I had a bit of a sad moment last week. We had our first LRP event of the year, and it was a particularly wet and muddy weekend. Naturally, this meant my kit was also incredibly wet and muddy when I got home. This isn't usually a problem, as I have been relatively sensible in buying and making costume for the events which is machine washable. Including the handknits.

About three years ago, I made a gorgeous pair of gloves to wear at events, which were suitably elven in design to fit with my character, but modern and warm enough to keep my hands properly warm in the sometimes sub-zero temperatures.

They were the leafy fingerless gloves and I made them from Knit Picks Palette in a lovely deep green shade called Ivy. I have worn these gloves at every event I've attended since (even the ones in midsummer, as it still gets cold in the evenings). I had no qualms about throwing them in the washing machine; they survived every time when I washed them in the machine in our old house. So when we came back from the last event, I didn't even really think about it when I chucked them in the brand new washing machine in our new house.

Which was a mistake. My beautiful gloves, that have served me so faithfully, are a shrunken felted mess.

After moping about for a bit about this self made disaster (this is the first time I've ever ruined anything I've made!) I decided that the only thing for it would be to knit a replacement pair. I've not got long until the next event, and while I've got speedier with my knitting since I made these, they took me four months last time and I only have a few weeks. So I went on the hunt for a new pattern, one that would knit up quickly.

That meant heavier yarn, and losing the fingers. But I wanted to keep the green, and the leaves. And of course, for the new gloves to be made from definitely machine washable yarn!

These fit the bill perfectly. The pattern is a free pattern, found here. The yarn I have used is Cascade 220 Superwash, in the Lichen colourway. So quick and easy to knit up, I made these gloves in two days over the Easter weekend. They are warm and comfortable, and most importantly, should be machine washable!

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to rustle up another FO for this week's update, especially after the success of a pair of socks in a week last week. With the socks off the needles, the only YoP projects I had on the go were all long term affairs. Pogona is progressing well, but hasn't changed enough to be worthy of having more photos taken. My test knit of my Star Trek charts for my nerdy sofa cushions hasn't got to an interesting stage yet, consisting mostly of a large rectangle of black stocking stitch, so there's no pictures of that either. And Chunari is still hibernating, although I did briefly get it out and look at it the other day. I really do need to be in the right mood for laceweight knitting!

The other night, however, I decided to cast on something else from my queue, something which would hopefully be a nice quick knit. The Jayne Cobb hat. Unfortunately, I didn't have a circular needle of the right length, so I had to cast on with DPNs, which made for a very awkward knitting process and rather slow progress.

However, I went to Unravel at the weekend (where I spent a lovely couple of hours wandering about the place with Sarah from Crafts from the Cwtch and Wink of A Creative Being). I only made a few purchases (which completely blew my budget out of the water).

Among all the yarn pretties, you will have noticed a new cable for my interchangeable needles. I now have a 16" cable, which means knitting hats of any size just became a whole lot easier! As soon as I got home, I fixed up the cable with my 7mm needles, and transferred the stitches across. Needless to say, the hat got knit a whole lot quicker after that!

More on the hat in a moment while I digress slightly to talk about the yarns I purchased. Despite not having yet knit a single stitch on the three Easyknits skeins I already own, I picked up two more. The first was definitely on my list of things to buy, a sushi sock roll to knit Jon's Orbit shawl with. I bought the pattern at Unravel last year, and have been holding off knitting it until I had the perfect gradiated skein of yarn to use. I spent a long time debating colours, but settled on Killer Queen, which is a gorgeous combination of electric blue, purple and pink. Of course, I spent so long at Jon's stand that I couldn't help myself, and another skein of Deeply Wicked sort of fell into my hands as well. Another electric blue, as I've grown fond of the colour since knitting my Arctic socks last week!

The third skein I picked up is something I've been wanting to get my hands on for a while. Indigodragonfly yarns have been on my want list for many years, and it's all Keri's fault. I've been reading about all the indigodragonfly yarns she uses for years, and long lamented its lack of availability in this country. But at Unravel last year I discovered that Aragon Yarns are the only UK stockist of this gorgeous yarn, so when I saw their name on the exhibitor list again this year I decided I was definitely going to walk away from the show with something. Not only is the yarn gorgeously soft (it's merino/cashmere/nylon - way too nice for socks if you ask me, I shall be using it for a shawl) and dyed in fantastic colours, it's the names of the colourways which really makes this yarn stand out. Each colour is named after a fabulously geeky quote. The colour I chose is My name is Indigo Montoya, which is a play on words on a quote from The Princess Bride. I'm not adding any of these yarns to my list this year, but I guarantee you that when July rolls around this year, this skein will be top of my list!

