Felting, ripping, ripping and knitting

I got a bargain at my LYS several weeks back. Eleven balls of this cotton yarn for just 50p each.

So just over a month ago I decided to take the plunge and knit this:

From this book:

Having never cabled anything other than practice squares it is proving quite a challenge. After ripping it out twice, because I cast on for the wrong cardi twice,

I then knitted the rib and a few rows...and then left it for a few weeks.

Fatal because unless I write a very clear note to myself I forget where I got to and am hopeless at working it out by counting rows.

This morning I decided to knit so before I began I ripped what I had done before and started again.

And then had to rip it again as I had cast on and done the rib for the wrong cardi - again!

Not one to quit I decided maybe I was getting confused trying to decifer the pattern - no kidding!

So wrote down only the bits relevant to me:

I have now managed to get this far and have realised maybe I need to change to longer pins before I start dropping stitches!

It's lovely soft yarn but I find it very slippy to work on cable needles. A bent cable needle is helping but it does require all my concentration. This will not be coming out whilst the children are around!

I'm knitting age 5 to 6 as my knitting is quite loose (and it only goes up to age 5 to 6!). So I'd better get cracking so that Minx gets some wear out of it. At least it should be long enough and I can always add a little extra on the sleeves.

Last night I had a play with my needle felting kit. It is so lovely to do and I had no idea what was going to emerge so it was really freeing to just go with the flow.

I will make the flowers into brooches and may sew some beads into the centres for some extra texture.

How about this little guy?

I was quite pleased with my first attempts and only stabbed myself twice and broke one needle.

The snail hasn't been named but Sausage and Minx are working on it.

My embellisher should be here tomorrow - sooooo excited!

I did a bit of blog lurking this morning and found two sites I haven't visited before:

Monkee Maker who knits beautiful monkeys - check out her funny adventures with 007

and Lucy Locket who has some beautiful patchwork pieces to drool over.

Now of course I also need to be knitting monkeys!