"So what was the solution to your pleat problem?" Dah!

I sent my husband a link to this blog to get his feedback. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday afternoon and this is what he said: "Did you find the solution then? What was it?" And I stood there thunderstruck. I had a realization. Not everyone has got a knitter's head firmly screwed onto their neck. What's obvious to me might not be obvious to somebody who can't tell a knit stitch from a purl stitch. For benefit of all of you who belong in this bag - the solution was one zillion tiny knots created with help of a crochet hook on the dissected lengths of yarn on the back (shown in the middle picture of the previous post). It's not as dramatic as performing brain surgery, but none the less I needed a few sedative glasses of wine (not to mention generous helpings of Rescue Remedy every now and then). Good news is that now the birds are DONE, and from now on it will be a lot of st st. And inventing the shape - I can sense raglan sleeves wanting to appear in this cardi. This plain knitting means that I have enough thinking space freed up in my head to start germinating another idea. Here is a clue. Baby Oliver pictured above is the source of inspiration for the next project. I promise to keep you posted as the events unfold :)

Yoruba Birds get me in deep trouble.

I must love my daughter very much indeed! I have spent countless hours last month dealing with a tension problem on her cotton cardi. The Yoruba birds caused the trouble, and to be specific - their colourful plumage. I worked the colourwork counting & re-counting the stitches tirelessly and weaving the long lenghts through the loops at the back to avoid a real spaghetti on the inside of the work only to discover that I have ended up with... voluminous pleats all around. The size of the poor thing has shrunk to a tiny dimension. So I thought: I'll either have to frog it and knit the blinking birds all over again (mercy!) or I'll have to think outside of the box and find a less heart breaking solution. Now, have a look for yourself, as I am at a loss for words to carry on with this story. Perhaps it didn't break my heart, but - let me tell you - was a serious assault on my fingers!

Welcome to Stitchville.

Stitchville is my knitting diary. I will write here about my projects as well as ideas. Why knitting? Because it is something I love doing, and as it happens, I do it really well!