Inktober Day 29 - United with extra pumpkins

The first real cold of the season has been working its way through the family, hitting me first then M and now Dave who has struggled into work today, saying he has things he needs to get finished. One of those things, is needing to submit his pumpkin for his employer's pumpkin carving competition.

M and Dave spent yesterday morning hollowing out and carving pumpkins. Dave went for a novel design, transforming his pumpkin into skull. M meanwhile was working on her allotment pumpkin, a fine specimen that she felt should be a tiger. M did all the scooping and drew her design, but Dave went in with the knife to make it come to life.

Pumpkins

Meanwhile I spent the day dividing my creative thinking between Hallowe'en and Inktober. The former required research, putting together some fun things for M to do over the next couple of days. There'd normally be a fair bit of seasonal baking at this point, but the oven chose to die on Friday night so no baking for us. Someone is organised to fix it at some point on Tuesday (i.e. Hallowe'en) but that isn't much help in terms of having an oven for some serious baking sessions.

The Inktober prompt for yesterday was a difficult one - 'United'.

I'll admit I was stumped and lacking in inspiration. My immediate association was 'football' (or 'soccer' if you're across the other side of the Atlantic) but that is so not me, it held no appeal whatsoever. Then there was 'tea and biscuits', but I couldn't be bothered to set up a suitable still life to use as a base. I could be terribly cliched and draw two hands holding each other, but I'm not into cliches. So I asked M, who said "Charlie and Missy", who are our cats.

Once I had the suggestion, I was off and after a bit of thought, looking at pictures of fires in fireplaces to see what happens with the shadows, this is what I came up with.

Inktober Day 29 - United

Note this is not a picture of my cats, just two similar animals. I do have a fireplace, but it is not as impressive, has not been lit in years and is buried in toys. So this is not my living room, but maybe one day...

Inktober Day 28 - Fall

A very quick update from me for #inktober. We had a full day yesterday, Christmas shopping and we picked up a pair of winter boots for M. The evening saw us helping some family friends celebrate their wedding, so it made for another late night drawing session. The prompt was 'fall' which I decided should mean both falling and autumn, hence I drew the following which is loosely based on a photo of M when she was a toddler.

#inktober day 28 - Fall

It didn't turn out too badly, but I'm not sure about the shading, something I find very difficult to do with an ink pen.

Channelling Christmas yet to come

Briefly because I plan a full day of Christmas shopping, because yes, it is nearly that time of year again. And in keeping with the theme, I channelled the festive spirit for last night's #Inktober drawing as per the prompt - Climb.

#Inktober2017 - Day 27 - Climb

I thought it might be interesting to show a similar picture I drew last December, albeit in pencil not ink, to see how things have come along.

From my archive - drawn December 2016

While both of these drawings make me smile, last night's sketch definitely has a more three dimensional feel to it.

A trip to the allotment and Inktober day 26

We've been suffering the first real cold of the season, with it being my turn last week and M's this week, which means we've not really been able to take advantage of 'half-term' activities. M was well enough to attend a friend's Hallowe'en party earlier this week, but otherwise poor M hasn't felt up to much, so was keen to go to the community allotment yesterday.

Disaster struck a few minutes after we arrived when M moved some stacked garden chairs which had been rained on. Unfortunately the rain had pooled in the bottom chair on the stack, so when M picked up the last two chairs she tipped a sizeable puddle onto her legs and into her wellies. Fortunately, M took it in good humour as I sat her down and poured the water out of her wellies while she inspected her soaked trousers and sodden socks. After a brief check to see if there were any spare clothes/wellies on site, we went home so M could change but were back half an hour later.

M immediately got stuck in with planting beans, decorating a pumpkin with pins (we'll carve it over the weekend), saw onion seeds for the first time and helped set up a new mud kitchen. We ended up staying an hour past the end of the session so M could help test the mud kitchen thoroughly, before we headed home with a happy girl.

An afternoon at the allotment.

Inktober continues here and yesterday's prompt was 'Squeak'.

