Breathing Space

So maternity leave is officially over and I'm back at work (though since it's the Easter holidays I don't have to face the trauma of leaving my babies for another two weeks yet). It's so tough being a working mum - you really want to stay with your little ones every moment, despite all the trials and tribulations, but financially it would be tough and in some ways it's good for them to experience being away from mummy for a little while as it prepares them for the inevitability of separation when school starts.

This is something which is coming up way too soon, I will be a mess come September when J goes off to school in his uniform and I am not the person that he spends most of his day with any longer. A real watershed moment. He drew this little picture the other day - the first that really looks like something, and has started to come home from preschool talking about friends he has made and games he has played. He is really turning into his own little person, which is wonderful, but also bittersweet as he is growing further and further away from that tiny baby I brought home from the hospital.

Anyway, I'm trying to half-heartedly sell the return to work to myself with the prospect of being able to buy yarn for projects without too much guilt. I may even treat myself to some Malabrigo Rios with my first proper pay-check. In the meantime, I've been undertaking what will probably be my last big knit before work begins, Breathing Space by Veera Valimaki. I'm knitting it as part of the Interpretations KAL on Ravelry, and there are some lovely and diverse examples of the garment as everyone puts their own spin on it with colour choice and adaptations.

I have chosen to use Knitpicks Hawthorne fingering, shamelessly copied from another knitter on Ravelry (though she later decided not to use the yarn for her project after all!). I like the yarn - it's quite crunchy, but not too rough, and the speckled yarn is lovely. The shades I have used are Blackbird and Graffiti. The new Knitpicks UK website is proving very tempting at the moment - I have some Chroma Fingering and Stroll Tonal lined up for knitting socks after this project.

As always will Veera's patterns, it's so easy to follow and I love the interesting techniques - the short row stripes add interest and a touch of quirkiness to the project. I have been using Japanese short rows on all my projects that require them recently, as I find them neater, though if anyone can tell me a way to close the gap effectively after the short rows are finished and you go back to knitting in the round again I'd love to hear it - I'm always left with an ugly hole no matter what I try.

 

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Hudson on Hold

Last week I made a concerted effort to finish my Hudson hoodie. This project had been hanging round for far too long and I thought it was about time to release it from the doldrums at the bottom of my knitting bag and actually wear the thing!

I worked on it every spare moment, nap times and evenings; the endless moss stitch hood was finally finished, a sleeve edge picked up and knit (apologies for the night time, bad light photos!).

I had a whole ball of yarn left and decided it was time to pick up for the button band, which wraps all the way around the hood and down both sides. There were a mega amount of stitches to pick up, something like 440, but I sat and spent one whole evening picking them up evenly onto a long circular needle.

Each row seemed to take forever as it was all in rib and the hoodie itself was pretty heavy by now. The buttonhole row took extra time - I decided to add in an extra button hole than the pattern suggested, as I wanted one right at the bottom too. I used this Masterclass to help me make my buttonholes as neat as possible - they still aren't perfect, but better than ones I have knit before.

Then the worst happened - I could see I was running out of yarn. I decided to cast off a row early as I really didn't want this button band sitting on the needles, it would be far too easy for stitches to drop off. I had just enough yarn to cast off (and I mean just - there was about a centimetre left!).

But I was left with one sleeve edging and two pocket edgings to knit. I had a feeling I would be in this position as my tension for the project was so drastically wrong, since I discovered part way through that I was knitting in a finer gauge yarn than the pattern specified. Unfortunately, I had used Knit Picks yarn from Great British Yarns which is the only UK supplier and they no longer had the colour in stock. Was I destined never to finish this hoodie?

Fortunately for me, Ravelry exists. After a trawl through the stashed Wool of the Andes yarn, I actually found some in the same dye lot in one lovely person's stash, and we are currently arranging for her to ship it to me all the way from the US. Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing?

Hopefully I will be back to share the finished item very soon!

 

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