I've been very busy!

I've been knitting and purling my fingers off! I've finished (with the exception of a button) my first bucket list item, a cardigan for Bella! It was a real learning process and it's definitely not perfect but I'm really proud that I've done it.

I started on the 4th of January and finished this morning, the 23rd of January... I knitted almost every day for a few hours (some days more than others) so it's taken me a very long time! I'd estimate maybe 80+ hours has gone into Bella's cardigan, I said to Scott yesterday that I need to install a tracking device into it because I'd be devastated if it got lost!

Don't look too closely because there are definitely some mistakes in there... I couldn't figure out how to do the 'one row button hole' properly (and YouTube didn't help!) so it's a bit wonky and my increasing stitches aren't as invisible as I'd like them to be but I'm still proud! I will do another one, probably a smaller size so that Bella can wear it this winter! I've also got a patter for a doll version which would knit up a lot quicker and might be fun :-)

So the knitting techniques I used were:

* Casting on
* Knitting
* Purling
* Increasing stitches (knitting on the front and back of one stitch... AKA k1fb)
* Garter stitch
* Stocking stitch
* Casting off

I've known how to cast on, knit and cast off since I was a little girl but never done anything other than very dodgy scarves so this was a real stretch for me!

I made a '4 year' size and it's definitely too big for her. I'm glad that I made it a lot bigger rather than maybe too small though, it was a huge investment of time and effort and I would have been really annoyed if it didn't fit! So once I get a button stitched on it's all done!

So this is what I was aiming for...

This is what I made...