M elected to draw a very big mouse.

M's drawing for #Inktober2017 Day 26 - Squeak

While I decided on hamsters.

My drawing for #inktober2017 Day 26 - Squeak!

Dave drew our cat Missy because she came up to him as he was staring at his sketchpad and squeaked to get his attention. No photo though, as it isn't mine to share.

A slight change of direction

It's been a while since I've posted here, as while we've been as busy as ever I just never seem to get time to sit still at a computer, other than when I'm working. I've been doing very brief posts over on Tumblr from time to time, but not here. I guess it might be time to think about using a mobile app to update this blog.

Amongst the things I haven't been talking about (due to lack of posts) is this year's main crafty activity for me has been to practice my drawing. Like most children (or at least M) I drew all the time, as often as I could get hold of paper and pencils. Drawing as a thing petered out in my teens, although it saw a brief resurgence in my early 20s as I dabbled with watercolours. After that, being an adult took over and drawing mostly stopped.

M of course loves drawing, so I'd occasionally draw for her and at some point last year I started drawing for me. Last Christmas rolled around and I decided that this year, I would try to improve my drawing skills by practising a lot. Which I have done, mostly to the detriment of knitting time.

Rolling forward to now, 10 months after that decision and despite my preferred medium being pencil, Dave persuaded me to try #Inktober, which is an internet challenge to draw a picture a day in ink for every day in October. I don't use ink, I have a long standing fear of it as I hate the permanence, the fact I can't erase and have to go with the first mark I lay down, so I was hesitant but M thought it was a fantastic idea and in the end the whole family had a go.

We've been using the official prompt list from Jake Parker (http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober/) and I've been posting daily on Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr, with the latter being public, so if you want to see ALL of my drawings go take a look.

In the meantime, here are some of my favourites so far:

Inktober Day 4 - Underwater

Inktober Day 8 - Crooked

Inktober Day 9 - Screech

Inktober Day 11 - Run

Inktober Day 13 - Teeming

Inktober Day 17 - Graceful

Inktober Day 18 - Filthy

Inktober Day 20 - Deep

With only a few days to go, I'm feeling pretty accomplished in that I haven't missed a single day of the challenge, although producing a complete drawing each day is proving exhausting. Sometimes I have an idea straight away, other days I have to brainstorm a bit on the prompt to come up with a drawing. Strangely, those drawings I've had to work on and struggled to come up with something suitable to match the prompt, or had to do preliminary sketches or thumbnails, are the ones I think have been the best ones. A lesson in the learning perhaps?

Useful Links:

• Jake Parker's Official Inktober page - http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober/
• My Tumblr blog - https://jules101uk.tumblr.com/

Hop's new dress

M's sewing aspirations are high and just lately she's moved on from drawing countless pictures of dancers in varying pretty dresses, to wanting to make the dresses themselves. Sadly her lack of sewing skills have led to her improvising, which means making clothes for her toys from paper.

These creations take hours to design and then make, but being paper and held together with tape are not particularly robust. The first outfit ripped when she tried to dress the toy, so after some thought M's solution is to:

• Make the dress bigger than the toy
• Use a dress form - in this case a few toilet rolls

Hop's dress on an improvised dress form.

The dress being modelled by Hop herself.

It may not look like much, but there is a lot of design and knowledge about clothing wrapped up in this dress. If you look there is a bodice and a full, layered skirt. The bodice itself is decorated with bows and the whole garment is sized to fit (albeit large with extra room so it can be put on and taken off) a specific toy rabbit.

I'm impressed.

M tells me she is making Hop some pyjamas next.

In the meantime, I've started trying to improve M's sewing skills but it is slow going. Sewing without an end product is not terribly exciting and it is not a craft which lends itself well to instant results. The results are faster than something like knitting or crochet, but you still need to have patience.

For this reason over the past couple of weeks we've worked some threading and beading, making some dream catchers, wind chimes and necklaces.

We've also done some actual needlework, with real needles...

Making a pompom necklace and working on our French colours.

Patchwork cat wearing her new necklace.

A flower stitched onto card.

A heart stitched onto card.

In the meantime I've been altering costume for M's upcoming dance show. The costumes may have come from a theatrical supplier but they do not take into account the real shape of small children. Fortunately I've been able to limit the alterations to shortening straps and adding extra velcro.

It turned out alright in the end

I started work on this shawl collared waistcoat back in November, based on a pattern from "Custom Crochet Sweaters (Dora Ohrenstein)". It was not overly complicated but had the novelty factor of being worked vertically with increases based on changing the stitch height.

Everything started well and I made good progress, but misunderstood the increase instructions and didn't notice until I had almost finished. I wouldn't have been happy with the finished result, so I ripped the whole garment out and remade it, finally placing the last stitch on Christmas Eve. By this point I had lost the love entirely so put it aside, only taking it out last month to reluctantly sew it together.

I'm glad I persevered though as I think it turned out well.

Shawl collared waistcoat.

 Worked up in Wendy Mode DK on a 5.5mm hook I had to rework the pattern a fair bit as usual, I couldn't make gauge, this is why I got lost on the increases. My interpretation of the word 'repeat' and whether it includes the original instruction on what to repeat, differed from the designers intended meaning. As I had to adjust most of the stitch and row counts, it is easy to see how I got confused.

Stitch pattern.

The stitch pattern combined dc and tr in a cluster, reminding me of my favourite baby blanket. It was easy to memorise and works up quickly, which is why I was able to make this whole garment twice in under two months. The only delay was I couldn't face sewing it together.

Me.

I fastened the front with a single snap as recommended by the pattern. The stitches had to be stabilised, by darning into the clusters to produce a firmer fabric before sewing the snap on. The only real issue with the design is the curl on the bottom of the front pieces. I tried steaming the area before making up which helped a little but didn't completely eliminate the problem. As Wendy Mode is 50/50 Merino Wool/Acrylic I didn't want to do more for fear of killing the yarn.

So in summary, this should have been a quick and easy made which was complicated because I couldn't hit gauge so had to rework all the numbers. It was however completely worth the effort as it is a lovely waistcoat and has already made it into regular circulation as part of my wardrobe.

A full day at the Arts Centre

Yesterday was a very full day at our local Arts Centre, starting with this energetic and full audience participation version of Peter And The Wolf. Absolutely packed studio performance. Great fun.

M moved to the very front to dance and act out the story.

The packed studio meant I was sat towards the middle of the room and persuaded M to go sit at the front with the other children. M wasn't too keen to start with, but once the concert started she engaged with the performance, answering questions, joining in and making suggestions.

After the concert was over we enjoyed an indoor picnic hiding from Storm Doris which was raging outside, then went to take in the current exhibition in the Mead Gallery.

There were only three installations and the first was a bit lack-lustre, but we walked around the corner and M stopped, stunned.

M stopped and said 'Wow!'

M showed great restraint here. She desperately wanted to touch and to get underneath the thing. It isn't every day you see hundreds of pots and pans suspended from the ceiling. Instead she walked around it, viewing the installation from every angle she could while standing a good couple of metres away.

She turned around and had another 'Wow!' moment, but refrained from touching as I stood by.

Time for dinner.

I love introducing M to art and talking about what we see, which is why we drop into art galleries and museums on a fairly regular basis. I know a lot of six year olds might not be so appreciative, but M thoroughly enjoys anything art related.

As usual, The Mead had set up a creative space following the current themes in the gallery. M enjoyed playing with cutlery on an OHP, telling stories, singing and moving things around.

M has fun with cutlery and an OHP

Then she got creative.

Making a thing.

Another girl was talked to and consulted on how to use the resources available. Staff and gallery visitors were talked to. Singing happened. I helped where requested. which meant wielding sticky tape (there was no glue) under close direction. Fun was had, until at last a very tired little girl declared she was finished and we could go home.

Even I got involved, drawing the following with graphite sticks when not facilitating M's creative needs.

