England & Wales 2018

  

Even though this was not really a well-planned holiday it ended up being quite a roadtrip. The idea was to visit two good friends from Uni (who know each other but are not close friends) and who both had babies on Christmas Day - is that a coincidence or what? Anyways, the idea was to have a "get to know the babies" visit since we were all busy with our own new family additions.

This was extended to a cross-country roadtrip from Dover via Essex, London, Hampshire, and the Cotswolds to South Wales. From there we also visited Bristol and then back to Dover via Oxford. I feel quite accomplished, doing all this with a 5 months old baby! And it was actually less stressful than expected, we're lucky to have a baby that sleeps well in the car most of the time. 

We visited many places that were new to me, too. I really liked Cardiff and Bristol, I almost wished I had studied there because they seem to be very vibrant student cities while not being too big at the same time. Of course we also enjoyed the phenomenal weather at the Essex seaside and Wales was the perfect destination to cool down a little bit while still having more sunshine than usual in this part of the world. London was great as usual (even though we had quite some rain but thank God for museums!) and I must say I forgot how pretty Oxford was. 

Now we're back and we have filled up on takeaway curry, egg & cress sandwiches, fish & chips, and Fentiman's lemonades for a while. But since it was so easy to get there by car this was definitely not the last time we drive to the UK, unless of course BREXIT spoils the fun next year.

 

Surprisingly, I also managed to do a fair bit of knitting. I have now perfected the art of knitting in the car (as a passenger, obviously) to use my freetime as efficiently as possible. So far it works quite well, even though I have to recover the occasional dropped needle or an unravelled skein from under the seat. Above you can see the early stages of another "Branches & Buds" jumper which is actually almost complete by the time I'm typing this. I'm still debating whether I should make it into a cardigan again, as I did with my first version of this pattern. 

More knitting updates to come soon!

Tweed "Marigold"

As with most patterns I like I tend to knit them again (and again, if I really like them). It just makes sense to go back to something that fits well and worked out the first time around, although in some cases I do the second knit because I learned from my mistakes. I also like it because for most patterns you can make sooooo many variations by only including small changes that it would take a long time to get bored of it.

In the case of "Marigold" it was mainly because it fit well and I ended up wearing my first cardi a lot over the last winter.  But because the alpaca yarn is extremely warm I also wanted one that I could wear in slightly warmer weather (i.e. above freezing point) and I still had this lovely light blue tweed in my stash. To make the tweed structure stand out even more I omitted the lace panel in the back, I didn't want to distract from the beautiful yarn and I also wanted to keep the cardigan as neutral as possible to match my other clothes.

Apart from the lace panel I also made the sleeves full-length and increased the button band (or however you call this if it doesn't have buttons) to 10 stitches in garter stitch. In the first version that I knitted according to the pattern the band keeps on flipping itself around so I wanted to make it a bit heavier. Not sure yet if that issue is solved though because the band is turning by design to make the transition in the neck.

Still a great pattern and I just realized that I now also fulfilled my self-imposed obligation to knit at least three pieces from the "Making" magazine to make it worth the shipping from the US. Score! And I'm especially proud to finish this project because I knitted it during my maternity leave and believe me, it was not easy to find the time with a screaming baby around.

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Pattern: "Marigold" by Cecily Glowik MacDonald, published in "Making" Magazine, issue 1 "Flora"
Yarn:  Rowan Fine Tweed, colourway 380 "Nappa"