Anyhoo, back to my FO for the week. Once I'd switched to the circulars, I flew through the rest of the hat and finished it on Sunday morning.

I made a few modifications to the pattern as written, because I was working with a chunkier yarn and Jamie has a big head. I cast on 64 stitches, did 2x2 rib instead of 1x1 (mainly because I hate doing 1x1), and made the whole thing longer. It's got about 4 inches of orange after the inch of rib, and then 4 inches of yellow before the very sharp decreases. I also added a couple of rows of icord on the ear flaps before casting off.

Jamie claimed it didn't need a pom pom, but I wanted to stay true to the original hat as seen in Firefly. So he got a red and orange pom pom, but it's not particularly bulky. I'm pleased with the finished hat, and he loves it too. And more importantly, I can cross another FO off my list!

It's no secret that I love stationery. My husband knows this well, and so every Christmas I get something interesting in my stocking. This year was no exception, as I got the Happy Jackson notebook you see above, as well as quite possibly the coolest gadget I have ever owned - an electric pencil sharpener! I spent a good portion of Christmas Day/Boxing Day sat cross legged on my living room floor, merrily sharpening all of my coloured pencils.

I decided straight away that I would indeed use this notebook to keep track of my ideas and plans, so it has become my place for noting down ideas for patterns, new ways to organise my craft spaces etc. I've been going a bit crazy on Pinterest of late, particularly my Sewing board. I was looking for a pattern for a DPN roll, and an interchangeable needle roll, and nothing I found was quite right. So, I picked tutorials which were roughly what I was after, and got out my notebook and pencil to sketch out my cunning plans.

I started with the DPN roll, as that seemed the more straightforward of the two. I had picked up a gorgeous set of fat quarters while shopping for fabric for costumes, and decided straight away that this was the project to use it in.

I have three different height pockets, so there is space for the longest, shortest and inbetweenist needles in my collection.

The only thing I forgot to do was add the ribbon to tie it shut before I did my side seam! I'm not too bothered, as the weight of the needles inside holds it shut when it's rolled up and sitting on the shelf with the rest of my needles. This roll has more space in it than the one I was using previously, which had been a free gift in a magazine, and is now being used to house my straight needles.

The interchangeable needle case was a little trickier. I looked at tutorial after tutorial, and in the end decided I would just have to decide exactly what I needed my roll to be, and figure it out myself. And that is exactly what I did.

The new and exciting technique used for this project was piping. I'd never done piping before, but happened to have a load of left over black bias binding and some old string kicking about from previous projects. I found a tutorial on Pinterest and just cracked on with it. The end result is, I am pleased to say, not that bad. The bit where the piping crosses over itself and dives into the seam is hidden by the ribbon when the roll is done up.

Inside, there are pockets for each pair of needles I got with my set of Knit Pro interchangeable needles, three pockets for the three different lengths of cable and a closeable pocked which houses the tightening keys and cable ends. So much nicer than the clear plastic case that came with the set!

I have to say, now that I have the space to sew, I am remembering how much I love doing it! And all of the non-clothing projects I have done so far have been so quick and easy, with brilliant results. I am also already developing something of a fat quarter habit, which is dangerous!

A day late with an update this week, but I couldn't not stop by and share my sock progress! Last week I shared a photo of my red and white stripey socks, and I am pleased to report that I actually finished them later on that day.

Buoyed by my socky success, I immediately wound another skein of sock yarn and cast on another pair of socks. This time using a skein of Candy Skein yarn I bought back in January 2012. It's the sock club colourway from that month, Arctic Mint. If memory serves, this was one of the earliest sock club colours that Tami did.

I took the above picture yesterday morning, in preparation for writing a post then about how amazed I was that I'd knit a sock and a half in a week. However, the rugby kicked off before I managed to get the photos onto the computer, and by the time the game was over...

I knit a pair of socks in a week! I'm so pleased with myself. The pattern is Bandwagon Socks by Phreadde Davis, which is more of a recipe for the socks than a pattern per se, as most of the elements for the pattern come from other patterns. So I didn't feel so bad about making my own modifications.

