Panic sets in!!!

There has been progress.  But nowhere near as much as I hoped for.  I knitted loads of the sleeve on the right last Saturday night and Sunday while firmly ensconced in front of the telly.  I watched a cheesy ballroom dancing film to get me in the mood for Strictly Come Dancing which started again last night.  There was no knitting at ALL from Monday-Wednesday, mainly because I was totally shattered after work.  Hopefully work will be less stressful going forward but I’m not holding my breath! 

Suddenly it was Thursday and almost the end of another week and I really started to panic.  Next week I’m busy most evenings so I’ve pretty much got to do the bulk of the knitting by the end of Monday night.  So frantic knitting ensued on Thursday and then last night during Strictly…  I’ve got the first sleeve to almost the shoulder and have cast on the second which is about 4 inches long at the moment.  More Strictly tonight should mean that I make good progress on sleeve 2 but it really is going to be a close run thing………

P.S. Brenda was on the plinth today, watch it here!

Gah!

You should never ever set a 4 week deadline on knitting something. My shrug is starting to feel cursed.
First of all the yarn took a week to arrive due to postal strikes in the UK. I wanted to cast on at the bank holiday weekend (end of August) but had to wait until the end of the week after. The first evening I knitted a gauge swatch to decide what size needles to use. 3.5mm was my decision so that the pattern was defined enough but it would be light and lofty. Friday 4 Sept I cast on and knit about 12 rows. On Saturday I measured the width and it was about 2 inches wider than I wanted. Pants! I thought this was because I’d cast on with dpns and it had been difficult to knit tight enough across the changes in needles. Cast on again with two circular needles instead. Knit 8 or so rows. Late Saturday night I measured it again and it was still WAY too big. I still blamed this on knitting in the round. Sunday I cast on again but on straight needles and knitted 4 rows in garter stitch to make it nice and neat and tight, and then I joined for knitting in the round and knit a few repeats of the feather and fan pattern. Sunday afternoon I measured again and it was still TOO big. I put it aside in disgust and general stropiness [does that have two p’s?] stroppiness. [possibly]. Anyway, I was quite annoyed to put it mildly. I had bought some red beads, so I made two necklaces instead and felt much better as they went completely to plan – no deadline you see!
On Monday I simply couldn’t be bothered – still grumpy.
On Tuesday I decided I didn’t want to knit in a smaller needle size and that I didn’t want to remove the 5 stitches I had between the f&f panels as I liked them, so the only solution was to knit 3 repeats of the panels not the 4 that I had originally planned. So I cast on 69 stitches instead of 92 on straight needles and knitted a couple of repeats of the pattern. It was working, it was a little narrower than I had intended but I could live with that.
Wednesday I picked it up again to continue and realised that I had a made a stupid mistake at about row 6 so I had to rip it all out and start again!!! Can you believe it!! I couldn’t. I cast on again and knit 12 or so rows before bed. That was the 5th time I had cast on. Took it to work on Thursday to knit with some friends at lunch and it finally started to go well. It’s Saturday now and I’m finally feeling that it’s safe and I won’t have to rip it out again. So now I really do have to knit like the wind as I need to wear it in 2 weeks.

Quick post of 3 photos

This is the Panda Silk 4ply yarn that I’m going to knit my lace shrug.

Honeycomb vest is finished!!

This is the last time I will see my car as it’s gone off to be scrapped. I’ve had it 11 years and it’s going to be very weird not driving it anymore.