Mummy's effort.

A long day, which left M very inspired and me very worn out!

Jazzy's new dress

We bought M a small dress up doll for Christmas called Lottie, who is modelled on a 10 year old girl and went down very well. M decided she needed a friend and dug out Jazzy, who sadly (after 3 years of play) had lost her clothes. Jazzy felt sad and while Lottie offered to lend her friend some clothes, Jazzy is very short and the clothes were too big.

M asked if I could help.

Together we talked about the kind of clothes Jazzy needed, drew some sketches and settled on a pretty dress. M insisted that it should be blue, but I explained I only had white fabric to hand, however I would make it appear to be blue. M was sceptical but Jazzy really needed a dress so agreed.

M fetched her tape measure and we got to work.

Taking careful measurements.

Once the teeny, tiny doll had been measured we drafted out a bodice pattern, which I cut out of white cotton remnants. The skirt was a simple rectangle cut to length and sewn to the bodice.

I used a sewing machine to edge the pieces before sewing the main seams. The skirt was hand gathered then pinned in place before sewing. In all cases I used a .5cm seam allowance. 

Once the dress was assembled I decorated it with blue Sharpie, adding little dots to make a ditzy pattern. M was fascinated and had a go on a piece of fabric herself along side me. Once I was satisfied I no longer had a white dress, I ironed the whole thing which fixed the colour.

Jazzy's new dress which still needs to be closed at the back and have trim added.

At this stage all that was left was to sew on some trim and to close the back. The main problem with sewing the seams was the tiny size of the pattern pieces which made it hard to keep the fabric steady under the presser foot as I sewed. The solution was to ditch the machine and hand sew a piece of ribbon around the waist and little piece of trim to the hem.

Jazzy in her new dress.

Once the trims were on, I hand sewed the back closed and folded over the remaining edges. M doesn't like velcro so I added a press fastening to close, which disrupted the line a bit but did the job.

The back view.

Over all not a bad first effort. Jazzy was delighted with the result. She donned her new dress and ran off to play with her friend Lottie as soon as the last stitch was placed. Of course, Jazzy and Lottie are now planning the rest of their new wardrobe, so I may soon be called upon to sew tiny clothes again. Time to step up my efforts in teaching the small person to sew I think!

Useful Links
* Lottie Dolls - http://uk.lottie.com/

M's Wobbly Scarf

After a mild run up, it seems like autumn is suddenly here. There is a cold bite to the air, trees are dropping their leaves, the cats have started staying indoors, evenings are drawing in and my thoughts have turned to winter knitwear.

I actually spared a thought for the coming winter a few weeks ago when I sorted out M's coats. Being a fast growing girl she needs new coats every year and hanging them up lead to me looking at her scarves. Sadly, M has outgrown the lovely cabled scarf she has been wearing since she was about three. This was a bit of a shocker for me as I don't think of scarves as being something you can grow out of, but she has. If we wrap the scarf in question around her neck twice (as you do) the tails are very short, with no weight to keep the wraps in place let alone keep the draft out of the front of her coat.

I declared it was time to knit a scarf, my first in several years.

After talking to M, she came up with a design...

M's design for the scarf she'd like.

Cables. It has been a long, long time since I attempted cables.

I dug out my copy of the Harmony Guide to Cables & Arans, quickly feeling out of my depth and realising I have no idea how to read a cable chart. This is something I'm going to need to fix in the future, but with winter looming I decided to wing it.

Using M's design as a guide I swatched some simple 2x2 cables, setting them inside some bands of 4 purl, with two single purl columns separating the middle cables. Most of the twists are on the eighth row, with one cable being offset and twisting on the tenth row. I added a 2x2 rib to each side to finish.

I had a go at charting the result myself, but it's not quite up to Harmony Guide standards!

This sounds more complicated than it was, mostly I had to keep track of row counts so I knew which cable I was working. I also had to watch the direction of the twist as M wanted the cable to snake from side to side rather than twisting around.

Work in progress, slow but steadily getting there.

