Cobalt in Purple

Pattern: Cobalt by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn: Alize Sunny 220 g and YarnArt  Violet 140 g, held together
Needle: 3 mm moss stitch rib and neckline, 3.5 mm body
Time to knit: three weeks with pauses, hesitation and a dye job

I said it before and I'll say it again - this is one of the most enjoyable patterns I've knitted. The diamonds chart is easy to remember and addictive to knit, the construction is simple and elegant classic Kim that I like so much. I'll would knit it again with pleasure if a friend or a family member would like me too.

I'm pretty happy with my dye job too - aubergine is so much more my color and who knew it would go so well with light green. And BTW I dyed my hair in aubergine last month too, so - it goes well with my hair now :)))

And a few photos to break the monotony of my boring standard poses. A few days ago Gail posted a link to Rachel's vlog on posing when presenting your finished work, which I found very interesting and took mental notes to have her tips in mind when shooting this cardigan. And of course, when in front of the camera, I was again the same old me with the same old stances and facial expressions and the few pictures where I tried to be interesting look pretty silly:

Linked to Tami's Amis FO Friday and Natural Suburbia Creative Friday!

Aubergine

My Cappuccino turned Aubergine cardigan is ready and I am happy with it! I like the color and I like the fit. But after a fortnight of rainy days and cooler weather, the temperatures today peaked 33C - not exactly a cardigan weather :))) Nevertheless, I'll organize a modelled photosession soon, and until then - two very amateurish collages:

I registered on Polyvore today, planning to make a fashion set with the cardigan. But then I abandoned the uploading of pictures of the cardigan to the common pool, so here's a very crude collage, made with cut and paste of the cardigan on top of the set I made:

Oy! What about the button holes?!

My mind was really preoccupied with some stuff yesterday and I wasn't paying attention at all when I picked my knitting of the second front. First I forgot the waist decreases, so I had to unravel some 8 rows, no big deal. But in the evening, while I was knitting blissfully and watching Lie to Me, it suddenly struck me - oy! I had to make buttonholes on this front, damn! It did cross my mind to use tick-tack buttons (can't remember how these were actually called in English), but it didn't feel right, I'd rather unravel the front. Anyway, I put the knitting aside. This morning I found that I had also made a mistake in the double moss border some 9 rows below the current row. And another mistake in the current row, which I found 5 rows later (oh, my!!!).

And because unravelling is the easiest way out and one can always resort to it in the end, first I decided to try mending the buttonband locally. I dropped the middle two stitches to the 28th row, where I had to make the first hole, knitted two together and one yarn over and continued to knit these two stitches in double moss. This photo is half way up the mending:

When I reached the place, where I had made the mistake in the double moss, knitting two rows in single moss, I dropped 5 of the stitches of the buttonband, keeping the border stitch and continued knitting these locally until the current row. There is still that little irregularity in the border stitches, a bit visible on two or three rows, but I didn't want to risk wonky border stitches, if I tried to mend them too. I'm relieved I didn't have to reknit the front, the repair seems acceptable and now I have two button holes:

Here's where I've got so far. This cardigan is really addictive, a very enjoyable process:

A Bag of Plans

As I promised, here's what was in the bag on the Day 27 picture:

On Day 27 of MMM'13 I was downtown to my favourite yarn shop and while there, I decided to visit the Burda shop. I browsed through the most recent issues of the magazine and my eyes were caught not by the latest 05 / 2013 issue, but by the March issue. The funny thing is that I bought the magazine for a dress in the small sizes (17-21) and only at home discovered that I much prefer a number of other patterns. All in all, a very successful issue, IMHO :), though the presentation of some of the patterns is awful. And it's a pity I don't speak German, but Google translator and daughter could help, I hope (The shop sells only the German language issues of the magazine).

Here are the patterns I fancy most and would like to make:

To the left is the dress in the small sizes, but now I think I prefer the one to the right, if I can find a suitable fabric:

I like the lace blouse (there's a tutorial on making this) and the lace skirt, the pencil skirt is interesting and most of all - the gathered cardigan. I really want it!

There's even a pattern of the long gypsy skirt I plan to make this summer. I'm short and long dresses and skirts do not suit me, but ... I still want one :)

I love everything on this page! The gathered cardigan, the orange shirt - I want this in the same color and fabric:

Here I like the yellow jacket (way out of my sewing league for now) and the pants.

The white dress, but in the shorter version and casual fabric is also interesting:

And I'm glad there's also a boy's shirt pattern:

And of course I also bought some new yarn - combed cotton and thin mercerized cotton. Last year I began Cobalt cardigan by Kim Hargreaves in a very twisted mercerized Egyptian cotton and halfway through the back abandoned the project as the yarn was not fitted for the texture of the cardigan. Actually, I turned the yarn into Gaby's blue cotton cardigan and it was just perfect for it. So this year I decided to give the pattern a second chance with this new yarn and so far I'm loving it, the combination of the two yarns reminds me of cappuccino and for a coffee addict like me that's always a good thing:)
This picture was taken yesterday and today I've doubled my progress. The pattern is not very easy, not very difficult and a bit addictive. To give you an idea - I've finished my Gardenia cardigan and I only have to attach the sleeves. But I just can't put the new project down to finish Gardenia (but I will, as in today!).