Long wait

Can't believe i have't posted since Tuesday. And what's my excuse? Well, the undyed merino arrived Wednesday morning so Wednesday and Thursday were skeining and dyeing days. Thursday evening the panick drying started and reskeining the stuff that was dry nd had to be reskeined. Major panick on Friday evening. It was all hands on deck in the YarnAddict household. His Lordship had to learn how to reskein, YarnAddict Junior (not the very junior one, she was in bed, but the medium junior one aka the 'Stroppy one' (hope she doens't read this) was stickign labels on mailing mags, stuffing patterns into plastic pockets, stuffing mailing bags with wrapped up bags, patterns, letter and yarn. I was wrapping like mad, so dont expect perfectly wrapped parcel. I also had to write out customs stickers and The Stroppy one stuck them on parcels. Finally, we all collapsed in a heap with a pile of 10 parcels ready for the post office on Saturday morning. I'm sure I took a pic but haven't got the energy to find it now.

Then on Saturday morning, His Lorship was despatched to our local 'one man band' (or sometimes a lady) post office with my debit card (one for my yarn account). After a lot of huffing and puffing from the lady waiting behind him, which he said sounded exactly like me if I had towait for someone to post 19 parcels. Me, huff & puff? Never. I'm too patient. Well, he finally got to pay and the card was rejected. Embarassed he rushed home and furiously started counting up every bit of money in the house. After emptying his own wallet, my purse and The Stroppy one's purse we finaly had enough to pay cash for the postage. I did suggest he just draw out the cash on his own debit card and pay but he said he was sure hte post man didn't trust our cards now. On closer inspection of the card I realised it was out of date a month ago, so problem solved. Think I will be doing the post run next time. I'll also leave the parcels there and come back a few hours later to pay, thus not having to put up with 'huffing and puffing' annoying customers who don't like to queue, like me.

On Friday, my friend, Helen, and her daughter, Becky, Ness (the stroppy one) and I headed to Exeter for the Creative Stitches and Hobbycraft forum thanks to lovely Mandy from Crafty Yarns Forum, thank you Mandy for our free tickets. There weren't a lot of yarn around. Two stalls were of interest to me, Alpaca Select were I bought 2 balls of gorgeous, soft, alpaca 4ply. And the other stall was Web of Wool, which as a huge range of sock yarn. I got some Regia Nation Color for Ness (cast on for a scarf today), Regia Silk Colour for socks for Simon. Fortissima for myself and Em for socks or whatever else we fancy. And a pack of 4 Alapaca dk balls from Alpaca Select too, for some accessories for me.

Also got this handy bag.

Which now contains all my knitting accessories.

It even had little boxes in the bottom for all my little bits like stitchmarkers.

We had a lovely girly day out.

Right,what else has happened since I last blogged? Oh, I've been invited to join Ravelry. I'm YarnAddictAnni over there. I'm still finding my way around and working out what I can od on the site. But its fun to see what all the fuss is about.

On Friday was our 16th wedding anniversary and Simon brought home this lovely bouquet of flowers on Thursday evening.

We werent' able to go out to celebrate or anything. Remember we were panicking ove Sockamania PLUS.

Today ahs been a bit miserable and is the result of doing far, far too much last week. As I got out of the shower this morning I bent down to pick something up and had a shooting pain across my upper back. Afterwards it hurt to walk, sit down adn lie down. I couldn't bend down and struggled to get dressed. It was agony and I had to cancel going to church and cancel my friend nad her daughters coming for lunch afterwards. I went back to bed and slept all morning. Then this afternoon I've been trying to do a few little jobs and it's eased a bit and I can move around better now. Luckily it didn't stop me knitting.

Some more yarns for the shop tomorrow. Not as many as I would have liked though. Sockamania patterns are going out tomorrow too.

Lime n Violet Etsy shop of the day

I'm so excited. On Monday 1st October I'm going to be featured on Lime & Violet The Daily Chum as their Etsy shop of the day. Did I tell you I was excited???? I first discovered their site last week when they featured 'Yarnimals', which btw sells the most amazing stitchmarkers and earrings. I've got several sets of stitch markers (ponies, sheep, pigs, ducks and ladybirds) and a pair of sheep earrings. They're really good quality stuff.

And don't worry if you forget to check out Lime & Violet next Monday. I'll remind you!!!!

