Knitting (or What I Did in Hospital)

One way to be remembered by the staff is obviously to have an unusual hobby! The number of people who remembered me from my admission last summer (and remembered exactly what I was knitting) was quite amazing, but apparently I'm not the only patient to bring their hobbies to hospital with them. I heard a story from one of the pharmacists of a patient who brought in... Wait for it... A full-size potter's wheel!

That made me feel very minimal with my two pairs of needles and seven balls of wool! And this is what I made:

A pink tank top with a pattern of cable stitch:

My GP is expecting a baby in October, so this pink thing is for her baby. I'm currently working on a blue version, in case it's a boy (see below for a picture of the work in progess). I don't normally 'do' the stereotypical pastel blue and pink knitting, but it felt quite nice for a change.

I ran out of yarn, having not expected to get so much knitting done, so while I was waiting for Richard to visit (and bring the pale blue yarn that I needed for the blue tank top) I decided to make up a pattern, using the same basic shape as the pink one and the yarn that I had left over from the blue jacket (picture below) and the pink tank top. I'm quite pleased with it! I think it would look great on a baby boy (it's for age 3 - 6 months), but I've had a few people insist that it should be for a girl...

And here is the blue jacket, which is one of the reasons that I ran out of yarn. It seemed like quite a big project, and I thought it would keep me out of mischief for most of my first week in hospital at least, but because most of it is worked in stocking stitch, it actually knitted up very fast, which was quite satisfying. It still needs three buttons added to the button band, and I still need to block it (to stop it rolling up at the edges), but apart from that it's finished:

And last, but not least, I started to make a blue version of the pink tank top above. I've finished the back, and this is about 1/3 of the front done. Once that's finished, it's amazingly quick to knit around the neck and arm holes, and then it'll be done and I'll have to come up with a new project!

Thankfully, I popped in to the haberdashery department of my favourite department store on my way home from the hospital yesterday, to find that they had lots of yarn on clearance for half price. Obviously, I got a bit carried away, and came home with lots and lots of new yarn and several new patterns, despite the fact that I have a huge number of patterns already waiting for my attention on Ravelry (if you haven't heard of this site, it's only the BEST website for knitting and crochet that you could possibly imagine!). Some of the new patterns are just gorgeous, and I can't wait to get started on my next project. Watch this space!