Blue Knitted Cabled Cardigan Nearly Finished

Back in January, I started knitting the "Chocolate Passion Cabled Jacket" from a free knitting pattern I found on Ravelry. Well, I can't really call mine "Chocolate", as it's blue.

I'm very happy to say I got all the pieces finished since yesterday. I did encounter a few problems along the way, why is bound to happen when you read the instructions too quickly and if you haven't knitted a full garment like this for a while.

The back piece had to be ripped partly and re-knitted twice but overall, I am glad I spent no more than 6 weeks doing all of the pieces. It would have taken less time if I hadn't been doing other projects between each piece, but knitting and crocheting small things in between helped me not getting bored with it.

Here's a picture of all 5 pieces on my kitchen table:

Knitted blue cardigan before assembling

Yes I know, it doesn't look like a cardigan yet, and the most difficult part is yet to be done: the dreaded sewing all the pieces together without making it bunch or having the tell-tale sewing lines showing on the outside!

I am hoping to get it all together before next week, but first I must procrastinate by knitting lots of little daffodils and crocheting children's hats for charity!

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Who Said Crochet Was Faster Than Knitting?

I think I have to disagree with what I'm hearing from most people, including my own daughter, who I now call "The crochet Ninja". I wouldn't mind being called a Knitting Ninja, if there was such a thing, and if I knitted fast enough to earn me that title.

More and more knitting and crochet projects are being added to my list of things to craft, and while I struggle to try and add more hand knit items to my Etsy store, most of the things I'm adding to my list are things I won't get paid for.

At the moment that list is in my mind, and hopefully one day before the middle of next month I'll have most of these done:
- Knit some daffodils for Irish Cancer Society (deadline mid-March)
- Crochet/knit some hats for Hats for Heroes for children with cancer, (no particular deadline but not to be put on the long finger as I usually do),
- Knit a Katniss Cowl for my daughter's birthday (deadline 11th March),
- Crochet treat bags for same daughter's birthday (deadline 11th March),
- Knit/Crochet some green headbands and Shamrock badges for St Patrick's Day (deadline fast approaching)
- Finish knitting my cardigan for which I have now finished the sleeves and realized I have to rip the top half of the back a second time, as my re-knitting wasn't following the right chart (there's always next winter!)
- *Finish crocheting the hat I started for my daughter:

2 evenings of crocheting a hat (Who said crochet was faster than knitting?)

* She doesn't need a new hat, but as she was hovering me while I was looking for crochet patterns on Ravelry, she saw the TweetHeart pattern I found and ordered me to make one for her, which I thought may be good practice for the charity hats I plan on making.

When I have all of the above done, I will still have to write and publish a few knitting patterns and hopefully I'll have time to think of new lovely knitted (and maybe crochet too;-) things to add to my Etsy shop.

In an ideal world, I would manage to finish most of these things on time, but unfortunately we don't live in that ideal world and I'm spending far too much time on Facebook, which is probably the main reason why the hat I started crocheting 3 days ago is far from being finished, and given the fact that I have to head into town, I don't think I'll be finishing it today either, unless I magically transform into a Crochet Ninja.

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Progress On My Blue Cabled Cardigan

Last month I started knitting the Chocolate Passion Cabled Jacket from a pattern I found on Ravelry and last time I wrote about it I had only knitted the bottom half of the back.

I have now progressed to nearly finishing the second front piece. It's a very unusual shape and due to my own stupidity I have had to rip parts of the first front as I was reading the instructions the wrong way. I won't blame the pattern writer, just my own little twisted mind that would not listen to logic.

I had the back finished (or so I thought!) and was knitting the first front piece when I realized that I had messed up with the back's underarms bind offs: I worked the underarms as if they were shaping decreases so I will have to rip about half of that piece, but I wanted to have both front pieces of the cardigan done before redoing the back, because the first side being still fresh in my mind, I thought it would be silly to work on the back before doing the second side.

To give you an idea of how it will look I took a selfie this morning, with the right side of the cardigan:

Right side of Blue Cabled Cardigan

I know it doesn't look like much right now, especially with the red lifeline still in it (that also acts as a row marker to make it easier to measure), but I'm hoping it will all come nicely together when finished.

It's not progressing very fast, as I am also working on a few things for my daughter's birthday coming up in March, which I hope will give me ideas for new knitty and crochetty stuff to add to my Etsy shop, and I'm also working on a bunch of knitted headbands too, while trying to find the time to finish my double knitting online class.

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