In fact, they ought to be on everyone's daily reading list. Their site is brill and a great way to find out what's going on in the knitting world. They do a podcast too which I've heard is fab but I've no idea how to listen to podcasts. Do you need an ipod? I'll have to work out how to download podcasts as I hear there arelots of great knitting ones out there.

I had a deliver of merino yarn bright and early this morning. Before 8am! Didn't know ParcelForce started work that early. LOL. The yarn had to be skeined unfortunately, which is a job I hae and that seems to take forever. I'd hoped to skein 2kg but I only managed 1kg which is 10 skeins. Then they went into the vinegar. I hate the smell of vinegar. It makes me want to puke. Then after lunch I started dyeing. I couldn't get the colour I wanted right. I was going to go for the colour combo I'm knitting the October socks in but I just coldn't get it right. The yarn I'm using was dyed ages ago and I only did one skein and I didn't write anything down adn I think it was a result of a lot of mixing. So I decided on another colour which I prefer. It's dyed in the same manner as the original yarn. And now came the big challenge, making up large amounts of dye stock in the same colour and trying to get all the skeins to look roughly the same. I didn't think I did too badly. I'm hoping it'll be dry enough for tomorrow for me to wind up a skein and knit up part of the sock as a colour sample so that club members can see what the sock looks like knitted up.

Tomorrow the 2nd half of the yarn will be dyed. I'm definitely keeping a skein or two of this yarn for myself. It's gorgeous. In fact I'm hoping I can keep two skeins and use it for a shawl.

I want to finsih the typed pattern off tomorrow too so I can print it off for the club parcels. I'm worried my ink is running low and I'm going to Plymouth on Thursday so it would be a good idea to get it refilled then if I need to.

Not too much knitting yet today. But I'm about to turn the heel on the 2nd October sock. I'm hoping to finish it tonight. Although once I get past the heel, the main test knititng bit is done. I only really need one sock to take pics. So I may do past the heel and then put it on hold. Got another sock (part of another pair) I'd like to get done before Friday too. NOt sure if it's going to happen though.

Happy knitting!

Wow,

....what a weekend. Sign ups for Sockamania PLUS Merino Sock Club is going great. I orignally listed 20 memberships then I accidentally added 5 more adn there is about 9 left at the time of writing. So if you want in be quick. Sign ups for October close on Wednesday as I need to get the yarn dyed on Thursday. Although I'm hoping ot do most of it on Wednesday. The October socks are nearly done. Just test knitting the 2nd sock now and they're nearly half done.

Not been all that much knitting going on over the weekend. We went looking at kitchens and sofas on Saturday afternoon. We're planning to get a new kitchen soon. We didn't make any progress with that on Saturday. Only managed to look in Homebase and there was nothing there which particularly took our fancy. Had a bit more luck on the sofa front .Liked one in Homebase we rther liked. And we saw two in Land of Leather I liked although Simon only liked one. It's brown leather, which we want. Its high enough back to be comfortable for my neck and I found one especially nice for my back. The price was very goo. BUT all the sofas in Land Of Leather appear to be recliner ones. I'd love a recliner one but it's not that great with kids. They're bound to much around with it and there's the danger of them hurting themselves but the biggest risk is that it'll get damaged and Simon thinks it's 'just another thing to go wrong'. Tehy're having a 12 hour sale on Thursday so I did suggest pickign him up from work on Thursday to go and have a look as I've got to take Ness to dentish in Plymouth anyway.

That's about the most exciting thing I did this weekend. I've got no pics for you either. I was going to photograph the alapaca dk I dyed last week. It's in a pile downstairs and the colours are gorgeous. I couldn't decide whether to reskein them or not this morning so Ididn't bother doing anything with them. But I'll get them ready and listed on Etsy tomorrow.

Tonight I've been given the task by my lovely oldest daughter to knit her friend a mobile phone sock.... for tomorrow. Okay, so they're small and quick to knit but Iwas going to work on Sockamania socks tonight. Got another sock which I want to knit by Friday too. I've started the mobile phone sock but whether or not I'll oblige Madame by getting it done tomorrow I'm not sure. Maybe if I get too tired to knit anything else later on. She told her friend I'd do it for tomorrow.

