Precious - finished

In no time at all, my beaded cardi is finished.

I'm very pleased with the result. The pattern is Precious by Kim Hargreaves from Heartfelt. I used Patons misty 4ply mohair (less than 3 balls used) instead of the Rowan kidsilk haze - I couldn't face using that yarn again.

The Patons misty was much easier to knit with, it knits to the same tension as kidsilk haze - I'd definitely use this yarn again (I've actually got 7 balls of the yarn left, so I will be using it again sometime!)

I made two modifications to the pattern. The first was not to include beads around the front edging - I would have been in danger of out-sparkling the Christmas tree - also I ran out of beads anyway - it takes a lot more than you realise. The second modification was to crochet around the front edging rather than pick up and knit over 200 stitches - much quicker and easier to manage with the crochet.

This will look lovely on Christmas day - very feminine and dainty.

Having finished that I've started the Snow Queen by Alan Dart - hopefully I'll have this finished in a few days - although she's bigger than you think. There's cricket on television during the day - England v South Africa test series - and darts - World Championship - in the evening. Plenty of knitting time.

I realised the other day, that with all these exciting must-knit projects I've been working on, I haven't done any housework for a while. That's the great thing about Christmas, it's a wonderful excuse to change your routine. Anyway, I spent Thursday with the vacuum cleaner and cleaned one of the bathrooms this morning - that clears up some of the guilt, so I can get back to the knitting this afternoon.

I have finally worked out why I don't feel organised at the moment - apart from the hectic Christmas excuse - I've lost my table! In the living room we have an octagonal table with a lovely, cheerful red gingham table cloth on it. Eve occasionally uses it for homework, Grace and Chris never use it, but I sit at it all the time. It is my place - the place where I write my lists, plan my day, knit and sew, read my books. But now it's gone - in order to make way for the Christmas tree the table had to be moved out into the garage. I miss it so much - now I have to sit on the sofa like everyone else - it's not the same - list-making just isn't as effective there. Well that's my excuse at the moment anyway.