Felicity

Even though I have plenty to be getting on with designing my own hats I felt the need to cast on for Felicity on Friday night. I have been thinking about making this for a while and I recently received 2 skeins of Cascade 220 that I ordered from First 4 Yarns. I love their online shop, they have lots of good stuff and I will be making it my new challenge to go on holiday near their actual shop so that I can go in and have a look. Anyway, I has decided that I would be making this hat in cream and settled down to get started by looking at other peoples projects on Ravelry. Right away I could see that a lot of people were casting on different numbers of stitches and using different sized needles from the pattern. I nearly gave up there and then but decided to have a little faith and cast on as per the pattern. Right away I could see that the stitches wouldn't even fit round the needle for me to join them and therefore would most definitely not fit round my head. I knit one row anyway because that usually bulks out a bit, but still no go. I then went up to a 4.5mm and cast on the requisite amount of stitches which still looked a bit titchy so I cast on another 10 stitches and went for it. Clearly swatching might have made this less of gamble but I thought that it wouldn't be the end of the world to rip it back. When it came to the increase rows I started on the second set as I already had 80 stitches and then just added an extra couple of even rows before decreasing just to make up the length. Miraculously after all that guessing and fudging I produced this..

Not only does it fit and look pretty much like the pattern, it also looks pretty cool and I love it. Sweet. I think I will probably make another one with some stripes or some kind of pattern on, but not until I have made some progress on my own designs.

With regard to my own designs, progress is slow but steady. I have 2 hats that will henceforth be known as 'Thief in the Night 'and 'Forgotten'. I know what the basic construction will be for both of them and have created a chart for Thief in the Night. I need to decide on an eyelet pattern for Forgotten and then I can cast on and see if what I want to do will work.

I am pleased to announce that I am still following my healthy diet and I am now at W-3lbs. We went for a swim last night and I think I must have thrashed out the swiftest 30 lengths of my life. We went to a different pool to normal and it was just awful. They are doing it up and the whole place is a total crap hole. They are also holding swimming lessons at the same time as the adults only session so there was loads of shouting and splashing and generally it was not terribly relaxing. I usually go to an early morning session where I just make my way serenely up and down the pool mentally compiling my shopping list, but that really was not an option last night. Chris spent the whole time bobbing up and down with a face like a smacked arse and is now pretending that he has caught some kind of disease so I'm not taking him swimming again! Yesterday I ordered My Fitness Coach for the Wii which looks quite good. I'm hoping that it will provide a bit more variety than Wii Fit and with any luck will give me enough of a workout so that I can avoid joining the gym. I wouldn't really mind going there but all that travelling back and forth would really up too much of my knitting time and I really don't have enough of that as it is.