Who would have thunk it?

Who would have thunk it? Two posts in a week? I would never have guessed I'd be back so soon. But guess what?  I'm so glad I am.  *doing a little dance in my imagination cos I can't do it in my bedroom  because of the wine fridge*.  Did I ever mention I have a wine fridge in my bedroom?  Let's not go there today...

Even though I've been away from the land of crafty blogs I have still managed to keep the crochet fires burning.  There's rarely been a day where I haven't sat down to hook.  I've made lots of different things and I'm really proud of all of them.  I guess that's the great thing about having an unintended break.  I now have  so many things to talk about.  I don't have to think up things to post about because I've essentially established a blog post stash.  It's the kind of thing posting slackers like me dream about but in truth I really don't need another stash.  When there's too much to do procrastination inevitably sets in.

Now don't freak out but I need to confess something. In the time I've been away I have not crocheted one single jug cover. I know. Insane. The urge just stopped. The obsessive compulsion completely dissipated.  The bugs hibernated, winter set in and I wanted to create bigger and warmer and cosier things.

First cab off the rank was this sweet little red cardigan for Ivy.  I made it in a red merino bamboo.  It's so lovely and soft and because of the bamboo it has a really lovely weight to it.   I like a weighty hang, don't you?



I downloaded the pattern for free from here (the Anna pattern).  It's a great pattern and is easy peasy.  It's an all in one so there's no need for seam sewing.  The pattern only goes up to a size two but because Ivy is petite I knew the pattern would probably fit her.



That being said I couldn't help getting paranoid about it being too small.  I added one set of the V stitch pattern to the front edges to give it a little more width and made sure I crocheted the first stitch before following and counting my way across each row and increase.



Funnily enough it's actually ended up being a bit too big (surprise, suprise!) but that's the way I like it.  I hate the thought of lovingly crocheting something only to have it handed down or packed away into a glory box after one season.  The yarn is so beautiful I'd hate to only enjoy it for a short time.



The pattern also called for some rather fancy flowers around the neck line but I can't say they appealed much to me.  I thought a tie threaded around the neck line with some lovely big pom-poms would look much better.  Now I'm just waiting for the pom-pom faeries to get that done.  Unfortunately they appear to be taking their faery time.  I hope they're not procrastinating.  Winter will be over soon.

M* xo