it's just right. The sleeves are quite long but I like them that way, nothing worse than sleeves at "half mast" particularly when it's cold!

I didn't make many mods, I used a three needle bind-off on the hood rather than casting off and seaming (could have grafted it too), and I knit the front bands all in one go rather than each side individually. I made 6 buttonholes and used olive wood buttons.

And in other news

The CPH front bands are now cast off and it's ready for blocking!



I knit the edging in one piece, as I'd used a three needle bind-off on the hood and saw no reason to do the front in two halves. I've added 6 buttonholes too.

Some more yarn acquisition, from the Yarn Yard again:



100g of sock in "Spring" and a 50g toning skein in "Bedazzle". There were more tempting colourways this week but I missed them, you can see them on the YY blog. I confess I snagged a bargain skein of merino yesterday too, along with another 50g of Mysteron!

After seeing Oxford Kitchen Yarns sock yarn on Sarah's blog I'm afraid I was led into temptation once again:



100g of 100% BFL sock yarn in "Candyfloss". I'm blaming all these pretty colours on it being Spring! It was certainly a lovely change to be able to take photos outside last week. One of the advantages of getting up early for work is leaving earlier too, so I can get home in the strong daylight. A disadvantage is trying to readjust your body clock to getting up over an hour earlier, I've spent two months back at our old offices and last week was a shock to the system! So much so that I ended up sleeping in very late yesterday, but I still managed to finish CPH and start a beret from the Twilley's Freedom Spirit pattern book in the remaining merino DK from the FCS.

I recently mentioned that I was going to the theatre to see "Sleuth", then entirely forgot to report back on it. I enjoyed it very much, it really is a two-man play, and both Michael Praed and Simon McCorkindale were excellent in their respective roles. I don't think I've ever seen the film before so I didn't know the plot, and the various twists and turns were very entertaining. Being in a front row seat was a wonderful experience, and I caught Michael's eye a couple of times, once during the play itself and also during the curtain call :-) (and he has very lovely twinkly eyes). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when you see it next month Aknita!

I hope my fellow F1 knitters enjoyed the Malaysian Grand prix last Sunday too. Compared to the Melbourne craziness it was a relatively tame affair, but some great moments including Nick setting the fastest lap of the race, and doing some impressive overtaking. Huge congrats to Nick for getting back up the field after an unfortunate start, and to Robert (Kubica) for coming in second! Go team BMW Sauber!



(Nick on the podium in Melbourne - picture courtesy of and © BMW Press Club)

Diversionary lace

I couldn't resist starting the Forest Canopy Shawl I mentioned in the previous post, using Posh Yarn Helena merino DK in shade "Dales". Four repeats done so far:



I'm aiming to pick up for the button band on CPH this weekend, but I think the lovely colours in the merino were just the kind of Spring pick-me-up that was needed.

Finally wrested from the clutches of the Post Office today (one out of four parcels to sign for, so they took all four back to the office, argh!), here is some of the gorgeous Yarn Yard merino in shades Mysteron (above) and Smile:



This is for the Cranford Mitts (link goes to Sussex Yorkie's lovely first pair of mitts), and judging from reports, these two 50g skeins should be enough for 2 pairs. I'm intending using the Mysteron as the main lace for the first pair with Smile (and it does indeed make me do just that) for the edging.

Natalie now sells most of her yarn in 50g skeins, which is great for things like the mitts and even for socks, where you want to use more than one colour. It's so tempting in fact that I also got these in the same parcel:



Oatcake (above) and Moment 50g skeins of Yarn Yard sock.

I'm not doing too badly with my attempts to knit from stash, even so, and if you can't buy some scrummy yarn every so often it's a pretty miserable do! I'd bought very little so far this year until I found out that Dunelm Mill were selling off some Rowan yarns at 99p per ball. Fear not, they had not happened upon a secret stash of R2 yarn :-D When I went to our local store they had Holiday, Cotton Braid and Spray. I've ended up with three different shades of Spray, enough for a number of jumpers judging by the Urban Streets book which I received today (another of the hostage parcels).

And speaking of sock yarn - I am planning to attempt my first pair of socks in the near future. I've got enough sock yarn in stash to see me through a fair few pairs, I think, and I've just invested in some 60cm Knitpicks circs so I can do the two-circulars method. Thanks to BlueADT and the other posters on the 2-socks-2-circs KAL on the CTY forum for inspiring me. I shall try one sock at first though, 2 at once may be too far off the deep end for a first attempt!

