New Yarn Forward

The latest issue of Yarn Forward is out now. I've got a design in this issue. It was strange last issue to not have a design included, it was the first time in quite a few months. But this month I've got 'Siena' - a stylish cardigan in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran which was gorgeous to knit with. It's comfortable and looks just as good with a smart outfit for work or evenings out and jeans for the weekend. The perfect cover up for chilly summer days or evenings. In fact, it's perfect to wear all year.

Here's one of the magazine pics (copyright - St Range Photography) and one not very good photo I took on my mannequin.
I'm having a bit of a knitting emergency. Yesterday, I had nearly finished the 2nd sleeve on a new garment for a magazine I've not worked for before with a deadline thisFriday which means it's got to be posted tomorrow. At lunch time yesterday I decided to sew in the first sleeve and laid the pieces out after blocking and realised there was a massive problem. i'd compeletely mis-calculated the armhole and made a couple of other small mistakes. In the end I had to go through all my measurements and calculations and completely re-write all my numbers and do my schematic again. This took most of the afternoon. Then after a quick take away tea, I started frogging. Both front and back had to be frogged to armholes and half the sleeves had to come out and be re-knitted. I stayed up till midnight last night and managed to finish the front and one sleeve while watching Tom Cruise in Top Gun. This morning I set to work on the back which is now done and now i'm on the 2nd sleeve. It still needs to be posted tomorrow. I'm hoping to finish the knitting and sewing up/finishing tonight and then double-check the pattern tomorrow.

It's all under control now and I'm feeling calm but 24 hours ago I was in major panic mode and nearly e-mailed the editor and told her to forget it. The garment was very close to being scrapped completely before I got a grip and got working on fixing my mistake. The thing that lead to this mistake not being noticed before I think is the inches and cm thing. I grew up using cm but since I've lived here in England I've got more and more used to using inches since, alhtough England is officially metric, most people work in inches. When I design I mainly use inches but this mag use cm so I thought I'd write the whole pattern in cm and had put in some wrong measurements in cm and not picked up on it. I'm sure if it was inches I would have spotted it earlier as I'm more used to working in inches now. Never mind, it's taught me a lesson. From now on I'm knitting front or back, then one sleeve so I can double-check the fit before completing the other half of the garment. Or perhaps i just ought to explore one piece designs.

Next time I blog I've got some gorgeous pics of some new ayrn which arrived yesterday. It's stunning. I didn't open the sack with yarn until midnight as I was on my way to bed. And as well as my order, the supplier put in some samples and among them are handspun baby camel, cashmere and angor and they're stunning. Anyway, more about that next time. Back to my knitting now.