Magazines and crochet

Since finishing my Let's Knit projects on Wednesday I've been on a bit of a crochet kick but more about that later. First, let's take a lookat the magazines which have landed on my door mat this week.

We've got Yarn Forward and Let's Knit:
Both are brilliant issues this time. I've struggled to tear myself away from them.

My design for Let's Knit this month was the pretty 'Laurel' cardigan which features leafy lace edgings.
You knit the bottom edging first then pick up stitches and knit the body in one piece to the armholes. The front borders are knitted together with the body. I took some pics before sending the sample off but it was on the hard-drive we lost (which we've now found out has been wiped so there is no hope of gettin any files off it). The cardi came back last week but before I had time to take pics of it, Sarah (editor of Let's Knit) e-mailed me asking if I could send it back as she'd been asked to contribute some designs to a fashion show and she wanted to use Laurel. I'll take some pics when it comes back again.
And for Yarn Forward this month, we have 'Katarina' which is a very simple tunic. I think stocking stitch is the best way to show off the gorgeous, vibrant, variegated Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend colourways. Around the v-neck it has a stocking stitch edging in purple which is allowed to roll in naturallly. The pics I took of this design before sending it off have also been lost and I won't be getting this one back as Yarn Forward don't return designs.
I started a Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman last week. This is my first baby surprise jacket and I've wanted to knit it for a long time now. I meant to knit one when my sister had her last baby but was too busy to get it done at the time.

I'm using the gorgeous, silky Araucania Ruca which is 100% sugarcane. And I just fell in love with this colourway. I love it so muc hthat I ordered enough to knit a sweater for myself on the knitting machine.

I've done a few more rows than this now. I took this picture to show a friend how to place the markers. She's knitting the jacket too for her daughter in law but as she'll need me to coach her through the pattern and as it's not a very logical pattern I thought I may have more luck guiding her through it if I knit one myself.
Most of my time for the last couple of days have been spent crocheting. I've worked on a couple of new motif designs which may or may not be submitted to mags. Here they are hiding behidn my pink yarn:
Last night I started working on this project:
The yarn has been sitting around for a while now and it's unlabelled but I htink I got it from Fyberspates at hte very first FibreFest 3 years ago. It's a merino/silk singles and I think it was a yarn that Jeni had tried but decided not to stock. I grabbed 2 skeins of this gorgeous colourway but have never decided what to do with it. So last night I grabbed it and started to crochet. Not decided whtehr or not this will be a secret project or not yet.

Let's Knit was very kind to mention my Friendship Shawl fundraising for Shelterbox. There is something wrong with my fundraising widget at the moment. I'm not sure what's happened or whether or not it's possible to donate but I've e-mailed Just Giving. If you've tried donating and not been able to, please come back next week or go directly to Shelterbox to donate.
I think I mentioned that I'd knitted a cashmere waistcoat on my knitting machine. Well here it is:
Not managed to get modelled photos yet but here is the back view on my dress form. It's made to fit me and I'm a rather large size 24 and the dress form is about a size 10. I used tuck stitch no 3 and the waist coat is knitted in one piece (a large rectangle) from side to side with holes for the arms. The challenge for me was to put stitches on hold while I knitted eachside of the armholes and then brining the needles back into work and not drop any stitches. This may be easy in hand-knitting but is rather hcallening in machine knitting but I managed it without a problem. My next machine projects are the sugarcane top for me, a sweater each for Simon and Vanessa (both before Easter) and a cardigan or waist coat for me.