I also ordered this which arrived today:



Sensational Knitted Socks, which seems to be a very popular book (and I'll surely end up with the second one too!). Also pictured is Ysolda's latest beret pattern, I've acquired several of her lovely patterns recently, now to acquire a time turner to have the time to knit them all :-D I also have my beady eye on the entrelac bag from the latest Yarn Forward, and the Hurry Up Spring mitts from Stitch 'n' Bitch....

PIF, prizes and live comedy

I sent out my PIF parcels last week and both have now been received, so I can now show you what I made!

In the end, after trying several other patterns, I settled upon the "Pashmina Cowl" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I do recommend this book as it contains a lot of lovely useful patterns, including the famous Chevron Scarf. The first cowl for gilraen was made in Posh Yarn Emily, shade Digress:



The second cowl for blog-blethers was knit in Stroud Wool sock yarn (Socrates) from Violet Green, shade "Solent":



In the end I only had two rather than the usual three PIF recipients, so when the lovely Sarah offered to obtain some Koigu for me from the USA, I hatched a plan :-) In addition to the yarn I sent in return I whipped up a pair of Dashing gloves in Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran (shade Hero). I knew these were on her "queue" and I also knew she was awfully busy making gifts for other people, so it was a nice opportunity to surprise her with a wee handknit gift :-)



Not the most fantastic photo of mine, but Sarah does have better pictures on her blog.

My CPH is almost finished! Just the front bands to knit on, then washing/blocking, and seaming. Oh and sewing on buttons! I'm looking at making a couple of the sweaters from Fitted Knits next, probably Alexandra first, but I may just have to squeeze in a Forest Canopy shawl in some lovely PY merino DK that I've had for ages! My original FCS has been doing a sterling job keeping me warm in the face of air conditioning this winter, as has my Clapotis, so another one of those in Lorna's Laces this time is also on the cards.

I received this lovely prize from Liz at fluffyknitting this week, which I won in her blogiversary draw:



A skein of Lamb's Pride worsted in "Chocolate Souffle" (yummy), a pretty FQ of fabric, some choccy (yummy again), and this gorgeous set of stitchmarkers:



Thanks again Liz for my lovely prize!

I will be running a blogiversary draw this month, as it was three years ago that I first set this blog up. It took another couple of months for knitting content to appear but it doesn't seem like three years at all! Stay tuned for the details.

We had a great night out on Friday, as we went to see French & Saunders on their final UK tour. What we didn't realise was that this was the opening night of the tour! We'd found our seats and were sitting looking around before the show, when Mr DC said "Isn't that ..." and nodded over to where none other than Lenny Henry was walking through the stalls near us! I wasn't 100% sure it was him, although I have sat a few feet away from him a year or so ago during the filming of the last "Vicar of Dibley" episodes! Anyway it soon became clear that we were right as Dawn said some of her family were in the audience that night!

We really enjoyed the show, a clever combination of live sketches interspersed with filmed segments (allowing for more complex costume and prosthetics changes). We'd never seen them in a live show before (although obviously I've seen Dawn at the VoD filming), so make sure you go if you're a fan as this really is their last tour! There was some very funny rivalry running through the show, Vicar of Dibley versus Absolutely Fabulous for top sitcom and comedy goddess! It did culminate in a hilarious sequence near the end but I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't yet seen it.

My next theatre visit is in a couple of weeks, to see "Sleuth" with Michael Praed and Simon McCorkindale. Michael played Robin in the wonderful "Robin of Sherwood" of course, so I had to go to see this! I even managed to get a front row seat :-)

Nice hat, Garibaldi

... which is another Babylon 5 reference but seems appropriate. Either that or "oh no not more hats" :-)

Rollin beret in unknown chunky green hand-dyed yarn:



Boho beret, felted, in Noro Kureyon:



(links go to the ravelry project pages, more photos on there)

I'm currently working on finishing that poor CPH that has been repeatedly put aside for other things. Half way up the second sleeve, hoping to finish it in time to wear it before the weather warms up :-D

I'll leave you with one of my recent sig graphics, made in honour of Ashes to Ashes starting this past week: