46 000 tiny stitches finished! Yay!

46 000 tiny little stranded stitches on 3mm needles finished! Wheeeeeeee! Ten balls of  4-ply yarn (Rowan Fine Nordic Tweed, ordered from Deramores).

This is the second side of the cushion I’m making for our Victorian box settle:-

I love the bracken design – it’ll make me think of the wilds as we set off on our walks. Not that there’s any bracken round here.

So I knitted the triumphant last row. And I sewed my steek stitches to reinforce them before cutting:-

Before I blocked my knitting, I took a photo of my work next to the other side of the cushion, which has already been blocked. The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but the stitches in the blocked knitting are so much better behaved. They lie nice and flat and even, and all those grumpy over-tight stitches I knitted late at night have been evened out:-

So, clearly I need to block this blighter. Into a sink of cool water with a tiny bit of mild detergent it goes. Then a quick  swill around, a quick rinse, and I wrap the piece in a towel to get rid of some of the water. Finally, I pin it out on some towels laid over a polystyrene board, and wait for it to dry:-

Right, that’s done. And I’ve ordered a piece of foam to use as a cushion pad.

So, now to think about the c-word.

Christmas.

There, I’ve said it. Unlike about 105% of the blogosphere, I don’t really think about Christmas until at least 20th December. But I’ve weakened slightly. It is only 3rd December and I have put up some lights in the kitchen. I was shopping, and I saw them, and I fell slightly in love with their miniature silvery perfection. Look at these lovelies!

Does this mean that I need to start thinking about Christmas shopping now?