And talking of phone socks, I've been asked to teach Ness' Guide Group to knit and I thought mobile phone socks were a good idea as most of them have phones. Now, Ido mine toe up on 2.75mm dpns in sock yarn. Is that going to be too challening for 12 and 13 year olds who don't knit???? I'm thinking of using DK yarn instead and 3.5mm needles and knit the sock as two rectangles and sew them together. Not sure if I can get them to manage 4 dpns. Any advice?

I've started adding new members to Sockamani for October. I'll send out new members welcome e-mails too once I've done all the blogger invites. It's a bit of a prolonged process as I've also gotto save their e-mail addys in my Hotmail list and add them to a Sockamania e-mailing group. We're likely to be over 200 members by the end of the week. I'm totally amazed.

Happy knitting.

Launching Sockamania Plus

I've decided to launch sock club. It will be called 'Sockamania Plus Merino Sock Club' and will not affect Sockmania which will run as normal. All Sockamania Plus members will be invited to join the Sockamania blog and will be included in the monthly draw as well.

Here's how the Sockamania PLUS Merino Sock Club will work. Check out my Etsy shop to join. I'm starting off with 20 memberships for the first month but I anticipate it will increase from November. I jsut want to start with an easily manageable number. I've listed 10 UK memberships and 10 International memberships but will jig those numbers around if needed.

Please note that this does not affect the regular Sockamania club which will continue as normal.

Join our Sockamania Plus Merino Sock Club and receive a sock pattern (the same pattern used for the Sockamania Club and a hand painted skein of merino especially painted in colours to suit the month's pattern (this will mean that some months will be variegated, some selfstriping, some solid/semisolid).

Most months you will receive a 100gr skein, but if the monthly pattern requires a larger amount then you will get the extra free.You will never get less than 100gr though.
The parcels will be posted by 25th of each month for non-UK members and 28th of each month for UK members. Although for October the parcels will be posted a little late. I'll get them all in the post by 30th September.

Your first parcel will include a sock pattern, a handmade fabrick project bag and merino sock yarn. You will also receive a 20% off voucher which you can use to make one purchase from my Etsy shop (any products, any size order but the voucher can only be used once).
Second and third parcels will contain a sock pattern and merino sock yarn.

This club will run for 3 months. After that there will be an option for you to rejoin at a cheaper price if you rejoin immediately.

Merino Sock Yarn - 4ply/fingering weight

Approximately 8st = 1in on 2.75mm/US2 needles.

100gr = 400m/440yds

The sock patterns will also be available for regular Sockamania members and it will also be for sale in my Etsy shop after the month has finished. But the yarn will be a Sockamania Plus exclusive and will never be repeated.

To join for October please sign up before 25th September.

Pay it forward

A couple of days ago I read about the Pay It Forward thing on Aknita's Knits. I thought what a lovely idea and decided to join.

So here's how it works:

It’s the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on. You all know I’m already a PIF type of person. So here’s how it works. I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.





So the first three to comment on this post and who say they would like to take part will be my recipients. If I don't know you and have your e-mail already, please post your e-mail addy too so Ican get hold of you. Once I've got my 3 recipients, I'll e-mail you to get your address and just some idea of your favorite colours, yarntype and fibre. My gifts will be knitted as that's the only craft I do. I've got some ideas already but Iwant to see who my recipients are first andwhat they like.





So are you up for the challenge? I'm really excited to receive my gift from Aknita. Her knitting is beautiful.





Whimsical Knitting has even done a button for it. How fun.

There are lots of other buttons on her blog too. Aren't they fun?

Now, some pics. I've got several projects on the go at the moment and not making too much progress on any of them. Today I've been swapping between my Aran Silk shawl and my Sockamania October socks. Can't show you pics of the socks and I'm not sure I want to share pics of the shawl yet. I may keep it top secret for a while yet. It's knitting up quickly.

A couple of FOs I can show you are these:



What are they? I hear you shout. They're tiny little mobile phone socks. And I love them. The ones with the very fat fish on it is mine. Next time I'll do a slimmed down fish. I first had the idea for doing these back in the summer and I did a few for our church's Bible Week in the summer hols and they sold like hotcakes together with my knitted hairbands. I've now done one for me, a couple for friends and the pink stripy one is for Ness. I've got lots more planned and yes, I will write up the pattern and share it too. I'm planning some fun designs on them too. wouldn't they make fun stocking fillers? And it's a brill way of using up all those bits of sock yarn left over.



I've also been doing this today.