First up, I have tried and failed on numerous occasions to get to grips with Judy's magic cast on, and therefore replaced the toe with my now standard short row toe. Second, I looked at the instructions in the pattern for the toe up gusseted heel, but didn't feel confident enough about them to try to follow them. So I stuck with what I know, and substituted a short row heel as well.

The rest then became second nature, as I know exactly how many rows I need to knit for the foot to fit me, when I've got fingering weight yarn, 2.5mm needles and have cast on for 64 stitches! The only other modification I made was to adjust where in the chart I started when I got to the second sock, as I wanted them to be matching. So I started the chart halfway through on foot 2, so that when I wore the socks the zig zag of the yarn overs would be mirror opposites.

I'm incredibly pleased with these socks, and the surprising realisation that it was actually quicker to knit patterned socks than it was to knit plain ones! I plan to wear them to Unravel on Saturday, if I make it.

Another month has passed, and I have singularly failed to update on my progress. There has been progress, but I've also been fairly busy and haven't had time to do things like take decent photos, or sit down and write a post. I'm hopeful this will change going forward, as I have a new laptop which will make writing posts a lot less of a hassle, and I've just found this tutorial on Pinterest for making a light box, which will make taking photos in the dark winter evenings a lot easier. I even have a cardboard box lying around in my kitchen which will be perfect for it!

There is one thing which may interrupt a regular posting schedule again, though, as we were told last week that our landlords want to sell the house, so we are being forced to move house again. We have to be out by 8th April, so I may be a little distracted over the next few months. Luckily, the two main projects I have on the go right now don't require a lot of concentration, and can easily be picked up and put down again after only having worked a few stitches here and there.

My stripey socks are coming along well. While it has taken me longer than my target ten days to finish, that's mostly down to the fact that I put them away and then ignored them for a couple of weeks! Since taking this photo yesterday I have finished the foot, turned the heel and made a solid start on the ankle. I'm about 40 rows away from the cuff, which means about 50 rows from completion. There's probably enough yarn left in the ball to make a second pair, but I have other plans for it. Plans which involve food colouring!

Last time I updated I said Pogona would probably be the next shawl I cast on, and it turns out I was right. I started this earlier this week, as a way of soothing myself following the bad news about the house. I'm using Wollmeise Twin in Mouseballet, but it's a We're Different skein so the colours aren't perfect. The colours are striping and pooling in odd ways, as the colour changes are so short, and I'm interested to see how it looks once the shawl gets bigger. So far, I'm enjoying this pattern as it's so simple. Now I've done my final set of marker placements, all I have to do is knit the same two rows over and over again until it's big enough. And since I have a whole 150g of yarn to play with, it might end up a bit bigger than it's supposed to!

As I'm likely to finish the socks this week, I've already thought about what I want to cast on next - the Bandwagon Socks that have been sat at the top of my Ravelry queue for quite a while now. If I get through those as quickly as the plain socks then I think I'll be on track for finishing at least 4 pairs of socks in this Year of Projects.

It's been a while since I updated on my progress of my fourth Year of Projects (in fact, I haven't updated at all since I posted my list and first post back in July... ooops!). While I've been pretty busy over the summer/autumn, and haven't had much time to blog, I have been working on things and making some progress towards my goals.

Firstly, the outstanding WIPs that needed finishing. I still haven't got around to blocking Peerie Flooers, which is quite frankly becoming embarrassing. It has now been two years since this hat came off my needles. Two years! I simply must get round to it soon - I don't want to be carrying this forward to the fifth Year of Projects in July.

Chunari is currently hibernating. With no firm due date in mind, and no real idea as to when I will ever wear it once it is finished, there really is no incentive to get it finished. Which is something of a shame, as I am sure it will be stunning once completed.

However, I do have one completed WIP from last year's list! My Knotty Gloves were started in February 2014, and I knit all but the thumb of the first glove before losing interest and moving on to something else. At Christmas, I was inspired to pick them back up again (the influence of one of my knitterly friends, who was staying with us over the holiday) and in less than two days I finished off the first glove, and successfully completed the second!

