Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a beret pie

I have finished a couple of things in the last few days. Firstly, the Broderie cardigan.

The yarn is Old Maiden Aunt Merino/Bamboo 4 ply ,which produces a cushy, soft fabric with just a touch of bamboo sparkle. This is the same yarn I used for my Hungry Bees socks (which I really must finish...), and here as there it is a lovely thing to work with. This colourway, 'Lon-Dubh', means blackbird in Gaelic, and is a deep blue-black which to me seems to have an air of Victorian melancholy about it.

This is an excellent, well-written pattern. The only minor modifications I made were to knit the sleeves top-down and attached to the body, and to add a seed stitch hem to the bottom edges to prevent curling.

This may just be my new favourite jumper!

I also completed Ysolda's Rose Red Beret. I've had the yarn to make this for a while; in fact, I think I must have bought it shortly after the tragic failure of my first attempt at this pattern. I was still something of a rookie knitter at that point, and I found the lace so difficult I had to shut myself away from the world and enter a higher plane of concentration to attempt it. When I finally finished, I cast off victoriously... and far too tightly. Trying to get that hat on was somewhat painful, and rather resembled the international sign for loaf roasting.

By contrast, this time around it was a dream to knit, the fuzzy angora blend keeping me company like a little rabbit nestled on my lap. Beret nice indeed...