A Cardigan, Graduation, and Plans...

Wow, did March go quickly! Guess that happens when you're busy. Study is still munching away steadily at my daylight hours (and the evening hours too), but thankfully work eased off a little bit over the last week. As a result, I finally had time to finish my stash-bust cardigan!




This is: Self designed top-down raglan cardigan, knitted from Cleckheaton Tempo (wool, acrylic and mohair blend) on 7mm bamboo circular needle.

What Anna has to say: Okay, for a start, I promise that the bottoms are not as lop-sided as they look in the picture. They are actually perfectly symmetrical - I just can't take photos, is all. When I get around to buying some, I'll be closing the front with a couple of buttons instead of just pinning it as I did above - this should remedy the problem.

As mentioned above, I designed this one myself. Lately I've been keen on cardigans with really low fronts, so I went in that direction again. I did some waist shaping in an attempt to dodge the almost inevitable unflattering tendencies that come with yarn this huge. The edgings and cuffs are garter stitch. So it didn't end up being too generic, I worked the fronts and back separately from the hips down, working to cute little points on the fronts. I worked the sleeves in the round, using magic loop.

I don't actually have all that much to say about this one. I suppose I'm happy with how it came out, mainly just because I never had any great ambitions for it. It was always intended to be a basic, unfancy, around-the-house piece - in fact it was basically conceived as a way of getting the Tempo out of my stash, because I wasn't too keen on it, and being super-bulky yarn and all, it was taking up a lot of space. Unfortunately I still have quite a bit of the stuff - but this made a good sized hole at least.

Also, now that the cardigan is done, I have officially declared it time for the winter knitting to commence. Just so that I can be prepared when the weather starts to get colder. I really need to make myself some more warm socks - most of my existing handknit socks are getting quite threadbare. I am also in desperate need of a basic black jacket. And I always need scarves. Always. A new hat wouldn't go astray either. Ahhh, plans. I love planning. The best part is that from mid next-week onwards I will be house/cat-sitting for some honeymooning friends, so I'll have plenty of peace and quite in which to curl up with tea, a DVD and some knitting. Okay fine, and homework too...

In other news... I graduated!




There I am, on the steps of the Old Law quad, looking every inch the proper student. Why yes, that is two degrees, thank you for asking! That said, the university managed to screw up my testamur - they left the "with Honours" off of my Arts certificate, which was a bit irritating. And they managed to stumble over my surname during the ceremony (jeez guys, it's only the seventh most common surname in the country). It was still a fun day though, after I escaped the boredom of the ceremony and got to the part where my family and I made silly mischief during refreshments afterwards...



Knitting related goals aren't the only plans in the works either... But more on that later!

The post with stuff

Okay, I'm still alive. Sort of fell off the horse with the regular updates thing, but oh well. I haven't been knitting that much the last week anyway, so nobody missed much. The Luna Moth shawl is growing gradually, but until today that was about it. But stuff has been going on:


Finished my Shalom cardigan! By the end, I decided that I did like the colours, which was good. On the down side, I wasn't totally happy with how the thing came out. Here it is anyway (i.e. here's me, looking overexposed and more than a little perplexed about it):




You can't totally see my problem in this shot, but basically the armholes are too big - they kind of flap around a bit. I think I should have cast on fewer stitches after binding off the arm-holes, or perhaps even none at all. Oh well, what can you do? I still like it, and the problem isn't particularly glaring, so I'm sure I'll wear it now and then anyway... This was a fun pattern anyway - I'm still getting used to it, as the whole single-button-up-top style isn't one I've really worn before, but I'll get there. Also, I do like the way that the colours look against black... Not sure how well they'd go with other things, but thankfully, I have a lot of black ;)

Anyway, after this one was done I sort of fell off the knitting horse for a bit. I moved recently, so right now all my yarn is sitting around in bags and boxes and while I want to knit with it, I can never find the particular ball that I want at any given time, or I can't find the needles to go with it, etc, etc, whinge whinge.

But then I had to stay home from uni sick this morning (had a aching head and a furry throat, so buggered if I was braving the rain), and had an idea that I just had to follow through with.

I'll start at the beginning. A few days ago, I raided Bunnings Warehouse and came back with two new pretties... One of them was a cactus. Anyway, I was pleased with this little fellow, but I wanted to keep him in my bedroom and the pot he was in was an ugly plastic job that I didn't much care to look at. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Cactus Cozy:

Much better! Just a bit of made up fair-isle and corrugated rib - nothing fancy, but I'm happy with it. It's oddly satisfying to make something so quickly, even if it's just something small and silly with clumsy stranding and even clumsier weaving in (hey, the cactus isn't discerning!). I might need to make more of these... I have a bit of a tragic cactus habit, and this just gives me the excuse to buy more of them...

Oh, and I mentioned above that I bought two shiny nice things from Bunnings - well, the cactus is all well and good, but it's the other one that I'm totally enamoured with and can't stop showing to unsuspecting people. Behold:

Venus flytrap! I couldn't resist. I just couldn't! It's only a wee one, but I'm hoping it might get a little bigger as the weather warms up. I felt bad for him, all alone in Bunnings. His label said that he was supposed to be kept in a warm, sunny and moist environment, and there he was, shivering (figuratively speaking, of course) in the shady part of the store, subject to a typically cold and dry Melbourne winter. Poor baby! So I had to take him home, you understand? Now I just need to think of a name for him...