The yarn is Knit Picks Palette in Serrano, and I used less than one ball. If I'd been paying more attention, I would have reversed the cables on the second glove so they were a matching pair. As it was, I had to rip them back and start over due to not paying enough attention, so I think if I'd been trying to reverse the chart as well I would have made a lot more mistakes!

There were a lot of socks and shawls on my list this year, probably more than I will now have time to finish, since we are less than six months away from the end of this challenge and we are only a few months away from a new LARP season! So far, though, I have managed to complete one shawl, and a hat (which replaces one of the shawls on the list), and have started on the first pair of socks!

Andalusia is another fabulous shawl from the wonderful Mimi Codd. After knitting Mrs Tumnus in 2013 I knew I would enjoy knitting another of Mimi's horseshoe shaped shawls. I used Zauberball for this one, in a rather vibrant pink colourway. Frustratingly, I ran out of yarn about four rows from the end, and had to order another ball. So instead of using up a ball from my stash, this shawl has actually had zero impact on the amount of yarn left on the shelves!

I had originally put the Spring Leaves scarf on my list with plans to use my Madeleinetosh Tosh Merino Light. However, the colouring in this yarn really doesn't match up well with lace patterns, and is much better suited to plain stocking stitch. So out went the scarf idea, and in came the Sockhead Hat. I've seen several of my knitting friends make this hat before, so I knew it would be a winner. The colours look amazing and it's incredibly warm for such a light yarn. I haven't blocked it, as I don't think it needs it. It is the perfect pattern for mindless knitting. No need to count rows or stitches till you get to the decreases; just row after row of effortless stocking stitch in the round. Perfect for knitting during a James Bond film marathon!

Starting on the endless list of socks (I think there are at least five pairs on the list!), I have opted for simple vanilla socks in this striking England colourway from Regia. I have plain white which I am using for the toes and heels, so the stripes stay consistent, as this is something I didn't do with my knee high socks and I don't like the way self-striping yarn goes a bit funny over the short row heel. So far, I am making good progress, as I only cast on yesterday and am already almost at the heel. The first time I made Wendy's Generic Toe Up Socks it took me ten days, so I'm hoping to knock these out in the next couple of weeks.

I'm fairly sure that unless something drastic changes, I will focus on the things on my list where a yarn and pattern have already been assigned. So socks, and probably one other shawl. I'm leaning towards Pogona at the moment, as a nice excuse to knit with Wollmeise again.

With respect to the nerdy section of my list, I have made relatively good progress there too. Of the four Doctor Who themed cross stitch charts I designed, two are now completed and just waiting for frames.

I've also finished the third of the Game of Thrones charts and am now deciding which one to tackle next. Something with a less complicated chart, I think, as this lion was tricky.

Finally, I got around to designing the chart for my Star Trek cushions, and started knitting the first one the other day. There is endless black stocking stitch to go before I get to the interesting bit though, so no progress pics of this one until it gets to the good stuff!

I was worried that I would come to review my progress so far and find I had done nothing at all, but considering everything else I've been up to, I don't think my progress is too disappointing. I just need to keep up the momentum now I've regained some of my urge to knit, and hopefully will have more to update with in the coming weeks.

Hey everyone! I knew that I hadn't posted in a while, but it wasn't until a friend visited last weekend and pointed out that I hadn't posted in ages that I realised it has been about two months since my last post! Unfortunately, life has got in the way of crafting, or doing particularly interesting things, so I haven't had all that much to post about. There are a few things I've made/done/worked on in these last few months that haven't made it onto the blog, however, so I'm going to try and catch up over the next few weeks. The new Year of Projects starts next week as well, which will be an extra kick to get me back into my good habits.

So, as it's Friday, I'll start things off by linking up with Tami and sharing a finished project.

I cast this on back at the end of March, when I was ill with a virus and not keen on knitting complicated lace-and-beads or intarsia. The yarn is Stylecraft Harlequin Chunky and the pattern I chose to use was the Sulka Scarflette. It was incredibly quick and easy to knit up (only a couple of hours in total) but it took me almost a week because I was so ill I couldn't knit many rows before having to put it down again. It also took me a while to decide where to put the buttons!

I haven't worn it yet because the weather warmed up considerably after I made this, and I think it would be best suited to the really cold days in January and February. So for now it is resting on the shelf in the hallway, waiting for winter to roll back around.

