Half Term project

I know I said I'd have a go at the French dress, but I've been so distracted with weddings, long-distance phone calls and visits, I decided to stick to something I might be able to finish sooner rather than later. So I'm restarting an old project: Two-tone ribbed shrug from Fitted Knits. I started this ages ago when I was also working on the Tunic below from the same pattern book. I learned some valuable lessons as I went along:

1. The knit front/back increase-stitch pattern doesn't look good if you do it on alternate rows - it should really be done on every second row.

2. Ms Japel may not be the best at arithmetic - that might be the pot calling the kettle black, but even this time around I've had to make a lot of alternations to match her alleged stitch counts. Either there are a lot of printing errors or her calculator is broken!

3. When knitting rib in the round, you don't have to alternate knit over purl/purl over knit - this was an eye opener!

4. I'm knitting too small for me...

So I scrapped and unpicked it with plans to start again one day, and one day turned out to be this Tuesday. I'm a little further on than the picture shows (that was last night), but as you can see, it's not exactly a giant knit, so fingers crossed it will be ready for next term!



PS I may wear the sea cardigan in public tomorrow...!