Knitting and an ambitious plan

Life has prevented sewing for the last week, but I do need my little fix of making every day, so I've been knitting instead.

We snuck away to Norfolk last weekend and I had several lovely hours (whilst hubby slept on and made the most of the child free lay ins) over Saturday and Sunday morning watching Downton Abbey and experimenting with some lace patterns.  I was still playing early this week, but yesterday I settled on the perfect pattern.

Kernal by Bonnie Sennott

I'm not making a scarf though, or not exactly, more a scarf inspired sort of cardigan-ish shrug thing.  I know what I mean.  I'll keep you posted with my progress.  I plan to use the lower border lace pattern for the front and the main panel pattern on the back.  I know, hard to picture.  But I have this beautiful yarn.

The beginning, a front.  It will eventually
be blocked, of course.

The photograph doesn't do the colour justice - think fields of wheat in glorious sunshine, a vibrant variegated yarn ranging from sunny yellow to almost orange.  It's a blend of 80% acrylic and 20% mohair from Stylecraft called Senses, in ochre.  My local yarn shop doesn't have much lace weight yarn but they had this and it's inexpensive, a good place for me to start I thought.

So, the ambitious plan... I know I'm not the only one who can't find the clothes she wants in ready to wear.  I know that I'm also not the only one who's fallen into the trap (too many times) of making up beautiful dresses from beautiful patterns that then languish in the wardrobe because they're more suited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace than they are to the school run or cleaning out the chickens.  And I'm definitely not the only one who has to alter just about every pattern and grade between two, sometimes three and even occasionally four different sizes to get a good fit.  

It seems sensible, given all of the above, to move on from other people's patterns to my own. I have very definite ideas about what I want to wear and I know enough (well, I probably don't, but it's never stopped me before) to get started.  And I will, of course, document all my efforts here - every glorious success, every learning-from-my-mistakes failure and anything that falls into both or neither camp.

Words of advice are welcome.