Cranberry Cardigan Update!

Sometimes life gets busy and its that routine and work and home and other commitments.  The positive thing is my son has finally finished his GCSE exams, all 24 of them.  It meant endless days of revision with me asking him questions from his revision guides, going through past papers and trying to be supportive.  But its finished and he is home for the summer, just relaxing.

Now that he has finished...my cardigan is nearly complete.  Here it is with the front and backs attached:

Hey, hey its taking shape.

And here's a shot of it with the sleeves attached:

Nearly there!

There's still blocking to do and the button to add on top but yes, its nearly complete.  Obviously, I would not wear this fitted cardigan with the clothes I'm wearing in the pictures.  They just happen to be the clothes I was wearing at the time when I took these photos.  I have plans to make two dresses to compliment this cardigan and I have two tops that would go nicely with this cardigan.  

I also need to write the pattern out and post it to raverly as its my own pattern.  Yup, I designed this cardigan myself.  I promise more artistic and better pictures when its complete.  But I'm pleased with it immensely.  Next project is well, I haven't decided the truth be told.  Stay tuned.

Patience and GCSEs

My son is currently in the thick of his GCSE exams.  He has 24 in total and 8 more to go. That's two and a bit weeks of me having to have endless patience and pretend to be super mum.  I don't really feel like that at the moment.  I have no free time, no patience, no personal space and yes, I'm super cranky at times.  Yes, its good that he wants me to help him with his revision but its just relentless and never ending.

Today, in between doing endless marking and helping the teenager with GCSE non-calculator maths revision, I've been trying to crack on with my sleeves for the on-going/never ending cardigan.  I've had to pull one side of my fronts back to the first butterfly because its clearly too taxing on my brain to count to one to five.  It was obviously just too difficult...how do I manage such glaringly OBVIOUS mistakes??? Where is the mind?  I ask you...at 48, I really just take a deep breath and relax.

Well, here's a photo for your amusement of the two fronts so far:

"life is like a butterfly"

It looks rather tiny but it won't be.  I still need to add the ribbing on the side and block it and add it to my beautiful back.  I'm on sleeve one.  As I've finished watching "The Story of Women in Art" on the bbc iplayer, I'll have to find something else to inspire me now.  Like the thought of not working in 6 and a half weeks for the remaining summer or that my son will finish his GCSEs soon...or that I am having my dinner made for me tonight by my wonderful other half.  Hope all's well for all of you.

Patience and a Piece of String

I would like to say that I would have more patience than I do these days but seriously, right now, no...that is not the case.  My son is in the thick of GCSE exams and I have no peace, no personal space, no free time that is truly my own.  He wants me to ask him questions, go through past papers with him, mark them and help him with things he doesn't understand...its constant and never ending.  Yes, I'm glad that he is trying his best but truthfully, we are both exhausted and I have painted the room blue with colourful language some days.

In between helping him with exams, I've been knitting.  I've finally finished my two fronts, backs and am currently doing the sleeves.  I had to unpick one second back to the first butterfly as there was two glaring mistakes I could not ignore no matter what and also, I did one butterfly too many...because obviously at 48, I'm incapable of counting correctly when there is 5 butterflies on one side. Its clearly too much on this taxing mind. What an idiot I can be.  I still have a LOT to do.  Blocking, adding the ribbing, etc.  But here's my fronts:

Yes, those are butterflies.

Yes, the very tops don't match exactly but it was the best I could do with the decreasing and following the pattern.  Its from my own pattern so fingers crossed...I've never knitted a cardigan from a pattern I've made myself.  Maybe I should put the pattern on raverly when I'm done.  I guess it depends upon how it looks and IF I can remember exactly what I did.

I have some fabric to make a dress but that is not going to happen this weekend.  Aw well...it will happen when it happens.