Thrifted yarn

Look at what I bought from the Op Shop!! This half knitted cardi was bundled in with the knitting patterns....it was all scrunched into, and sealed, in a plastic bag. I didn't really know what I'd bought till I got it home..ok,I knew that it was an unfinished knitting project, but I had no idea of the size and the amount of extra balls! The cardi is huge and is missing a sleeve. The yarn is 100% cotton, and really, really soft. The stamp on the pattern (yep, the pattern was included!), was from Hitchin in the UK, so it's a well travelled project (oh to be able to knit on planes again *sigh*...Aus still hasn't lifted its ban!). Ok...so after getting it home, I decided that it will be frogged and given a 'new life'. I apologise (sorry! sorry! sorry!) to the person who spent so much time and effort knitting this cardi...I feel wrong undoing it, but the yarn WILL be put to good use. Ooooow, I forgot to tell you how much it cost....drumroll...$3.50...wow! :-)

Now for the knitting that I'VE been doing :-) I started making Knitty's Tubey

I've loved this pattern for ages...It's got everything I like...shrug-like shoulders, bell sleeves, ribbed and fitted body, it's mainly knitted in tubes (!!), and it should look great in the Sean Sheep Classic Wool that I bought a few weeks back. My striping sequence will be different from the pattern (dependant on how much I've got of each colour), and the gauge was changed using the instructions here. The piece knitted so far, is the across the shoulders bit, which is the only part that isn't a tube....I'm looking forward to doing the tubey bit :-)

*Thanks heaps to everyone for all the cool comments left on this blog, and on other forums and blogs, about my red sweater and baby hoody...Ungraspable asked a question here about new knitters using EZ books: Personally, I think that it would probably be better for a new knitter to follow a couple of written patterns first, before using EZ's general instructions, just to get a feel for design options...books such as The Yarn Girls would be a great place to start. If you did wanna 'jump in' with EZ, I think that I would buy some very cheap yarn, and maybe start with a small (maybe kids size) sweater...? That's what I'll be doing to test out some of EZ's techniques..namely steeking (cutting your knitting with scissors...aaagggh!!!)

hope this helps :-)*