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.