FOs: Eyelet yoke cardigan and Drops baby cardigan

It's been a productive week.

Three and a half hours spent sitting at the local hospital having blood tests to rule out gestational diabetes meant lots of extra time for knitting. Add that to an enforced deadline of Wednesday night for one of the baby cardigans and you get two FOs within the space of just over a week.

FO 1: Eyelet yoke cardigan (Rav link) (pattern link)
This was a gift for A's teacher. She's due her second around the same time I am, and as school finished on Thursday, and Belgians aren't quite as superstitious as the Irish about giving baby gifts so early, I decided I'd do a little baby cardigan for her. Of course, I only decided this on Saturday evening.
It turned out quite nice. I wasn't 100% happy with it - once again I neglected to calculate the gauge properly (you'd think I'd have learnt by now), so it turned out huge. And there was no indication of dimensions or length in the pattern so there was a bit of guess work required. Overall, though it made a cute cardigan, it's a lovely pattern and I suspect it may make an appearance again. Madame S seemed to like it too.

I found the buttons in the depths of my knitting basket. I'm sure I got them for some specific purpose ages ago, but they seemed made for this little cardigan.


















FO 2: Drops baby cardigan (Rav link) (pattern link)
My first attempt at a drops pattern. It felt a bit like the knitting equivalent of riding a bike without stabilisers for the first time! As @bioniclaura told me on twitter... more like guidelines than a pattern. Well, the guidelines worked wonders. I did have to resort to pen and paper to map out the yoke, just to be sure I had it right. I'd grabbed some lovely cotton/milk fibre yarn (Linea Pura Latte from Lana Grossa) as I was running out the door to the hospital on Wednesday, so had to cast on with what I had. The stitch gauge was right, but I'm not sure the row gauge was. Something went wrong with the neckline in any case. But I love it. If the yarn blocks as nicely as I expect it to, I'll be doing a few more of these - I bought quite a bit of the yarn a while ago, but never quite figured out what to do with it.

Next up? A hat to match the drops cardigan (already cast off). And then, when I get a quiet evening, finally plucking up the courage to do that steeking I've been putting off...