Round 5

 

I've been working on round 5 since Friday, two repeats each day. The pattern does lend itself to doing the flowers in a different colour, so I was tempted, but in the end decided to stick with all white. 

I've also been spinning. I have an order for a receiving blanket for a baby to be born at the end of April. I know from long experience that spinning and tatting are not a good combination, but there you go, I'm doing both. Spring 2025 is likely to be a bit fuzzy, with the odd bit of wool fibre tatted into it. 

Round 4

 

I finished round 4 on Sunday. I enjoyed the round, which was easy but with enough variation to keep it interesting.  I'm ready for the next round. 

Caught Up

 After a knit'n'natter session on Friday and a day knitting at a cricket match on Saturday, I had reknitted all I'd had to unravel. One man said to me on Saturday afternoon, "You can knit all day?" I said, 'Sure, you can watch cricket all day, I can knit all day''. 

Yesterday I finished the pullover off by knitting the neck ribbing, grafting the underarm stitches and  hiding all the yarn ends. Job done.

The Hazards Of Holiday Knitting

 I hurried and scurried to put the pieces of Jack's pullover together in a hotel room, because I knew I had knitting time ahead, waiting around. Mmm. It's not a job to be hurried. I duly spent the waiting time knitting the yoke, decreasing at four points on every second round to create a raglan. The pattern said to keep decreasing until the top of the sleeves had 10 stitches. Right. Well, one sleeve top had 10 stitches and the other had 20! I put it aside until yesterday, when I had time to find the problem. Did I miss a lot of decreases in one spot? Could I fix it with a crochet hook? Not neatly, no. Could I unravel half the yoke until both sides were even? No. Eventually I discovered that on one sleeve I had simply left 10 stitches hanging unknitted and unsecured by a thread. Proof of Elizabeth Zimmerman's assurance that stitches taken off a needle won't immediately form ladders! 

On the left of the photo above are the stitches for the underarm, secured with a green thread. In the centre of the picture are the hanging stitches. There was nothing for it but to unravel the whole yoke and get back to armhole level. Being at home with my supplies handy, I could put each of the four sections onto a separate circular needle, which made joining the sections a little easier. There was a lot of counting and recounting involved. 

I hope I'm now on course! 

Round 3

 

I've finished round 3.  I had to open the last ring twice to get it right, but that was just my stupidity. The doily is expanding rapidly. Each round is so pretty I could happily leave it like that. 

Slow Off The Starting Blocks

 

Renulek's Spring Doily 2025 started while I was away, so I had some catching up to do. I'm now half way through round 3, so I should be ready by the time round 4 comes out on Thursday. 

This is the thread I'm using. I had planned to use some ecru thread that I was given recently, but it's size 20. I'd rather use size 40, so I was happy to find this thread in my stash. 

I'm not committing to tatting the whole doily. I might do as I did last year and finish early. I'll continue until it's big enough for me, or I run out of time or thread. 

Just In Time

 

My flame lily food cover has taken way longer than I intended, but is now done. Just in time, because I'm going away tomorrow and needed to get it done before I left. 

To do the machine edging, I put red thread on the  top and yellow thread in the bottom bobbin. It worked pretty well, to give me red with just a touch of yellow. 

Of course, the bottom is mainly yellow, with a little bit of red:

I'll be off line for a week or so. Will catch up when I get back.