Cable Cardigan progress

I am making progress with the Mari Dembrow pattern. This is the back and as you can see I have got past the armhole shaping.

Normally I would add short rows at this point to accomodate my dowager's hump, but the pattern means that this time I will just work the upper back longer than normal and ease the excess when I pick up for the sleeves.

Bliss!

I just had to grab my camera when I went to the bathroom and found Sunny relaxing in the hall. She was almost asleep so I didn't dare switch the light on - which is why the first one is a bit blurred. You can still see her bald tummy.

Neutered cats don't fight?

Ginger came home yesterday having been in some sort of fight with another cat. His ear is quite a mess, but he is being so smug I think he must have been the winner.

Pockets

Because I walk with elbow crutches, carrying things is difficult, so I make large poachers pockets and sew them to the inside of all my cardigans. Why the inside? If you are not very mobile, pockets on the outside of garments can too easily get caught on things and pull one off-balance.

These are the pockets for the inside of my cable pattern cardigan. The cardigan is knitted with two strands of yarn held together, so the pockets are done with one strand to reduce bulk. Stocking stitch flops too much to be convenient for big pockets, so I have made a corner to corner garter stitch square and then picked up along one side and worked a garter stitch hem on fewer stitches than normal. This pulls the top in and stops things falling out of the pockets.

Another tatted mat

This is another pattern by Iris Niebach. Her patterns are always interesting to tat.

Happy!

She looks so comfy and happy!

Rose

 

I love roses, but summer feels very far away in November, so here is a picture from last summer.

Memories of summer

 

It has been a rather bleak, foggy, grey, cold week and I was in need of a cheer-up, so here are a couple of memories of summer.

 

Oyos de Dio

I haven't made one of these little decorations for years, but they are very simple. I used a pair of wooden cocktail sticks and some thread.

Tatted doily

This is a pattern from Tatted Doilies by Iris Niebach.

Beekeepers progress

I decided to sew together the hexiflats (unstuffed) that I had made so far to see how they would look. I think they will look good, but there is a very long way to go yet.

I wonder if I have enough decorations yet!

Snowflakes

Two very light and airy decorations.

Tatted variations

A pattern by Angeline Hardwick Crichlow above - and my own variation on it below.

Christmas tatting

Another Danish pattern and two minitats.

More tatted decorations

I particularly like this one - from the Danish book. I have made it lots of times.

Not Sunny!

This is Ginger. We  are finding it harder and harder to tell them apart at a glance.

More decorations

The one above is a Mark Myers design.

Another Snowflake

Another Christmas tree decoration.

A reminder of summer

This blog is meant to be a little cheerful something to lift the spirits. So here is a lovely bright reminder of summer past and summer to come.

Christmas decorations

I don't usually do anything about Christmas beyond sending cards and presents - after all it is only my husband and me and he only gets Christmas Day off and doesn't get home from work on Christmas Eve until the early hours of the morning. But this year I decided to decorate a table top Christmas tree with tatted snowflakes and stars.

When I did a quick flick through my large collection of tatting books I realised just how many patterns there are for me to choose from.

This one is from 24 Snowflakes in Tatting by Lene Bjorn (published by Akacia). This series is one of my favourites.

More mini snowflakes

For some reason I have had endless problems uploading the photos for this post.  But you can see that I am making progress.

Mini Snowflakes

These are from the book Minitats by Patti Duff.

November

I have never liked November. The days are getting darker and it is such a long, long time until next summer (you can tell I have SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder - can't you!) But this year it is mild so far and the view from my window is not yet starkly wintery.

Sunny - stitches out!

Sunny was spayed, after a hiccup when she was found to have a heart abnormality which thankfully turned out to be unimportant. Various complications left her stuck in a head cone for the full time until the stitches came out - so she was not at all happy.

Now she has had her stitches out and the horrible cone removed - and you can see how happy she is about it!

Tatted Mat

I just finished this little tatted mat. The pattern is from La Frivolite fine et precieuse, but I omitted the last two rounds.

Here, I have placed my version above part of the photo of the pattern so that you can see how very different you can make the result just by altering the length of the picots. The original had long picots - but I wanted a more open effect so kept them small - and you would hardly know it was the same design.

The book, which is French, but available from on-line suppliers in the US, has some pretty motifs and doilies. The one downside is that some of the patterns have been printed without the stitch numbers. A good editor should have caught this, but apparently didn't. For the experienced tatter, however, the photos are clear enough to work out the stitch counts.

Cabled Cardigan

This cardigan is for me! It is the Fisherman Cardigan by Mari Dembrow.

I've been a huge fan of her cardigan designs for years, but they have been difficult (and expensive) to get access to in the UK, so I was delighted to see her recently start to make her patterns available through ravelry!

I had been looking for a cardigan pattern for myself and was getting discouraged as I couldn't find exactly what I wanted (and felt depressed at the thought of having to design my own yet again). When I saw this pattern, I knew it was perfect!

The yarn is 100% cashmere coned industrial yarn. I am using two strands together to give a really dense, hard-wearing fabric that should keep me warm for years to come.

Hat - finished

Here is the finished hat. I had a bit of trouble getting it to fit (partly because the yarn has a lot of alpaca and partly because there is no ribbing.) In the end I blocked it twice before I got it just right. And now, of course, the hospital appointment I was going to wear it to - has been cancelled!



I'm still besotted!

I wish you could hear Sunny purring loudly as she was when I took these!



One shuttle tatted mat finished

I finally got going on this piece of tatting and made it to the finish. It is from one of the numerous Japanese books on tatting which all seem to be called Tatting Lace.