Circle jacket progresses

As per usual I am crocheting the sleeves before I finish off the body of the circle jacket. I don't like crocheting sleeves at the end as it is more weight to heave around whilst I am making them plus I am not sure if I have enough wool and so might need to nip up to Bury market on Wednesday for another ball to finish it off. I will have a better idea once the sleeves are finished. I think that I might have to run a strengthening thread across the shoulders as when I try it on it feels like it is falling off all the time. When it is all completed I will have a better idea of how the collar sits. I read on Ravelry that a few people have had difficulties with keeping the jacket on their shoulders with the weight of the collar.It might need reinforcing with a piece of narrow ribbon as we used to use to stop shoulder seams drooping years ago. No-one does that anymore. It was quite a normal thing to do when I was a girl to strengthen the shoulder seams and cardigan button bands with petersham ribbon to stop them stretching out of shape.

I popped up to the local shops today for some food shopping. I didn't go out at the weekend so essentials like milk and bread had run out. I always glance, usually in vain, in the local charity shops in case someone has donated wool. Today I was in luck I got 12 x 40 grams Lindsey brushed chunky for the princely sum of 50p a ball. Yes I know that I am going to Woolfest at the weekend but they won't have any bargains to equal that there.

I not only did the sleeve of the baby cardigan that I had set myself a task to do last night but I also almost finished the second sleeve so only have the bands to knit and the sewing up to do. Then of course there is the second cardigan to knit. I will use another pattern for that one as I was not over fond of this pattern. It was one of those where it writes lines of pattern and then you have to decipher the bits in brackets whether or not you actually do that bit or another bit depending on what size you am doing. I have done that before but not when there are 3 separate bits of instructions before the actual pattern repeat starts. Patterns never used to be this complicated. I should have photocopied it and crossed out all the bits not relevant to the size I was knitting before I started.

I have put a new link to Jam and Jerusalems blog as she has been having some trouble with the old blog and as it seems to have vanished overnight without a trace she has made a new one now. I have ammended the link on the right hand side of my page. She has got a free pattern for a cute crochet chick and an adorable knitted sheep on her blog.