Finished (ish)

I've always wanted to take a photo of something I've knitted from the wearer's point of view, but I've never had a good enough camera before. You will have to excuse these 'in the mirror' shots - no time for a proper photoshoot.

Anyway, the FO is Catriona by Debbie Bliss. I had wanted to make this top for ages (I just loved the cable pattern) but convinced myself that buying yet another knitting book for just the one pattern was an extravagance. Then I discovered the wonders of prima magazine's online knitting archive. The project is ravelled here, but the stats for blog record are as follows:

Needles: 3.0 mm & 2.5 mm addi circs.
Yarn: 6.5 skeins of Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 Ply in 'monet'. The first skein was a christmas present from my brother, I just added a few more to make it into a whole garment - thanks for the inspiration Jim!
Mods: I worked in the round till v-neck divide, then seporate pieces flat. I contemplated steeking, but was too much of a wimp. Only two little seams for the shoulders, which if I'd been thinking I could have kitchenered. As usual, I did the entire thing without the aid of a cable needle. I also sketched out a chart as, it being a Debbie Bliss pattern there wasn't one and I prefer things pictorially.

The project actually started out as the chevron lace top from Romantic Style (wip shot here). I also adapted that to work in the round, but just after I divided for the arms I decided it wasn't nearly as nice as it looked in the pattern photos (especially the non-lace bits under the armpits), so frogged it down to the ribbing.

I'm very pleased with it, the sleeves are way more flattering than I thought they'd be - I might work up a design using similar sleeves if I have time this summer.

And in non-knitting life, here's a very nearly done work-in-progress and a very exciting 'finished object'. The wip is a print-out of my thesis. My 2nd-supervisor wanted a paper copy to read from, and because I'd just been treating it electronically, only occasionally printing a chapter at a time, I'd not really had an idea of its size before. Thank goodness I inherited a box of my Dad's giant paperclips (he orchestrated film scores, he needed good paperclips). The FO is a book of academic essays I co-edited.

Today is 'polishing off conclusion day'. Then I'm emailing the thesis to my mum for a proof-read and running off to Oxford for the weekend for a History of Science conference.