I have spent a lot of time looking at buttons these past couple of days, when I could be knitting a sleeve. In the comments on the previous post, Roo mentioned Textile Garden, which was another reason to spend an hour browsing buttons and getting more confused!

I think I am now leaning towards buttons with a shank, which is a start, although I was also rather fond of these when I saw them:

because they can be edged with some of the yarn from the sweater. I think this is a lovely idea, although I know that by the time I’ve sewn on the ribbon backing onto the buttonbands, and then all the poppers, I am not going to want to faff about decorating buttons!

So it’s just a choice of whether to go for pretty decorated buttons or plainer ones. Right now, my favourites are these:

What do you think?

Lauriel has grown.

Once I had got my head around the alterations, they were of course very simple. I find that reading lines and lines of text and figures makes no sense, but if I have the knitting in my hands I can see what to do much more easily. After the yoke is knitted, the back, sleeves and fronts are worked downwards, but with short-row shaping. This makes the back neck higher than the front and also reduces the number of stitches across the fronts by decreasing rather than wrapping and turning. However, to get a wider front than back, which is what I wanted, I did wrap and turn to gain an extra 12 stitches per side.

I had similar problems with the short-row bust darts which add an extra two inches in length to the front to get the fabric over the boobage without pulling the entire front pulling upwards and losing the whole point of having the sweater fitted under the bust. I spent ages searching the internet for a tutorial on short row bust shaping for cardigans knitted top-down and couldn’t find anything with step-by-step diagrams, which is what I really needed. Eventually, I just drew my own diagram so I could see what it was that I was trying to do and then twigged that I was supposed to knit right to the the end of the front opening edge and back each time, getting closer to the underarm side each time and picking up the wrap from the previous row each time – you don’t want to know what on earth I was doing before then! *blushes* You can see on the photo above that there is a lot more fabric at the fronts and it will never look right lying on a flat surface, but when it’s all done and on me, it’ll look perfect.

After I had decreased for the underbust shaping, I had a lot fewer stitches but the modifications weren’t over with yet. I am currently adding side increases all the way down to the bottom ribbing to allow for the fact that, while my underbust is 35 inches, the top of my hips – where I want the cardigan to sit – measures a much more generous 42 inches. It’ll still be a fitted cardigan, but it will fit ME and my weird shape. All I can say is that I am looking forward to knitting the sleeves which will be mod-free, unless I need to lengthen them for my orang-utan arms – which will then start me worrying about running out of yarn.

Because speaking of which, it seems that Rowan Calmer is being discontinued. I am miserable about this, because I have just discovered the yarn and it is gorgeous to knit with, soft, squishy and just brilliant. There is a petition here to save it, started by Amy Singer of Knitty, which already has nearly 1,700 signatures. So if you’ve ever used Calmer, want to use Calmer, or would just like me to be happy , please consider adding your vote!

I am about halfway through the chart for the leaf motif on the body of the cardigan, so not more than 30 rows away from finishing the entire body. I hope the sleeves progress as quickly, because I want this cardigan done to wear on my birthday on the 26th! The sticking point will be the buttons. They are purely decorative: the fronts fasten with poppers and the buttons are sewn on top, but I don’t have a clue what sort to use. My usual choices of wood or metal don’t really appeal, but I don’t think I want a green button that matches exactly, because they’ll look a bit dull. If any of you lovely people have any button suggestions, with links to said buttons for bonus points, I will be eternally grateful!

The cuteness of this FO is almost too much! It’s amazing how a bit of stuffing and some little black eyes can give a knitted widget so much personality. I never was much of a toy knitter before I discovered Rebecca Danger’s patterns, but the fact that they have minimal seaming and no fiddly embroidery for the facial features means I am a complete convert and it’s almost too hard to give them away!

The felt heart proved to be a success. I mattress stitched around the edge, using a single strand of the pink yarn, because it looked unfinished ( and covered up a bit of glue that had seeped onto the outside!) and I’m pleased with the result. Other than the intarsia drama, the pattern was a breeze to knit.

I used up more stash yarn for this one: the red was actually leftover from my Evangeline armwarmers, so I’ve certainly been diving into the deepest depths of my stash of late!

Now all I have to do is wrap him up warmly and send him on his way. *sniffle*

Hazelnut Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World

MrB is *mumblemumble* years old today, so it’s as good a reason as any to make cake. My little sister bought me the book for Christmas and this is the first outing it’s had, because I have been oh-so-good for the past month and not had a crumb of cakey goodness to eat. But the sugar, fat and chocolate in these should make up for it! They’re slightly not quite right because the mousse filling is actually on top of the cakes and I’ve omitted the chocolate ganache on top because I ran out of chocolate and there’s more chance of it raining Wollmeise than finding 70% cocoa chocolate at my corner shop. I blame the fact that the book is American and uses ounces. I mean, how can six ounces be more than a hundred grammes? Those ounces are huge!

