As previously mentioned I’m not that good at making the same thing more than once, the second one goes slower and slower and quite often stalls. I am an advocate of the two-at-a-time sock method for this very reason.  People sometimes say I should make things to sell but aside from the time-spent to price-that-people-would-pay ratio being an issue there is the problem that I find it really boring to repeat things (although for some reason squares for blankets don’t seem to fall into this category but don’t ask me why!) and for me the point of making stuff is to enjoy the making not to be a machine churning out lots of the same thing.

So when my mum asked me to make a cardigan for her the same as one of mine my heart sank, just a teeny bit, not very many people could get away with asking that but she’s my mum so she is one of the ones who can. She wanted it to be the same size too which also filled me with dread a little bit. I’m never great at getting the tension right on things, I’ve just got better at admitting when something isn’t going to fit and ripping out to start again and when I made the original cardigan I started it then realised the tension was not quite right, was too lazy to start again and decided to knit the 36 instead of the 34 because the drape of the fabric was ok and it turned out perfectly (it is my favourite cardigan, I wear it when I am nervous and have to look a bit smart or when I am pottering around in my jeans or over the top of my pyjamas sometimes and most of the time really) so the chances of duplicating this feat seemed pretty slim. Plus I didn’t write down what size needles I used in the end because I wasn’t expecting to make another one!

But she is my mum so I organised the wool with her, measured her very carefully and worked out she is not as tall as me so to leave out the extra length I had added into mine and that she is always cold so she might like long sleeves and said I would give it a go but it might take me a while. I managed to knit the whole thing whilst guiltily thinking I should take some proper pictures for the blog and then ploughed on with knitting it anyway because I was enjoying it so much so these are pictures that I took quickly on my phone just to send my mum some proof that I was really knitting it and not getting distracted with my squares. The pattern is Ysolda’s Pumkin Ale which has a really unusual construction and Ysolda is one of my favourite designers so maybe that is why I managed to knit it all without flagging, her patterns are always fun to make and the little details like the i-cord bind off on the edge and the way the cuff is joined on make them look really professional and I love it when there is no sewing up to do. When I wear mine I occasionally get a random knitter sidle up to me and say, ‘Did you knit that? It’s an unusual/interesting/beautiful/insert adjective of choice here pattern’ or ask me how the pattern works. 

I just spent an hour trying to get WordPress to arrange my pictures in a gallery – nicely but not too big and with the descriptions showing and it seems to be able to do one or the other but not both so here are all the pictures in one column because that is the only way I can get it to look tidy and display all the waffle so sorry it makes the post very long but I’ve had enough of it now and I’ve got some squares to make. Oh and some Smalls to play with before the sea of Lego drifts so far that I can’t reach the kettle. Maybe I can do both at once…

UPDATE: Also I just noticed if you are viewing it in an RSS feed thingy then the descriptions might not show up so have a look on the website instead, there should be a sentence or two to go with each photo but I don’t care enough to try and make it work properly any more!