Knitting time already?

It can’t be, surely? I haven’t finished knitting the socks from last month’s Simply Knitting, and Issue 44 has just dropped through my door!

Actually it didn’t so much drop through the door as fight with the postman to be wrestled through the letterbox, as the free gift this issue was a set of butterfly clips. (The down side of subscribing? You don’t get a choice of gift colour. I’d have chosen the pink ones!) You’re supposed to use them for holding the seams of your knitting together as you sew it up. Of course, the first thing I did was try one out in my hair!

There are two patterns this month which immediately make me want to rush out and buy yarn.

The first is a child’s cardigan, called “Just Peachy”.

The pattern goes up to age 11-12, but it has quite a lot of design ease (see how the cardigan is quite loose in the picture?), so the age 7-8 years is actually a perfectly snug fit for me! I’m very short-waisted so the back is already the ideal length, and all I’d have to do is lengthen the sleeves by about four inches. A single sparkly button or a silky ribbon at the top, and you’ve got a pretty summer cardi. I wonder whether John Lewis has any Kidsilk Night left in the sale…?

I also fell in love with the cardigan on the cover, and was wondering whether I might have just enough of my poor neglected Debbie Bliss Cathay to make this in light pink.

My favourite thing about this pattern? Right there on the picture – “Pattern in sizes 8-32!” The smallest size fits a 32″ chest, and the largest is 54″. I know that a few of the American knitting magazines include larger sizes, but their patterns often look like an enormous woolly sack. It’s so nice to see a pretty knitting pattern in such a wide range of sizes.

Mind you, it isn’t half complicated!

I received a survey last week, regarding a potential new knitting magazine aimed at intermediate or experienced knitters. I enthusiastically answered all of the questions saying, “yes! I would love to knit more complicated and adventurous things!”.

Then I looked at this cardigan, and my brain fell out of my ear.

The front panels are a twelve-row pattern, featuring twisted stitches for which I didn’t even recognise the abbreviations! Thankfully there is a helpful key to explain how you work “tw2, P4, tw2, twF, P1, twF, P5, tw2, P4, tw2”, which is the first row!

Perhaps I’ll start with the children’s cardigan. A four-row lace pattern I can probably manage, if I sit down and concentrate on it properly. (Lace is not my strong point.)

Maybe I ought to finish my socks first. Or my summer jumper.

I might even get around to sewing the zip into my green cardigan, taking a photo and actually publishing the pattern for you, one of these days…