I got near the end of the fifth 50g ball of yarn from the nine I bought, so decided to put the stitches on waste yarn (dental floss, actually as that was what I had to hand), then picked up the stitches of one sleeve that I'd put on waste yarn, picked up stitches at the armpit area and have now started knitting down. As the pattern's written with short, sleeves (I think they're a bit puffed now I come to think about it), I'm winging it a bit, although I've made several top-down seamless sweaters in the past, so it's not a big deal). I'm decreasing two stitches every eighth round at what would be the seam if I was knitting flat to taper it down a bit and am using one of DD2's school cardigans to gauge the length I'll need. I'm planning on putting a garter stitch cuff of 1.5 - 2 inches at the bottom so it matches the hem and neck of the sweater.
By doing the sleeves now, I'll know how much yarn I've got for the rest of the body. Hopefully it'll be enough (the sweater's already nearly as long as one of her school cardigans, but I'd prefer it to be several inches longer than that to make it more tunic-like) as when I checked on the Wool Warehouse website the other day, they'd sold out of the yarn. Fingers crossed.
Getting my camera out to take the photo above prompted me to show you a little something I bought at the weekend. I popped to our local supermarket and saw there were a few tables outside selling things on behalf of the local troop of Brownies. With the help of parents and Brown Owl, they'd been making things to sell. There was one table of cakes and another had home-made crafty bits, including some sewn things such as peg bags and what they were selling as glasses cases. To be honest, some of the glasses cases looked a bit on the short side, but I though that one of them would probably make a nice camera case/bag, which it does (it's got padding inside for protection). So, for the princely sum of £3, here you are:
As they were trying to raise money to subsidise their summer camp next year, I didn't begrudge them a single penny and would have happily donated the money without taking anything home with me, but that's not the point of making things to sell, is it.
As it's getting closer to Christmas, I'm getting to that stage where I'm having to stay in waiting for things to be delivered. I've already had the postman deliver a box from Amazon this morning and I'm also waiting for a carpet cleaner (bought at a huge reduction in price because it has defective packaging, apparently) to arrive via UPS. Yesterday, our new internet hub was delivered from BT (our internet speed improved as soon as it was up and running) and I also received by courier a case of 12 bottles of wine from Naked wines. I'd received a voucher for £40 off a spend of £80, so with Christmas coming up, it would have been silly to not use it!!!
I'm also expecting a 'little something' I've bought for myself (I might call it a Christmas present to myself), but I'll share that with you after it's arrived.
The sweater is coming along very nicely. I enjoy reading about the process, even if I don't know very much about knitting. Thank you for explaining. How nice to be getting a carpet cleaner! I would really like to have one someday. The wine sounds like an excellent deal. I know it will be very hard to use it, but try to enjoy if you can. ;)
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