Pretty Pale Pink

When I go to my knitting group on a Friday morning in the nearby village of Dedham, I sometimes pop into the chemist/gift shop (I think the post office is in there as well) just along the street from the pub where the ladies and I meet up.  On the surface, that seems a reasonable thing to do, except that as well as the pharmacy and gift section, they sell a small amount of yarn.  King Cole acrylic yarn.  Three or four shelves of it in fact.  And I often come home with a ball or two in my bag - just because it's there.  This happened a couple of months ago and I came home with two balls of pale pink King Cole Comfort DK (quite a nice, soft acrylic). 

As my girls are nearly 9 and 11-and-a-half, two x 100g balls of yarn aren't enough to make anything for either of them, so this yarn was destined to be a baby cardigan or two for the box of knits for Romania that I contribute to (I can indulge in my love of knitting baby things and then they go off to where they're appreciated, so it's a win-win situation really).

First off, I cast on for Elizabeth Zimmermann's 'February' Baby Cardigan, from the Knitter's Almanac, which I borrowed from the library (although I think the whole book's available to read on Google Books).  It didn't take long.  I modified it by doing the body before the sleeves, then picking up stitches at the underarm and knitting the sleeves magic-loop style in the round.

The sweater took 88g of yarn (I weighed it).  The buttons I bought from The Range.  Not in their haberdashery department, but in the craft dept.  They sell them as craft buttons (they were on a circular stand) and cost £1 for a pack of quite a lot of buttons.  This pack was red and pale pink buttons, but they also do light and dark blue and then green and grey.

On my Ravelry queue, the first project is a pair of socks, but I've already got a pair on the needles (and if I don't finish those before I cast on another pair, they'll never get done).  Second on the list was the Pimpelliese scarf.  It's very similar to the Baktus scarf, but has a lace edging which is knitted as you go.  I read some of the comments about it on Ravelry and some of them seemed to suggest that this was a bit complicated in parts.  So, I read the pattern to see if I could visualise it in my head.  I couldn't.  So, I thought I'd cast on with the remains of the Comfort DK from the Feb Baby just to see how the pattern worked.  The next thing I knew, I'd done 5 pattern repeats.  As I had another 100g ball of the same yarn, I decided that I might as well carry on and see how far I got.  A week later and 19 repeats on each side of the scarf, I cast off!  This will also go in the Romania box and hopefully it will keep a teenage girl's neck warm this winter.  As I said to someone after she commented that something was too nice to be given to charity, "it may be for charity, but it doesn't mean it can't be stylish".

I'll definitely make this again, in the yarn I'd originally intended for it - Fyberspates Sparkle Sock.  That one will be for me because, well, you know, you can never have too many scarves - can you?

This afternoon I shall be casting on the second of my pair of socks in Wendy Happy yarn as I finished the first one this morning, in between ironing piles.  If I ever mention that I'm considering buying this (mis-named) yarn again, please shout at me online or track me down and hit me with a wet fish.  I like the colours, but the yarn is splitty, slippery and has very little stretch.