Itching To Cast On New Projects........

Hello there, how was your Valentine weekend? We don't make a big thing of it but he did buy me a card, though I feel a bit bad as I didn't send one. This year's card was very pretty with a vintage feel, he always try's to buy one with some handmade elements, this year it has buttons.

I thought while we were talking about Valentine's, I would share these beautiful, embroidered Sweetheart cards that my Grandad sent to my Gran during the Second World War. He was stationed in France hence the British and French Flags, my Grandad had the most beautiful handwriting and I feel very privileged to have these wonderful keepsakes.

It's very unlike me to just have a couple of projects on the needles and I've been itching to cast on a new project using some of my stash. On top of one of my baskets, that is full of mostly Rowan yarn that I purchased in the sale, was some Rowan Alpaca Colour which is unbelievably soft and squishy. I decided I wanted to use this, I thought it would be a really comforting yarn to knit with on these cold winter evenings so I've been perusing Ravelry, books and magazines for inspiration.

It's a DK weight and I had 4 X 50g skeins at 120m per skein so the beauty of Ravelry is when I go to the pattern search and click advanced search I can tick what weight and yardage I want the pattern to be. After ticking the boxes I wanted, up came a list of patterns suitable but the one that caught my eye was the French Cancan by Mademoiselle C which I have knit before in Sublime Merino Silk so very different to what I'm using this time, you can see my first one here.

The reason I love this pattern apart from the way it looks and the beautiful cable border, is you can knit it as small or as large as you want, depending on the amount of yarn you have, leaving 40% of your yarn for the border.

The main body is a simple garter stitch which I know some people find quite boring but I love this stitch. I find it very therapeutic and is perfect to knit on if watching TV or talking if you have company, the yarn I'm using is perfect for garter stitch as its even more squishy. I started it last night and I'm now on my second ball of yarn, I think I'll have this finished by next week!!!!

I've been working on my Old Romance and now have two complete sleeves so now I'm on the main body, this will take a while, as there's miles of stockinette now, I'm a lot slower knitting purl so I'll be knitting on smaller projects inbetween. I'm still loving it and can't wait to wear it, I'm aiming to finish by April, just in time for Spring.

I've also been working on my Latte Baby Coat and have picked up the stitches and completed the front edges, I've washed it and now need to knit the little pockets and add some buttons. I'm hoping to have this finished by the weekend so I can give it to him on Sunday.

I'm just turning the heel on my February Personal Mystery Sock Yarn 2015 socks for my husband. They are just plain vanilla socks, my husband's birthday is in March so I have plenty of time though I do want them off the needles by the end of the month so I can start March's socks.

I've started the fifth book of the year and the prompt from Bringing Up The Burns, 26 Books to Read in 2015, is........

5: A Book Published This Year.

I chose The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q by Sharon Maas, now if I'm honest I chose this book as it was on offer in the Kindle store. I never buy books in hardback unless they are special editions, I always wait until it's in paperback.

On saying this, after reading the blurb and the reviews, it sounded like a story that I would enjoy, a saga spanning over the years set in London and Guyana. I'm on chapter five and it hasn't disappointed, I like the main characters and I'm enjoying the author's descriptive writing.

I'm linking to Nicole's KCCO over at Frontier Dreams and Ginny's Yarn Along where you'll find some beautiful projects and lots of inspiration.

Thank you for stopping by, have a great week.

xxxxDebxxxx