I’ve been working on Rob’s sweater for just over a week now and I’m about half way done the back. The needles are starting to get pretty heavy but since I’m now working on the armhole shaping I’ve got fewer stitches to deal with - 38 to be exact! The yarn feels wonderful to work with and the sweater, such as it exists, feels squashy and warm. I love the colour too; it’s so rich.  You can’t really see it in the pictures but there are individual golden fibres in among the green and they lend some added depth to the evergreen.
 
Here’s the work so far ...
 

 
... and here, by popular demand, is a picture of the pattern so you know what I’m aiming for.

 

 

My Sewing Bug had been a bit neglected lately. My Knitting Bug has only been around for a couple of years, making it much younger, but somehow it has nearly taken over. I think it may be the portability of knitting and the way it can almost always be done sitting on the couch watching a movie. It’s easier to stop and start a knitting project - there is less equipment involved.
 
I still love sewing but I’ve been finding that my sewing projects tend to be large and involved or for other people. I haven’t been doing so many simple little project and they are the ones that I find really feed creativity - knitting is full of these and that is probably part of its appeal. I needed something very simple and pretty to wake up my Sewing Bug and make it a little hungrier.
 
This has got to be one of the simplest projects out there. I followed the Very Easy Pincushions instructions from the Purl Bee to make myself a new pincushion (my old one tends to roll around the table). There isn’t any machine sewing involved so I was able to do most of it while chatting with Rob and I got to use some of my own home-made felt for the top. It will be a perfect assistant at my sewing table.

Katy, Liette and I are doing a Booga Bag Knit-A-Long - yesterday we met in the pub for some knitting and dessert. This has been a long awaited project - Katy had to come back from school, I had to get married, Liette had to find her needles - and now that we’re started we are just whippingalong. After just one evening of knitting (and a few minutes after we finished winding all of Katy and Liette’s new yarn on Monday) all three of us are finished the bottom of the bag and starting to work our way up the sides. The yarn is Noro Kurayon (or Silk Garden in Liette’s case) and the long colour changes make knitting it up really fun. We’re planning to meet again next Wednesday to knit some more - we might be half way finished by then!

 

 

(Did you notice how their faces are mostly still for the photo but their hands kept moving?)