Happy Easter! I hope you are all having a lovely long weekend. I have been busy, doing traditional bank holiday activities such as gardening, and cleaning the house. However, I have found time to catch up on some YoP knitting!

Remember the charts I designed for my Game of Thrones inspired blanket? Now the show is back on the air I have been inspired to start working on this again. When I last put it down I was so close to finishing knitting up the first chart. And now I have!

I am now working on the chart for the name Stark, which is proving to be even more irritating than the shield motif. I am using a blend of intarsia and stranded colour work now, as to do this part wholly with intarsia would involve far too many separate bobbins of yarn and it would drive me crazy.

The other thing I have done is finalise the layout of the blanket. I have a large section in the middle which is still to be designed, and I have no idea what I am going to put in it! Originally I was thinking of having it say "Winter is Coming" but the other day my husband suggested something that involves the phrase "valar morghulis" might be cooler. We shall see. I am more inclined to make it an image rather than lots of words as I think that would be less annoying to knit. He did also suggest a picture of the iron throne, but I'm not sure that would work either.

Last weekend I went on a bit of an online spending spree. It started out fairly innocently; I'd seen a pattern in a magazine that I wanted to knit, I had the yarn in my stash but didn't have the right needle. Usually, what I do in this case is go to eBay and find myself a needle in the correct size and length. However, I didn't find anything in the right size apart from the really cheap bamboo needles with those nasty thick plastic cables. While I do have quite a few pairs of those in various sizes, since I started buying nicer needles (like the Addi turbo needle I bought to make my Christmas Stockings, and the KnitPro Novas I used for Mrs Tumnus) I don't really want to go back. But it would cost a fortune to stock up on every needle I need buying posher needles individually.

Once I came to that realisation, I spent a good hour or so browsing the web and reading reviews of the various interchangeable needle sets out there to try and help me decide. I was very tempted by the KnitPro Symfonie set, particularly after reading several comparisons between them and the Addi set (I do like my Addi needles, but looking at the interchangeable set, the needles are nowhere near pointy enough for me). However, my ultimate decision came down to my preference for metal over wood for circular needles.

In the end, I bought a set of Nova interchangeable needles from Hulu Crafts. The set comes with needles from 3.5mm up to 8mm, and four different cables in three different lengths.

For a deluxe set, I have to say it doesn't come with a particularly nice case. It's perfectly serviceable, but having seen the gorgeous cases you get with HiyaHiya needles (see here, Deramores stock them separately to the needles themselves) I feel like I should have a better case for mine! I've had a look around and there's plenty of inspiration out there. Of course, I won't stop with just a case for these, I will figure something out for my fixed circulars as well!

My shopping problem really kicked off once I started wandering the rest of the Hulu Crafts website to see if there was anything else that could slip into my basket while I was there. Sadly, I couldn't quite justify buying more Lily's Sugar'n Creme so I ended up checking out with nothing but the needles in my basket. Not satisfied, I headed straight over to Deramores and started filling my basket with yarny goodies.

There's a lot of black yarn in my parcel, which is completely unintentional! There are two balls of Rico Fashion Fur, which is going to be used to knit this cat which is in a pattern book my husband gave me for Christmas. The ball of Red Heart Baby in brown next to them in the picture above is also for the cat, to do his nose, ears and paws. I am uncertain whether I have enough yarn, as the pattern is not specific about yardage, gauge and size, and there aren't many finished projects on Ravelry either.

The black Bamboo cotton is to supplement the remainder of a ball I already have, to be paired with the half skein of Cascade Ultra Pima Paints cotton I have left over from my trip to San Fransisco.

The rest of the yarn is Stylecraft Special Aran. It has the same gauge as the Cascade 220 I used for $5 in Paris, so I should be able to replicate the project quite easily. This time, I will use three colours, black, red and silver-grey. I haven't decided on the stripe pattern yet, but I do know I want this one to be longer in the body and have longer sleeves than my first version.

Now that I have new yarn, and new needles to play with, I am going to have to try very hard to make sure I finish what I've already started before casting on something new!

Those of you who know me well, will not be surprised to hear that instead of working on my current projects (including one with a deadline to meet!), I have in fact cast on something new. I've not been very well this week; some sort of horrible virus is doing the rounds and I have spent the last four days lying on the sofa in a cloud of misery.