And of course MrB loved his socks. He was impressed with the stranding after I waved the socks under his nose gently pointed it out to him, although I am fully aware that he doesn’t quite get just how fiddly they were. But I do and can feel chuffed with myself. They are on his feet today, which is the most important thing!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Holden Shawlette finished? Check – but still needs blocking.

So guess what I got up to yesterday?

I finally cast on Lauriel, that’s what! I am getting slightly scared now because I think that the yoke is going to be the easiest part. I thought that making adjustments to the 40″ size to fit 44″ boobage would be simple enough. The book even has a section on adjusting a pattern that uses Lauriel as an example and so it should be easy to follow using my own numbers, but I read it through yesterday and it made my brain hurt. So in my usual fashion, I am merrily knitting away until I have to actually think about what to do and then will panic.

Knitting with Calmer took a bit of getting used to, but once my swatch was done, I had got the hang of it. It has an incredible amount of stretch, so the trick is not to pull it when wrapping it around the needle. It’s really soft, too, and I’d probably have got further on the yoke if I wasn’t stopping to pet my knitting every five minutes!

Readers, I am on the way to knitting something totally for myself and it feels brilliant.

I finally cut out the felt heart for Louie’s tummy, using a handy cookie cutter as a template, and then glued it on. He is now resting under a few heavy books so that it will stick down firmly. I haven’t sewed up the body yet because the stuffing will probably need re-plumping after being flattened for a day or so. Perhaps it will be a chance for him to become better-acquainted with English literature, though maybe these aren’t the best choice of books for a Lovebot.

It sometimes feels as if I post FO photos on here and then my projects are never seen or heard of again. Do they get worn, loved, used and abused? Well the hats do, at least. Which is a reason to post a lovely photo of Oscar and Rose keeping warm last weekend wearing Koolhaas and Quatra.

Now, you may have have noticed that my Louie doesn’t have a heart on his chest. Unlike all the other Rebecca Danger patterns, which are very much hand-holdingly simple, the only direction for doing the heart is to knit it in the round using the two colours. No clue is given to how she did it. I looked at the other finished Louies and found that people had used various solutions – duplicate stitch, sewing on a felted heart and intarsia in the round. I Googled this and discovered about half a dozen or so different techniques which I tried over about two days at the end of last week. None of them worked. Or, rather, they worked, but there was puckering or yarn showed through and I didn’t feel it looked good enough for something I was giving as a gift. I also could have just divided the stitches in two, knitted a front and back flat and then seamed, but I felt this would ruin the shape of the body. In the end I decided to go for the felt heart option and am just waiting for some felt which I will cut and glue to the chest in the same way that I’ve added monster teeth. I may do a little running stitch around the edge for decoration, or I might not.

So while Louie is on hiatus, I started the third and final swap knit. This is for a sock yarn shawl swap which uses stash yarn (woo hoo!). After finding something in the stash which suited my partner’s colour preferences (Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome (discontinued) in “Misty Moor”), it was hard to find a pattern that wasn’t getting lost in the colours. Eventually, it was a toss up between Multnomah and Holden and Holden won for the entirely superficial reason that I don’t like the wide centre bit on Multnomah.

It’s perfect for the yarn because even on the stocking stitch section, the colours are beautiful but very variegated and any stitch pattern is just going to get lost. The wavy lace on the edge will be fine, though. It’s a very simple shawl, so I’m hoping to make good progress over the next couple of days.

Second FO of the year done! *insert smug smiley* Tiny projects rock.

These mitts were a really quick knit, despite being stranded. Though there’s really not that much stranding going on and none in the middle where the increases for the thumb gusset are, so they literally whizzed along once the hem was done. I’d definitely recommend the pattern if you’re looking for something quick but with a bit more of a challenge and don’t mind picking up fiddly provisional cast-ons on tiny circumferences. It’s a well-written pattern and I didn’t deviate from it at all, other than to pick up a couple of extra stitches to avoid holes when knitting the thumb and decreasing them on the first round.

The yarn was from my stash. I meant to add Knit From Stash to my list of resolutions for this year, but I am doing well on it so far anyway. As I’ve mentioned before, I have lots of little odds and ends of yarn stuffed away in boxes or in bags that aren’t really enough to sell, but I can’t in all conscience just throw them out because it makes my inner hoarder wince, so knitting little things like these mitts is great for using them up.

So I’m a third of a way through my swap knitting and the Calmer is calling me: I’d better get on knitting so that I can play with my leafy yarn!

Just need to knit it..!

I assumed my Calmer wouldn’t even be posted until after the weekend, but the postie knocked on the door Saturday morning and handed me a huge, squishy parcel! So a huge thumbs up to Stitching Heaven on eBay.

The yarn is beautiful. The green isn’t quite as violently bright as I thought it might be, which is good. It’s just leafy and springy and very wearable, although I don’t think it’ll go with anything in my wardrobe. *plans clothes-buying extravaganza*

I am incredibly tempted to cast on and start swatching, but I still have a couple more swap items to complete: I am really not getting the point of Selfish Knitting at all, am I?