It was an uphill slog at times, but I did manage to finish the birthday scarf on time for my partner’s birthday, hooray. (See my original post, Three secret projects, for the very beginning of this project…) Of course, almost every day I regretted having chosen a moss stitch pattern. A moss stitch pattern, I ask you, from someone who has limited amounts of time and is far from the world’s quickest knitter.

I tried to put in a pattern repeat a day, once the baby was in bed and before Jamie got back from work. This meant I didn’t do anything useful like clean the house, do the washing up, move the baby toys off the floor. Nope, I just sat there, furiously knitting knitting knitting, stuffing the scarf under a sofa cushion to hide it as soon as I heard the door opening.

But as I sewed in the last end yesterday, I knew it had been worthwhile, for this is one beautiful, luxurious, heavenly-detailed scarf.

The Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran is absolutely gorgeous too, so soft and warm. I can’t speak enough praise of the pattern by Monika Steinbauer, it really looks elegant and yet somehow a bit manly too.

I think if I made it again, I would be tempted to lengthen it, as it is quite short. In fact, I was tempted to lengthen it this time, but ran out of yarn and time, so left it as the pattern instructed.

It’s about to get wrapped up in time for his birthday on Saturday. Fingers very tightly crossed that it will be a hit…

There is more info on my Ravelry page and the pattern, by Monika Steinbauer, is here: “His scarf” the cashmere one.

Of the other two secret planned projects, the lunch bag has been a no-go. In fact, I have to admit, I had even forgotten I was planning on making it until I read back on the original post before writing this tonight. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh?

But the T-shirts are still in the pipeline: I’ve bought three cheap T-shirts from Primark, ordered myself some transfer paper and, ahem, am currently awaiting delivery of a printer from Amazon since I didn’t actually have one in the house before. Yes, that’s the sort of level of optimism I have when I set out planning these projects: aim to make something you don’t have the basic equipment in place for.

Still, the printer is due to arrive tomorrow (Friday) and his birthday is the following day, so I am hoping I can master everything I need to know in time. Watch this space…