With my brain in such a fog, there was no way I was going to handle delicate lace or knitting on DPNs. I didn't even think I had the brainpower for dealing with my Game of Thrones blanket square, although the trickiest parts of the intarsia are over for now. I needed something simple.

To me, nothing says simple and rewarding quite like working with chunky yarn. I've had this in my stash for some time now, and decided that it was time to use it. I initially planned to crochet it, using this Lion Brand pattern as inspiration for a stripey beanie. I've used it before, and was quite pleased with the results. However, I wasn't enjoying it in this chunky yarn, so went back to the drawing board (i.e. the Ravelry pattern search) to find new inspiration.

This is the result. The pattern is Sulka Scarflette by faerybabys and it is knitting up a treat. It's 13 inches long now and there's still plenty of yarn left. My plan is to knit until I run out, and then attach the buttons in an appropriate place after it's been blocked and I've had a chance to try it on.

Gosh, I've been quiet lately haven't I! The trouble with only have a few projects on the go, and long term projects at that, is that regular updates on them aren't that exciting. Even the most innovative and exciting blogger is going to struggle to get a decent post out of "I've knit 10 more rows on my shawl, and it looks exactly the same as it did before". In all honesty, I've hardly touched Chunari over the last couple of weeks. Projected finish date is now somewhere in May! I'm weeks behind where I was. Ah well, it's not the end of the world. I don't need it till August anyway!

What I have done, though, is get started on my Game of Thrones blanket. The yarn arrived in July last year, but has been sat in a box ever since. The main thing that was putting me off was that in order to knit my charts, I would have to learn how to knit intarsia. What changed that, was this month's issue of Knit Now. With this month's issue came a fabulous 66 page guide to knitting. The directions for intarsia in it are so clear and easy to understand that I felt like I would have no trouble picking it up, so yesterday morning I decided I would start knitting the Stark chart while I watched the rugby.

It started out pretty well, but by the time I had nine different balls of yarn attached to my knitting, I was starting to get in to a real muddle. Lucky for me I never throw anything away, because once I started thinking about ways to resolve the issue, the perfect solution just leapt out at me.

The egg box stops the balls from rolling around. and make it a lot easier to untwist the yarns after each row. Once I'd got the hang of the technique, I started flying through the chart.

So far, so good! I am quite happy with the way the chart is translating into the knitted work, and even on the reverse side, it looks neat. I had to resort to a little bit of stranded knitting in the middle, as it seemed pointless to add a new ball of yarn for just a couple of stitches.

Based on how this chart is knitting up, I have high hopes for the rest of them. The only question really is, which one do I do next?

When I cast on my latest pair of gloves, I didn't realise I was hitting a milestone. These gloves are the 200th project I have recorded in Ravelry since I joined in 2010. Fair enough, some of those projects are tiny and may have only taken an hour or two to make, whereas others are epic projects taking over a year from start to finish. And eleven of those projects have found their way to the frog pond. Even with that in mind, 200 projects in less than four years.. that's an average of 50 projects a year. Fifty! I'll admit, I'm a little bit impressed with myself.

So here is project number 200 then. It's a pair of Knotty Gloves using Knit Picks Palette in a gorgeous bright red. I decided to use the Palette because I had such success with the leafy fingerless gloves I made a couple of years ago. Plus, you know, bright red gloves. Who wouldn't?

What these gloves are reminding me is that I really get frustrated with the amount of faff involved in knitting actual fingers on gloves. The pattern has full fingers, but I prefer my gloves fingerless so I have bound off each finger after 15 rounds. Just the thumb to finish on the left glove, then it's on to the right. Once these are finished, I will be able to throw away my shop bought gloves that I've worn to death over the last few years and are now falling apart! Then all of my gloves will be handknits. I'm never buying gloves again!

I have to say, I have tried very hard to be monogamous to my current YoP project, but it is so difficult! I had a real argument with it last week, when the lace charts were refusing to co-operate and I kept having one too many or one too few stitches on the needle by the end of each row. Due to that, and the casting on of another non-YoP project, I have slipped a bit with progress and am not as far through it now as I wanted to be.

My nifty spreadsheet tracker now tells me I will finish on 25th April, if I religiously knit 10 rows a day from now until then. Last Wednesday, it was saying the 14th, which is another way of saying I haven't really worked on it that much at all since I last posted about it. I'm not overly concerned, because even if I don't finish till May, that's still months before I actually want to wear it!