I'm being spoilt

by my Secret Pal 2.

A pretty pink chenille flower wash cloth,a lavender eye pillow.chamomile bath salts,rose petal soap [in the shape of rose petals] and,my favourite,orange blossom,shea butter soap.I love orange blossom.
What a delightful gift ! I wonder if she made the soaps and salts herself?
Thank you very much Secret Pal.
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The back of Pickpocket is growing.

It's a very wide back you know ! Even though I am gradually decreasing at the sides for an A-line shape.
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The sleeve of Butterfly has progressed even further than this pic shows.

This pic shows the strong verticle lines of the centred double decrease,and is a pretty good representation of the colours.The sleeve increases are quite dramatic,to accomodate my fat arms ! I chose not to make the chevron cuffs wider as they'd have been too flappy for my taste,even for a butterfly.I have actually reached the armhole decreases.I'm putting the sleeve on hold at that point as I shall unite the sleeves,back and fronts at the underarm and will work set in sleeves all in one go.If you look in Elizabeth Zimmermann's "Sweater Workshop" there are destructions for doing set in sleeves in the round [plus shirt-back,raglan and numerous others].I'll just convert those to knitting back and forth.I haven't decided on the final armhole/shoulder treatment for Pickpocket,or the neck treatment,but the construction will be along the same lines.

I understand what I'm going on about !

C'est moi !

You appear to be a Knitting Goddess.
You are constantly giving and are unconcerned with
reward, you simply want others to love knitting
as much as you do. If someone wants to knit
miles of novelty yarns, you are there for them.
If someone wants to learn short row shaping,
you can help. There are no taboos in knitting,
only opportunities to grow. Everyone should
have friend like you around if they want to
learn to knit, and there's a good chance that
your passion has rubbed off on a few others.


What Kind of Knitter Are You?
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Thanks to Froggy for this bit of silliness !

I like chevrons.

They're a great way of breaking up horizontal stripes,and adding strong vertical lines.I like pointy edges too.
I've started the back of my Pickpocket cardigan,to join the two sleeves I knitted last winter.I'm really enjoying the lanolin rich yarn,the heathered colours and the rythmn of the pattern.

It would look great in the colours of Chunky Soft that Heather gave me.These three skeins are destined to be a felted bag,I think.
I really want to finish Pickpocket this winter ! It is so beautiful.I still have decisions to make about armhole and neck shapings.I'll do that when I get there.
On the subject of shaping,and altering things as I knit,mainly to fit,I've decided to knit the very popular Butterfly.I had some gorgeous Silk Garden in my wool room,so I started a swatch/sleeve [my usual modus operandi !].

This evening I am at the point of changing to stocking stitch,after extending the chevron pattern a good inch - I thought it would look better -,changing the double decrease to one that places the centre stitch in the middle creating a strong verticle line.It looks so much better : slip 2sts knit wise,then slip next stitch knitwise,transfer back to left needle then knit 3 together.
I altered the decrease row to reflect this,doing a five stitch decrease [i.e. decreasing 4 stitches with the middle stitch centred : slip 3 knitwise,then slip 2 stitches knitwise,return 5 stitches to needle,keeping new alignment,knit 5 together] then correcting the count with a m1,carrying on the 'vertical stripe' stitch of the 2nd m1 of the chevron pattern.This will all make sense if you're knitting the pattern.
I'm making the sleeves wider to accomodate my wide,long arms.Have you seen the skinny sleeves on the model ?! I'm shortening the sleeve by 1 inch as well.As ever,making notes as I go !
There are a couple of mistakes in the pattern,originally spotted by my friend Sue.You need to visit Jane Ellison's errata page .
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I received a lovely surprise package from my friend Lisa.It contained the fun,fab makings for some fancy scarves and included a pair of extremely sexy and gorgeous Lantern Moon needles and some intriguing Habu.

Thank you so much Lisa.You add greatly to my rich and exciting knitting life.
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I 'had to' buy an 8mm crochet hook for the Habu pattern.Needed to add to the order to justify the postage.Quite fancy a new felted bag in rich greens.Wanted this pattern book.Click ''buy''...

What ?!
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Everyone is looking at the sky ! Here's the Whitebeam directly outside my bedroom window.

I don't normally do these quizzes.Put it down to tiredness induced boredom,i.e. not enough energy to do anything useful !
This made me laugh out loud.It's so accurate !

What Color is Your Brain?
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