Skeining 500gr of alpaca dk. Thought about dyeing them today but I've got to skein another 500gr too. Don't know if I can be bothered to dye jsut 500 gr at a time. May do it tomorrow.

Etsy update

Not got muchtime to write tonight. Got housegroup here in 20 mins and I'm leading it. Just wanted to mention I've just finished listing some new BFL lace yarns on Etsy. Also listed a couple of merino sock yarns. The colours are gorgeous, especially the dream colourway. My favourite:

Merino:

Favourite BFL:

I've also managed to finally make my own Blog button and Etsy banner today. Check out my Etsy shop to see how the banner works. I like it and I'm impressed I finally managed to do it. YOu've no idea how long I've been working on this. LOL.

Rocking Girl Blogger Award nominees

First it's time I made my nominations for the Rocking Girl Blogger award. It's a while since I had my award and I've been putting off making the very difficult decision to nominate 3 people. At least I think it's 3 I've got to nominate.

First is Aknita who is a lovely lady and is so full of kindness. I met her a year ago at Get Knitted and she is a truly lovely lady. And her blog is always full of gorgeous pics. I love one of her recent posts, which is why I decided to nominate Joy, its full of gorgeous pics, especially a Forest Canopy shawl which is just stunning and a picture of her equally beautiful sock yarn stash.

Second nominee is The Yarn Goddess. Pam appears to have daily visits from the Yarn Fairy. Lucky lady. She is also briliant at seeking out indie dyers and the yarn she buys is just stunning. I love drooling over her almost daily yarn deliveries. I thought I was bad when it came to buying yarn, but I've been much better lately.

And the third nominee is Gilraen who is another good forum friend and loves gorgeous yarns and shows them off on her blog together iwth her finshed stuff and wips.

I'm so pleased i've finally managed to make a decision re the nominees. I could have nominated lots, lots more lovely bloggers.

I've got some more yarn ready to list on Etsy. I was going to do it tonight but time's getting on now and I've got to take up Ness' new school trousers tonight and do some ironing so I think the Etsy update will have to wait till tomorrow. Here's a sneak preview though.

Some BFL laceweight:

and some merino I found waiting for reskeining. It was dyed at the beginning of the summer holidays and then Iforgot about it. I spent ages this morning reskeining. It's the job I dislike themost about yarn dyeing. Think I need to train the kids to do it. I'd pay them ofcourse. Penny a skein, LOL.

And a skein of BFL for me. These are going to be Croc Socks.

Started another new project last night. I'm using the lovely HipKnits aran silk I won in a charity auction lately. It's stunning to knit with. I'm doing a shawl but I think that's all I'm going to reveal at this stage. I had a couple of false starts but I'm happy with how its knitting up now. And being aran, at least its knitting up fairly quickly. I've still got 2 other lace shawls to finish, and one pair of urgent socks and loads of nearly finished socks and about a dozen other wips. The girls also want me to knit stuff for them. I got some yarn recently for a shrug or soemthign for Em. I just haven't had time to start it. I think I'll cast on for the shrug once I've finished the Aran silk shawl. Oh, and I forgot I'm halfway through a silk cardi for me too. Right, I'd better get knitting. Too much to catch up on.

Lovely knitting

I've just finished a submission for a popular online magazine, so wish me luck. I'm not saying what the item is or giving any clues as to what the pattern is but it's gorgeous and I just love the yarn I've used. it's taken me a lot longer to get the submission pack ready as I exited the file before I saved it and lost a whole bunch of stuff and had to redo it. a bit stupid of me.

Today was a gorgeously warm day and I spent the afternoon sitting in the garden chatting to my friend, Helen, and knitting. Helen is the friend we're doing the diabetes walk with tomorrow. There's another family doing it too, so we will be 5 adults, and 6 children aged between 8 and 12. If you'd like to sponsor us please click on the link in the sidebar. We really appreciate any sponsorship received and it's for a very good cause - research into juvenile/type 1 diabetes which Helen suffers from.

It souns like it good be a good day tomorrow. The walk is 5 miles long and afterwards there is a free lunch (pasties) provided and entertainment. I'm looking forward to it but I'm worried about my back. I don't want to end up in agony. Or for the pain to stop me completing the walk. A couple of days ago when i walked in to town, I had to sit down twice on the way (luckily there were benches enroute) as my back was really, really stiff and painful. It's only a 15 min walk into town. So please wish me good luck for tomororw.