After some thought and in the hope of speeding up the knit, I decided to add a keyhole to this scarf as well as working the yarn double. I wanted the extra loft and to make it easier for M to put on herself as she has problems with repeatedly wrapping a scarf around her neck.

The finished scarf.

Vital info -

• 6.5mm needles.
• 38 stitches.
• Yarn: 200g Mercia Wools Superwash Pure Wool DK (worked double). The colour is Dashing Red.
• Width: 16cm
• Final length: 135cm.

Apparently the extra length was a bit scary, but she'll grow into it. Right?

The final result is a little on the long side because I was sizing for a scarf to fit a six to ten year old.
So here we have the final scarf.

Harmony Guide: Cables & Arans - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cables-Arans-Stitches-Harmony-Guides/dp/159668058X.

A brief visit to Middle Earth

Saturday we decided to do something different and headed over to Sarehole Mill for the Middle Earth Festival, which was essentially some traders, folks in costume and festivities celebrating all things Tolkien.

Naturally, the weather decided Saturday was the day to rain and rain and rain and rain. We didn't let that put us off, but it certainly made for a cold, wet day and I suspect prevented a lot of the arena type activities from going ahead. We did see a couple of guys in orc masks and a bit of posturing, but full on skirmishes in torrential rain are never a good idea. Not only would it be uncomfortable, it would be dangerous due to it being very slippery under foot.

Sarehole Mill is in Birminghan, so about 40 minutes away in the car. We found the place without too much trouble, parking in the expected field before walking back to the venue.

Once inside the first marquee, we briefly looked at 'The Mirk Wood' which M didn't like very much, even when we explained the spiders webs were Hallowe'en props. After that, we sheltered under umbrellas as we looked around.

We found a falconer sheltering under a couple of gazebos, accompanied by a young Harris Hawk. The hawk didn't like the rain and was flying within the confines of the gazebo. There were a few owls in his van, but there they stayed only coming out briefly toward the end of the day when the weather let up a little. Owls do not fly in rain.

M with a Harris Hawk.

After looking at the orcs we wandered around the various tents, examining wares or craft displays.

The wood carving tent went down well, where M voted for a cat in this year's competition. We looked at the other pieces on display, with a whale proving to be M's favourite. She told its creator so at length, telling him he should make more pieces just like it. The woodcarver turned the whale around, suggesting it could also be an elephant, but M gave him a hard stare. He eventually conceded it was better as a whale.

A wooden whale.

Morris dancers also went down well.

Morris Dancers.

But not this man, who shouted a lot. As part of his patter he approached M with a bag of lollies, at which point she carefully stepped behind me! I declined the offered sweets politely so he moved on, finding lots of other takers for his lollies.

The shouty man.

We spent most of the day looking at the crafts on display. Lots of pretty things were admired and we bought some pretty stones. As I remarked to M and Dave, we really do need to make some jewellery as I have a fair few bits now. M spent some time in the children's tent, colouring and making a wand. We talked to some re-enactors, from whom I learned about a spinning tool for beginners called a 'dizzy sheep' and another one called a 'spurtzleur'. These two tools are apparently mobile and suitable for those who can't get along with a drop spindle, so might be good for teaching children to spin.

M talked to several of the traders about their wares. In one case and to our complete surprise, one stall holder suddenly gifted M with a nightlight. The lady in question was very taken with M who had charmed her with her observations, admiration and general friendliness. She asked M which was her favourite piece on the stall (an Alice In Wonderland nightlight), then gave it to her!

The event closed at 5pm and we headed for the car at about 4:30pm, all of us tired and cold. We did stop off at the shops and Hobbycraft on the way home, but ran out of time so decided to go back on Sunday. I had spotted that Hobbycraft had a sale on, with a lot of art supplies at half price!

Not a bad way to spend a rainy September day.

An Olympic brolly

In honour of the 2016 Olympic games, M and I have been experimenting with making patterns from interlinked circles. We started out on paper and then moved onto painting another umbrella, taken from what feels like my endless stash of plain umbrellas which are just waiting for some decoration.

