Here we have my latest design for Fyberspates, the Corlyna Cardigan.

This is not actually either of the sample cardis knitted for the book, but a birthday present for Wicked Step Niece (WSN) who was 2 a couple of weeks ago. Just to make things even more complicated, it’s not knitted in the Scrumptious yarn (lovely though it is), and it’s not the 24 month size cardi. It’s actually some Quince & Co Chickadee (in Lupine) that needed using up, is a total Couture Fit knitted especially to WSN’s measurements and doesn’t have the same number of buttons the ‘proper’ ones have. But I’m the designer, so I can totes do that sort of stuff, right? (I do not normally speak like that, it is a bit of in-joke around here at the moment. Normal service will be resumed later, probs like, next week, you know, innit?) It also has a totes (sorry, I know this is tedious) unsuitable button – WSS (Wicked Step Sis) is a Swarovski fan, and this is a Swarovski (or very Swarovski-esq) crystal button I have been hoarding for years, ever since I bought shedloads of them at Liberty for my final collection and then didn’t use any of them at all for said collection.

This is (one of) the proper ones before it left me and had a baby put into it:

sporting the correct yarn and correct number of (vintage) buttons. It’s the 18 month size, in the Slate colour. This is one of the ‘proper’ pics from the book, look, we made the cover!

There are legwarmers (a totes essential baby accessory, it seems, these days) and a hat to match. The cardi is knitted top down, so all you have to sew are the sleeve seams (unless you knit them in the round, which I never do as I hate knitting things in the round). The hat and legwarmers are knitted in the round, just to annoy people (like me) who like knitting things flat. I am just so contrary, aren’t I? Anyway, the shell bit is a bit fiddly to start with but easy to pick up after a few goes (especially with pointy, slippy needles), and let’s face it, there’s not that much of it, is there?

So, get yourselves over to Jeni’s website and buy a copy and spoil a Small Person you know. Just to make it even easier, the yarn is even machine-washable, so no ‘oh, we can’t possibly give a handwash gift to a baby’ excuses.

(And yes, I know, this is all me, me, me, but it’s my blog so there. There are other lovely designs in that book, by other lovely people. I will witter about them tomorrow. Today is me me me. I’m totes worth it. And feeling silly.)

Thought I would witter a bit today about some rather nice yarn.  Artesano have some lovely alpaca and alpaca / wool mixes in their range, Jane and Jess of Quinton Chadwick used the 4-ply alpaca in their Loveday cardigan for The Knitter last year (pattern available here soon).

I quite fancy the Nick Atkinson Madison Avenue dress from the latest issue of The Knitter, but knitted in the Artesano Aran 50 wool / 50% alpaca in a nice cream or pale grey for winter. Here’s a swatch of the leaf design in this dress, not the easiest thing in the world to knit but not the hardest either. Obviously this seatch is not the Artesano stuff, it’s some wool I had lying around.

You can see from this how the inc / dec ratio to make the leaf shape distorts the knitting, which is why the pattern stops at a very precise row in order to then work each side of the neck to make up the required armhole depth. Clever. Disclaimer here: I know Nick, and I know he is very clever indeed when it comes to knitting.

At the moment Artesano are also offering a free Nick Atkinson pattern, providing you fill in their questionaire. I’ve just done that and it’s not too onerous, so do have a go if you’d like the pattern. There’s no option to just fill the questionnaire in without leaving your name and email address to have the pattern sent to you so if you don’t fancy that then probably best not to bother with the the questions. It’s not just a .pdf download. They’re also having a draw in February and 5 peeps who have filled in the questionnaire can win the yarn to knit the pattern in, so if you fancy free yarn it’s also probably worth a go. Pootle over to the website through one of the links above and it should be easy enough to find (feeling lazy now and in need of tea, unable to add another link into the post!)

Kung Hey Fat Choy! Happy New Year of the Dragon to you all but especially to my pal H who visited a fortune teller when she was in HK just before Christmas and he told her it would be a terrible year for her (unless she wore the chicken charm he then sold to her).

Vaguely normal blogging service resumed later this week (hopefully), meanwhile here’s a balloon dragon spotted at Spitalfields Market yesterday:

Quite liked that. Different.  It has the look of being an advert for some brand of Chinese food if you ask me, but I didn’t see any other promotional stuff so who knows?

Anyway, more stuff – some of it even knitting related – happening later this week.