Knitting

I have had lots of projects on and off the needles since I last posted about knitting.  The hat I shared last time has reached the stage of decreases, as I am making the pattern up I need some time to work out the maths.  I don't have this available right now as I have my youngest's birthday and the imminent arrival of my twin nephews to knit for, both likely to be this month.

I have been knitting animals for my youngest and have now completed a pig, horse and sheep, and am currently working on a cat in some black, white and grey sock yarn I had left over from knitting socks.  I will share pictures once they are all finished off.  I have also made her a felted bowl, it was knitted up using the pattern in this book, once knitted the advise for felting was to place in a mesh lingerie bag, place in the washing machine with a pair of jeans and remove before the rinse cycle.  As I have no mesh lingerie bag, do people really use them?  And if was to open my machine before the rinse cycle I would flood the kitchen floor, I went for plan B.  Place in washing machine with rest of washing, run machine and cross fingers that all would be well, and it was, it is the small purple thing on the top left above.

I am also finishing off knitting a cardigan for my nephews, I started knitting this some time ago but had to stop as I didn't have the right size dpns to knit the sleeves.  I finally found some and am nearly done, a few more rows, loads of ends to weave in and then need to buy some buttons and sew them on.

I have read a wonderfully funny book this week, These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach.  It was made into a film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which you may have seen, I have not so I have no idea if the film is true to the book.  I am now reading A Little History of the World by EH Gombrich. It was originally written in the 1930s and at the time translated into many languages but not English, it was finally translated recently with many additions by the author to bring the book up to date.  It is a delightful book, both entertaining and educational and I will give it to my eldest to read in the next few years as it was written as a children's book.