The umbrella was a lot smaller this time and only intended for personal use, rather than a huge golf umbrella. Being smaller, it took a lot less time to paint! I mixed up a 50/50 acrylic paint to fabric medium in suitable Olympic colours, i.e. blue, red, yellow, green and black.

For the circles, I cut a dense cardboard tube into smaller pieces. The tube was the kind you find in the middle of aluminium foil or cling film. These are strong and unlikely to disintegrate after being repeatedly dunked in paint.

Paint (acrylic with fabric medium) and cut down cardboard tube.

All set, we retired to the garden with out paints, cardboard tubes and an umbrella.

An hour or so later, we had this umbrella set aside to dry.

The finished Olympic inspired umbrella set aside to dry.

Unfortunately, at this point the wind decided to pick up the umbrella and blow it around the garden. This caused some consternation, not only because of smudges to our newly painted umbrella, but because the laundry was drying on the line!

The umbrella was retrieved, I picked off the worst of the vegetation before standing it to dry in the kitchen for the rest of the day.

Once it was touch dry we signed the umbrella in sharpie, before transferring it to the shed to continue drying for another three days. At that point, I examined it carefully and peeled off any remaining bits of garden before covering each panel in turn with a pressing cloth, then ironing on high to set the colour. Ironing is a mummy only activity.

After ironing, I re-sewed the parasol to the umbrella frame. I'm not sure if it was poor workmanship, or the tumble the brolly took around the garden, but several of the stitches had popped so it needed a bit of repair.

M's favourite part of painting umbrellas is the quality control test at the end, namely testing the umbrella's waterproof properties with a watering can. Personally, I feel that any umbrella which cannot be taken out into the rain for fear of it getting wet, is not much of an umbrella.

Waterproof and the colours don't run.

Thankfully, the Olympic inspired umbrella passed the final test with flying colours.

The finished umbrella.

And the view from the underside.

The artwork on this umbrella was shared equally by myself and M. We both just stamped circles in whatever way we felt like doing, having lots of fun in the process. Again, I think it turned out well and we were both happy with the result.

Phoebe in blue

It's been a busy couple of weeks here as Olympic fever has taken hold of my six year old. This means I've learnt more about the history of the Olympics and watched more sports over the past two weeks than I've probably done in my entire life! Finding time to update a blog between hosting our own toy Olympics has been tough.

I finished a cardigan for M a few weeks back and thought I'd better write it up while I still have access to the computer. It will undoubtedly be co-opted for something sport related in a short while.

The simple Sirdir cardigan which has been my go-to pattern for M over the past couple of years, only runs to age 6-7. I'm considering whether to resize it, but in the meantime I need to branch out and try other patterns. The only thing is, there don't seem to be a huge selection of sweater patterns for little girls. And of those that are available, the field becomes even narrower when considering the child in question's personal taste. Honestly, there is no point spending time knitting a cardigan for a small person if she doesn't like the end result.

After some thought, I eventually settled on Phoebe (Ravelry Link) from Sublime Yarns. This is a simple, close fitting cardigan, with a 'V' neck and contrasting band around the collar, front, hem and cuffs. I decided to knit as close to the pattern as I could, rather than fiddling around and modifying it as I usually do. I was hoping this would make my life easier.

Until of course, I tried to get gauge.

The short version of this story is I couldn't.

I like the Drops yarns from Garnstudio, and having used a dark blue Muskat for M's last cardigan, I'd decided to use the light blue for this one. For contrast I had to choose between turquoise and the left over dark blue from the previous cardigan.

Swatch to consider contrast colours.

After swatching, the dark blue won. It wasn't that I didn't like the turquoise, but it just didn't pop in the same way the darker blue did.

Matching tension proved to be something of a problem.

The pattern for Phoebe requires 10cm = 22 stitches x 28 rows.

The Drops Muskat is a calendered cotton with a high sheen, very pretty and with good stitch definition. It also has an expected gauge of 10cm = 21 stitches x 28 rows.

