Clearing the backlog.

I love to knit, I love to try out new things, I love to talk about knitting, I love yarn, I love patterns, but there's one thing I dont love.....finishing.

Can't do it, have never been able to ge the hang of it. Picking up stitches for a neckline, mattress stitch, lining up rows....I tell myself I'm physically and mentally incapable of doing it, but then a little part of my brain (I think its the same part that says thing like "if you put your hand in there you might not get it out") pipes up and reminds it just becuse my wonderful Mum is such a gun finisher and sewer-upper-er. She does a much better job than I could ever dream of doing.

So really, why learn when I can just farm it off to her??

With my Beloved overseas for 2 weeks, my mum has come to stay with me and Pirate Jim and keep us from self-destructing. 2 weeks alone with a 20-month-old who is going through a tantrum phase is pretty hard work (as Im sure many of you know), and I find after a few days without a circuit breaker things start to come apart at the seams. Any politician (actually anyone, really) who complains about single mothers on benefits who are "just doing it for the money" or suggests that women are having babies for THREE THOUSAND MEASLY DOLLARS has clearly never spent more than 15 minutes alone with anyone under the age of 16. It certainly aint all sunshine and puppy dogs. (I adore PJ and I adore being a mum, but I don't think anything can prepare you for How. Much. Work. It. Is. to rear children. And remain sane).

Righto, rant over.

Mum loves any excuse to have a holiday with us, and I love having all my sewing up and finishing done, so I save it all up for her, because she does such a brilliant job.

Behold, then the Finished Objects:

Zoe Mellor's Little Star Sweater from Adorable Knits for Tiny Tots, knitted in Heirloom 8 ply cotton. Admissions: neck band and sewing up done by Mum. Issues: the cotton is very unforgiving tension-wise and any loose stitches really show up; although very simple, this was fiorst intarsia and I had trouble following the chart, so I would write it out next time; putting the sleeves in was tricky (so mum says!). Next time I'll try it in 8ply wool I think. I do love the details like the half dozen ss rows before the rib on the cuffs and the differet colour rib.

And, gratuitously, here it is being modelled by the recipient and the gun sewer-upper-er:

Next up, Anouk from Knitty.com, knitted in Patons Zhivago (needs buttons and a press though):

The flash glares off the yarn and gives it a white fleck throughout. Admissions: pockets, neck and those little tabs done by Mum. Issues: the neckline is a bit of a cow, and the pattern calls for casting off the stitches across the middle - next time I'll just put them on a holder. Pattern is also very confusing about left and right shoulders for the grafting of back and front shoulder seam on one side, and for knitting neck edge.

Finally, a Mason-Dixon baby kimono, from Mason-Dixon Knitting, also in Zhivago:

This is a dead-easy pattern, all one piece, and I will certainly make it again in many different styles. I've become a bit obssessed with baby wrap-style tops, so there will be many more to come.

I'm playing around with the commission Rainbow Wool scarf and will post progress as soon as I settle on a pattern - thanks everyone for your suggestions here and at SnB last night (how much fun was that??)

G x