Left to right: Veilchen, Versuchskaninchen, Lowenzahn, Miss May, Poison Nr 5. All in 100% Superwash. Direct from the source.
Drool!

The hedgehog, he is done.

Em has dubbed him “Hedgie”

He is so adorably cute, it’s almost nauseous.
Specs:
Pattern: Huggable Hedgehogs by Debbie Radtke for Fiber Trends
Yarn: Main yarn is Ella Rae Classic, Paws are Lincraft Cosy Wool, the Floof is Sandnes Garn Funny.
Needles: 6.5mm and 8mm Knitpicks Options.
Thoughts:
This was a relatively easy knit. It’s all in garter stitch, the hardest skills required are picking up stitches and short rows.
Of course, short rows require counting, and I can’t concentrate that long, so there was some tinking involved.
The Ella Rae Classic felts like a dream. One wash cycle was all he needed to get to the feltedness I wanted. He did shrink quite a bit, but I didn’t think to take before and after measurements.
I picked up packets of cheap eyes and noses at Spotlight, and I now own enough eyes to make 6 more hedgehogs! If I were to make him again, I think I’d hold the floof double, as I think he’s looking a little threadbare. I might also use a darker yarn on his back, as I think the light coloured yarn makes him look even more threadbare. If I’d used darker yarn on his back, it wouldn’t be so obvious.
In the end though, a complete success. He is intended for David’s sister, but I think there will be a struggle to extract him from Emily.
And just to push the cute level right over the edge in this post, I actually got Twinkie to snuggle with me yesterday morning. Please pardon the morning hair and pyjamas, I don’t think Twink would’ve let me go get dressed so a picture could be taken.

Altogether now… “aawwww”

Updates on the last post. Keep in mind that the in progress pictures in the last post were mostly taken last weekend. I knit a lot, and I knit pretty fast, but I ain’t a knitting superhero.
First up, the Anastasia socks. I did mention in the last post that I finished the first one at the Guild meeting on Monday. I *almost* finished it, anyway. All that remained was the cast off, so I finally sat down and figured out a sewn cast off.

I cast on the second one yesterday, and I’ve worked on it pretty exclusively since then, and I’ve just finished the heel. I don’t usually work that hard on socks, but the mood was with me today!
The reason I’ve had time to work on the socks is because I stayed up very late on Wednesday night, and i finished the hedgehog! Well, the knitting part, anyway.
Here’s how he looked pre-felting.


Today he took a nice hot spa in the washing machine. I didn’t think to measure him before I felted him, but he shrank quite a lot.
Here’s how he looks right now.

Isn’t he cute? He’s currently firmly stuffed with plastic bags. The weather here is cold and grey, so I don’t know how long he’ll take to dry. I almost want to cast on another straight away!
But I shan’t because there are bunches of other things I want to cast on, which is what’s helping me zoom through the current projects.
My final work in progress is Em’s Deep Rib Jumper. The back is done, the sleeves begun.


Maybe I should stick to sweaters for Emily knit in nice thick yarn! Zoom, zoom, zoom!

Well, there’s plenty in the wings, as usual.
The Anastasia socks are growing nicely. Here’s a pic from Sunday.

On Monday, I finally took myself along to a Knitters Guild meeting. I had no idea that the meeting would go for over four hours, but I finished the sock! Now I have one more to do before Mothers Day.
The Knitters Guild isn’t for me, I’m afraid. I’ve joined anyway, and I’m going to do the courses by correspondence. Although a four hour straight knitting marathon with morning tea every month might not be a bad idea!
My hedgehog is also coming along nicely, and no longer looks like a squashed frog (Once Angie pointed that out, it’s all I could see!)

He has fuzz now.
And the sweater I showed a glimpse of a few posts back is Em’s Deep Rib Sweater.

Working with a yarn at 16sts/10cm is far more rewarding than working with a yarn at 25sts/10cm! I’ve almost finished the back now.
The yarn is Patons Jet. Em picked the colour, but it’s a discontinued one, shade number 12. I hope I have enough! I bought 9 balls from Ozeyarn, (the last they had), then I got another 3 balls from eBay, but they were the wrong dyelot.
The Happy Spider had 2 balls of the right dyelot, so she agreed to swap with me, so fingers crossed that all will be well!

Done.

David took about a billion pictures, and I hate them all equally. It’s a grey stormy day in Sydney, and we had to run out between rain showers. And the thunder is just moving back in again.
At any rate, the Lace and Cables Sweater is done.

Specs: Lace and Cables Sweater, by Jo Sharp, from Knit 2.
Yarn: Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette in Musk
Needles: Knit Picks Fixed Circulars in 3.25mm.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with it, but I do have a few complaints. (What else is new?) The body is a little short, and the sleeves are a little long. I can live with the sleeves, but I can tell I’m going to be pulling at the bottom of the sweater a lot. If I really can’t live with it, I may end up undoing the cast on edge, and making it a bit longer, but I don’t have much yarn left. From the picture I should have known it would be short, but I thought the model was just wearing her pants very low.
Half of the pictures that David took were vetoed because my tummy was showing.
The other complaint I have is the sizing. Jo Sharp has a big difference in her sizes, 10cm (4″) to be precise. I fell smack in the middle of two sizes, so I took the safe route and went with the larger size, but now I wish I’d gone with the smaller. It’s not a big deal, but I think it would be better a little more fitted.
The yarn is really, really nice to work with, and I’m happy with the resulting fabric. However, be warned, it is a little itchy to wear against the skin. It’s nice and soft to knit though!