I'd not been able to match the required tension for the last time I used Muskat, but it hadn't worried me too much. I deliberately loosened the tension, going for a swing type cardigan and making the finished garment bigger. The downside was I went through a lot more yarn than I expected and had to order more to be able to finish the project.

With Phoebe, I wanted to knit as close to gauge as I could and end up with a finished garment sized as described in the pattern.

This proved a problem for me as I could not get the Muskat to knit to the required tension. I had to settle for the expected gauge for the yarn, i.e. 21 stitches, rather than 22 stitches.

My working needle was 3.75mm and 3.25mm where the pattern asked for a smaller needle.

That difference of 1 stitch over every 10cm adds up and in this case would have resulted in an increase of 1.5cm around the chest. Thinking about this retrospectively, that doesn't sound too bad and is certainly able to be absorbed into ease but would have resulted in an inevitable looser fit. After my previous experience with this yarn, I was also worried that I'd knit a lot more yarn than expected and run out, which would raise the issue of matching dye lots.

Some deliberation later, I decided to adjust the cast on numbers for the pattern to match the new expected tension of 10cm = 21 stitches x 28 rows.

i.e.

I made the second size, intended to fit a chest of 61cm, so my cast on stitches became:

Back - Cast on 70 st (instead of 72)
Fronts - Cast on 34 st (instead of 35)
Sleeves - Cast on 42 st (instead of 44)

Naturally this meant adjusting all expected stitch counts throughout.

Other than that, I knitted as directed, matching lengths to pattern directions.

Phoebe in blue.

I deliberately knitted one size up, resulting in a cardigan which is a little too large on the shoulders, but not so big as to look silly.

Sitting reasonably well on the shoulders and across the chest.

For future cardigans I need to remember that M is tall for her age, or at least compared to the children the pattern designer has sized for. Even though I added 1cm to the sleeves and 2cm to the length of the body, as you can see from the photographs, the length is actually spot on for M right now.

The back view, showing the hem at exactly the right length.

I'm a bit disappointed with this. I was hoping to get two years wear out of the cardigan, but now expect it will be too short for her by September next year. Lesson learnt, add a lot more for length on future garments.

It is worth mentioning that I'm not an experienced cardigan knitter. Apart from a baby cardi I made while I was pregnant, I've only knitted one child cardigan pattern before, albeit making it up three times.

In this case, the cardigan was a straight forward knit. There were differences in approach to handling the decreases to my previous experience, but nothing terribly difficult to understand. The fun came when I tried to make the collar.

I've never tried to pick up stitches for a collar before and the results were messy. Very messy. In fact, it was so bad that I ripped the whole thing out and started again. Normally I'd have reached for a crochet hook, adding my own collar and front, but resisted the temptation and instead dug out my copy of Montse Stanley's Knitting Handbook.

This hefty tome is one I think every knitter should have on their shelf. It is a reference work of so many different techniques, with advice on everything, including how to handle picking up stitches for a collar. Following the advice in the book, I picked up the stitches in the main knit colour, which acts as a foundation and masks any irregularity in the stitching. Once the stitches were on the needle, I switched to the required contrast colour to work the rest of the front.

The rolled collar - look carefully and you can see the foundation row in the main colour.

The other area to give me problems was the button holes. I couldn't understand the instructions in the pattern. By now, I was truly fed up with the collar and front, so I did my own thing. I had a quick hunt on YouTube for examples of button holes, which I followed instead of the pattern.

Buttons as chosen by M.

The end result looked OK, were the expected size and in the right place, but were not made in the way directed by the pattern.

Yarn quantities used:

6 x Garnstudio DROPS Muskat 50g - Light Blue.
1 x Garnstudio DROPS Muskat 50g - Blue.

M was pleased with the result and other than it not being as long as I wanted, I think the cardigan came out OK, so overall I'm happy with this.

Useful Links:

• The Knitter's Handbook (Montse Stanley)
• This project on Ravelry
• Garnstudio