Pain, pain, oh, and a little bit of pain.

I've had an ear infection for almost two weeks now, and it's just plain miserable. I've been on antibiotics since Monday and it's actually gotten worse if anything. I can't hear on my left hand side, and doing things like breathing deeply, swallowing food and lying on that side is really painful.

The latter is making it really hard for me to sleep, so even though I'm not waking up until 9am, I still feel groggy and grouchy because I've been waking up every. freakin'. time. I roll over. Apparently I do that a lot when I sleep, who knew?

So, I promised a bit about knitting in my last post. This is going to appeal to very few people, but it's my blog and I'll knit if I want to.

I had my first Christmas as a "proper" knitter, that is, someone who can make 3D shapes and not just knit flat.

I made:
For Ollie
A black cabled hat and scarf from Rowan Big Wool (pattern for both from Ravely). These were lovely quick knits, and the Rowan Big Wool shows off the cables quite nicely.
A pair of Knucks from the Summer '06 edition of Knitty in Rowan Felted Tweed DK. They technically didn't arrive in time for Christmas as the wool didn't get to me in time. The pattern was SO easy to follow and the Felted Tweed is a gorgeous colour (Rage, apparently) with flecks of blue, black, grey, green and white in it.
For Matt, I made a Reasonably Hip Hat from Cool Aran (apologies for the total Myspazz-style photo!).

For my friend Duncan's new baby girl I made a dinosaur from the Extreme Knitting pattern. I changed it by making the neck slightly longer to turn a Mr Stegs into a Bronty. This was done in Rowan Pure Cotton DK.

I suffer from REALLY cold fingers, and because I liked knitting Ollie's knucks so much, I decided to make my own. I had some lovely, bright pink Rowan Pure Wool DK in my stash that I got on sale for £2 a ball, so that was knitted up into some Knucks for me!
I did a bit of knitting for Sacha, that was techincally last year, but both the Baby Yoda Jacket in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, and the Woodin, done in scraps of the same wool, turned out so well I just have to share!



The yardage on the cashmerino is pretty impressive, so I got a little iPod cover out of it too!


I'd only ever knitted my dad a scarf in bright red and cream acrylic. I thought he should get something a bit nicer, so after some hints from him about his school colours and how he suffers from cold fingers too, I made him some Whitchurch Grammar Mitts in pure wool. He really seems to like them. It's nice when your knitting is appreciated!

My cousin Melissa had her first baby last year, Lucille, so I made her my favourite little baby shoes. They're knitted in Patons 4ply cotton in a nice simple white. The pattern is a Debbie Bliss effort and usually require a strap, which I decided to leave off.

My first thing that I made with cables and knitted in the round was a pair of fingerless mitts for my sister. They're made from Sublime Cashmerino (a gorgeous mix of cashmere, merino and silk so it has a lovely sheen to it as well as being super soft) and were left over from the scarf I made her the Christmas before. Sadly I don't have a photo of that, but it was done in a really simple basket stitch.
I need to take some photos of the other things I've made. Rafferty got two hats, three pairs of bootees, two dinosaurs and a blanket (which I must have been MENTAL to knit now I'm aware of how big it is!). Sacha got a hat and a blanket-y toy. My friend Jess got another pair of Fetchings in a Teal Merino Ara from Angel Yarns. I also made myself two scarves (one Sublime cashmerino and one D&T Craft and Designs baby alpaca) and a small hat (Rowan Cashsoft DK). I also tragically left a nearly finished baby cardi (Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton Aran), plus Addi Premium needles and all of my other knitting notions on a train in Romania.

I'm quite proud of my knitting, and I'm finally knitting something I can actually wear. My first adult sized cardigan! It's in Rowan Kidsilk Haze, in the colourway Trance.
Apologies for the slightly crappy photos, I've not been a knitter for long enough to take stunning photos of my work. I'll get better!

I'm quite excited about going to India now, I've been finding out how cheap yarn is out there and my bank account is going to suffer for it!