The sweater-or-dress is long enough that, if it were a sweater, it could be finished. It will not be a sweater, though, because I’ve still got loads of yarn left.

The thing that usually happens when I try something on, happened now as well. It wasn’t quite the way I wanted, so I ripped up a good 10 centimetres. I wanted it to fit very closely around the torso and then flare somewhere around the lower hips, but that didn’t work out. The fabric is somewhat stiff, even with the added silk mohair, so instead of stretching around the body, it rode up and bunched at the waist. It may be that the weight of the skirt would pull it straight, but also maybe not, so it’s not something I want to bet on. Rip up and redo with more width around the hips so that the fabric can hang and drape nicely.

The embroidery I started on Thursday.

When my embroidery design has a solid-colour block with a relatively simple shape, my thoughts always go first to appliqué. I’m trying to break that habit and use stitches to fill the area instead. I get a more interesting surface this way, and I can challenge myself to learn new types of stitches.

This one is called “oriental stitch” in the few books where I’ve seen it, although most other sources use that name to mean something completely different.

The embroidery club has agreed on a theme for the autumn term – make something inspired by the books of Renée Rudebrant. I had been planning to not let myself be sucked into any kinds of themes again, but I do like Renée’s books, and her embroidery style, so I gave in. Put my cardigan decoration project aside and switched tracks. I still have a bunch of sketches from the workshop series with Renée Rudebrant that I attended a year ago. Back when I was in the middle of those workshops, I wished I had time to realize more of those sketches. Here’s my chance, I guess.

This design one was from the “shapes” exercise – one of the designs I really liked, but nevertheless discarded because it didn’t quite fulfil the requirements. Now there are no requirements (or, just a single, very loose one) and I can play with this again.

The red cardigan is done and I am starting to think of the next knitting project. (I’ve got to remember to take a proper picture of it when worn – it looks better on a body than on a table.)

Money is rather tighter this year than it has been in the past, and I’m looking for more budget-friendly yarns. There are tons and tons (almost literal tons, I think) of yarn on Tradera. I’ve been keeping an eye on the stuff that turns up there. A lot of it is nice, but not right for me; finding something that I know I will use requires patience.

This lot was interesting enough for me to bid immediately. Marks & Kattens Recycled is 100% recycled wool, and with a slightly hand-dyed feel to it – semi-solid colours rather than that perfectly even colour that is common in yarn from large-scale production. And with this purchase I get a palette of colours that I like, but might not have chosen on my own. I’ve been thinking that I want to knit more colourful designs going forward; this is a nice nudge in that direction. Plus it’s an established Swedish brand that I can buy more from. That’s a concern that has held me back from bidding on some of the yarns at Tradera: if the yarn isn’t quite enough for whatever I end up knitting, and the brand is an odd one, it might be hard to get more.

Our usual room at the community centre was locked for some reason, and no staff were around at this time of the day to let us in. We made do with a smaller room, which didn’t feel as cramped as it could have, since we were fewer than usual.

We’ve got everybody’s works in progress to fit on the table. Boxes or bags with threads and yarns and notions. Snacks, teas, water bottles. Phones and glasses. Embroidery-related books that someone has bought to show to the others.

Some of us make small projects with small stitches. My recent projects have been on the larger side, and I do like to spread my stuff out so that I can work comfortably.

Both button bands are done, including button holes, and attached to the cardigan. Buttons are also all in place. This is, I think, the tidiest, most polished, best-finished thing I’ve ever knitted.

The embroidery club started up today. I had considered continuing with some of the ideas from an embroidery course I did a year ago, or maybe with one of the printed fabrics from the workshop this spring, but I haven’t had time to look at what I have or what I want to do. Instead I picked something where I could just get going.

This brown cardigan is great but also not. It fits me well, the yarn is soft and warm, the colour is nice, the knitting is tidy. But: I made it an awkward length that I’m not happy with. It is unflattering on me, and I find it more and more difficult to ignore that. I already have a relatively long torso and shortish lower body; a too-long cardigan emphasises that even more. And the bottom hem hits right where I am broadest, which makes me look even more unproportional.

The way it’s constructed, I can’t just unravel the bottom and make it shorter. The next best thing is to redesign it to make it look shorter, by breaking up the long vertical with something horizontal, and to draw the attention away from the hips to the waist. Hence, a discretely colourful waistband.

One small luxury in my life is a subscription to an actual paper newspaper. I’ve been considering cancelling it to save money, but I enjoy it too much. One of the really good parts is the crossword. Sometimes I do it in my own, sometimes Ingrid joins me. They’re not at a level where Adrian enjoys them (although we occasionally bring home a free local paper that has easier ones).

The Friday crossword is themed. The theme can be anything from “Fredrik” (when it’s Fredrik’s name day in the calendar) to “fishing” to “the Finnish-Swedish athletics competition”. The Saturday crossword is tied to a picture, with one long word or phrase related to the picture going down vertically at the far left, and words for objects or concepts in the picture going across it. Figuring out what word the constructor might have meant for each thing in the image is where two brains are especially much better than one.

We’re getting familiar with the people behind the crosswords. Some of them we just don’t click with at all. Their clues make no sense to us, even when we look up the correct answer. It’s like we’re not even speaking the same language. When the crossword is signed by Håkan, we don’t even try any more. But those are few; pretty much just Håkan and Madelen.

The current crossword is often open on our sofa table, especially on weekends, and there are always two pencils nearby.

No, the button band looked no better with a fresh pair of eyes. I unpicked the seam, went and watched a better tutorial video, and had another go. (There’s plenty of tutorials on using mattress stitch for vertical seams in knitting, but not many that are helpful when the two edges have different gauge and go in different directions. The one I finally found was great, though.)

The seam is nearly invisible and it’s like the two pieces are one. That’s the way it’s supposed to look like. New version on the left (or top, if you’re on a small screen); old on the right/bottom.

The red cardigan has been waiting for its button bands to get finished and sewn on for two months. As usual, I put off the task because I didn’t quite know how to do it, and wasn’t sure that I’d be able to do it well.

Now I’ve made the button band, and today I sewed it on, and I am not happy with my attempt. It doesn’t even look bad in the photo – if you don’t see it up close, the seam doesn’t look to bad, I guess. But up close it looks uneven and ugly. I’ll let it rest overnight and see if I feel better about it tomorrow.