Rowan Saffron - finished!

Yay! I'm finished! Making up is always the hardest bit for me - much prefer the knitting of it. One day I might try out a finishing service as they're bound to do a far better job than me. Anyway - here's the finished garment. Much better in the flesh. Winging it's way to Captain Eco's mum this very afternoon :-)

Right, now onto Pretty as a Peacock shawl V1. The first version will be a prototype so I can work out how to modify it into a cape size as I go along (in a dashing Deep Purple). Once I've worked out the mods, the final proper version is for my best mate to wear to her wedding (some shade of soft/off-white with beads or something).

Rowan Saffron progress

Ok, so the knitting bit is complete - my favourite bit, natch. Onto embroidering the details, which I thought would take a couple of hours. Ha ha ha, wishful thinking. 8 hours of embroidery later on bank holiday Monday with Alien3 and The Terminal as background... I sat so still my arse went numb!

(halfway through embroidery on the back)
It looks fantastic with the embroidery and I'm really pleased but I NEVER IMAGINED it would take so long . Ok, so I'm not one of life's natural needleworkers, but what I lack in technique I make up for in enthusiasm and speed when I've got the hang of it.

Just the making up to do now and then finished! No idea why the finishing takes so long though. It's like going into a knitting induced timewarp. By the time I'm halfway up the sleeve I'm already thinking about the next project and wanting to get it DONE.

Last night, spent 1 hour sewing the left sleeve onto the body. 1/2 an hour to get halfway through attaching the right sleeve before I got too tired to do any more. Hoping that another 2-3 hours will finish attaching right sleeve, sew up the sides of the body and the sleeve seams and sew on the buttons.

As I obviously wildly underestimate the amount of time it takes me to make stuff, I've been trying to work out how long it's taken me to make this garment. My money's on about 90 - 100 hours in total over 6 weeks but I'm going to log time on the next project as a reality check.

On the needles - Rowan Saffron progress

Just the one project in progress at the moment, which is very unlike me.

Finished the fronts and started the sleeves this week. Am now halfway up the sleeves although don't have a camera handy and wanted to get this post up today. Experience tells me making up and doing all the embroidery is going to take me ages, but I'm still hoping to get it finished by the end of August. I. must. not. start. anything. else. until. this. is. finished. Fighting the multi-project urge and it's spurring me on.

What is it about sleeves anyway? You start off at the wrists with a relatively tiny number of stitches, increasing as you go, thinking "this is great, I'll be done in no time" (because let's face it, by the time you're on the sleeves you're already thinking about your next project). No matter how many times I knit a set of sleeves I'm always amazed at how long it takes me to finish them - by the time I've done all the increases there are at least twice as many stitches on the needles and it takes an age. Next project I'm doing the sleeves first to get them out of the way.

Da Sock Massiiive

Last weekend we had a Crafty BBQ at my house. Quite a few of the Crafty girls came and even some Crafty Girl boyfriends. Da Sock Massiiive became a Superstar in his own right and a fully fledged member of the Crafty gang. Here he is relaxing at Crafty Chick's house:

On the needles / just finished

Rowan Saffron Cardi
Motoring along nicely with the Rowan Saffron cardi, despite the excrutiating wait for the yarn. The pictures aren't the best because the flash flattens the knit/purl pattern and the light was a bit rubbish to get a crisp shot without the flash

Back finished

Fronts started

Close up of pattern
(without final embroidery)

Knitty Halterneck
Finished! Yay! Only had to rip it back 3 times till I got it right/long enough.
Only finished it by the end of the holiday though, not the start (which was the plan).
Nevermind, by the time it's sunny enough in London to wear it my tummy should be
a bit smaller so it won't cling quite so much... ;-)

Holiday finds

Just back from a glorious holiday in Corfu, staying in a quiet little secluded villa on the East coast of the island. This is the view from the plunge pool (left), you might just be able to see the Albanian mountains in the distance.

And this is the local beach (right). Smug mode on.

If I was cheesy and overly romantic, I would say the whole week was like falling in love with Captain Eco all over again, but I couldn't stand the responsibility of making so many people uncontrollably heave. So I won't say it out loud ;-P


My wooldar was on full alert and after wandering around Corfu town for a few hours with half an eye out for a wool shop (just in case), I loudly proclaimed that it didn't look like there was a wool shop in Corfu Town after all. I turned my head to the left and found myself facing a display of yarn! I bought this lime green wool/acrylic mix because, let's face it, when something like that happens it would be rude not to. Plus I'm a true believer that one should buy wool in every country one visits.