I've been knitting lots of mobile phone socks lately. And I've been working on more yesterday and this morning. They're great fun and a good way to use up left over sock yarn. I'm making one for my friend's daughter and one for me .

I started a sale on Etsy a couple of days ago. Most of the merino is reduced, some by quite a lot. I've also added a batch of BFL (Bluefaced Leicester) sock yarn. BFL is a very popular sock yarn in England and I've reserved a skein for myself to knit up a pair of socks. It was lovely to dye and took the dye more evenly and subtly than the merino.

Here's a peek at some of the BFL yarns

Merino Sale

First, there'll be a merino yarn sale on Etsy later. I'm just listing some new BFL Sock Yarn then I'm going to be reducing some prices on the Merino Yarns to make way for some exciting new yarns and colourways.

Lots of dyeing pics

I had adelivery of BFL sock yarn and laceweight yarn yesterday. It was only a small order, aobut 10 skeins of each just to try it out.

So I decided to dye the sock yarn tonight and to try to dye a 100gr each of the fibres (shetland, merino and bfl).

Here's how the day went:

As it was lovely and sunny outside I decided to use our picnic table in the garden. So I carried all my supplies outside. Made up all hte dye solutions in the kitchen.

Doens't it all look neat and colourful:

I'd planned to write down teh colours I was using and dye all skeins individually and photgraph them as I'm starting to work on some regular dye recipes.

Here's skein 1:

and skein 2, using a bit of a random technique, which consisted of squrting turqoise and yellow dye randomly until whole skei nwas covered.

Skein 3

I had decided to dye each skein separately, using proper hadn painting techniques. I'm not too keen on ths method of dyeing and I can't do it in teh kitchen due to the mess it makes ubt it's fine for the picnic table. Then I realised what hte time was and that I had to be at afriends house in less than an hour. So away went the squrtie bottles and out came the bowls.

The reaminding skeins

Then the fibre, it all looks different here before microwaving:

Not quite sure what happened to the colour after rinsing

I think I need to do some research into how to dye fibre properly. I'm happy with hte result but what happened to hte blue bits. And the colours are a lot paler than I'd expected. I did it the same way as Idye yarn. More practice needed.

And here's the dye area once I'd finished:

Not quite as neat as it was when Istarted. Empty bottles and bowls scattered everywhere. Water everywhere. And most of that wet stuff on the floor is water rather than dye, apart from the red bit on the left.

Rushed clearing up and getting all hte yarns microwaved, rinsed and hung out.

Then a quick lunch, change of t-shirt, toilet and a spritz of perfume and ran out the door to visit my friend, Clare. Two of my other friends were there too and we had a Cornish Cream Tea - Yummy and sat in the sunshine in the garden and had a lovely chat.

Oh and this came in the post this morning

Hipknits aran and dk silk which I won in a charity auction run by Piglottie. Wasn't I lucky. The yarns are stunning, especially the dk (light blue/grey - it's like silver). I may do a Clapotis with hte aran and I'm thinking of doing a lace shawl with hte dk.

No spinning news today as I basically havne't done any since yesterday. But I'm curling up on the sofa with my knitting and a tub of Ben & Jerry's and a Julia Roberts film so may do some spinning then.

Watch out for an Etsy update tomorrow or Thursday - most of the BFL (keeping a couple of skeins for myself) and some more merino which I found in a cupboard earlier. Just needs re-skeining.

Fundraising - Diabetes research

Have you noticed the wignet in the sidebar. I've set up a page on Just Giving to raide money for a walk for diabetes walk we're doing on Sunday 16th September, so it's less than a week away. I should have set this up a long time ago but only found out about it a week ago and then not gotten around to sorting it out. Not sure why as it's so easy to do.

This is what it's all about. My friend, Helen, asked us earlier in the summer if we'd like to do this walk with her. One of her other friends is doing it as well, so in total there will be 5 adults and 6 children aged from 9 to 12 in our team. The walk is 4-5 miles long and starts at Saltram House in Plymouth. Saltram House is a National Trust property and we've been there lots of times and it's a beatuful setting.

The reason Helen decided to do this walk is that she's got type 1 diabetes and she'd like to do something to support a cause that's important to her. So we're praying for good weather adn then hopefully it hsould be a good day out.

I've set up a team sponsorship page where you can sponsor us as a team. Remember we're doing it on Sunday so be quick if you want to sponsor us. Any donation, no matter how large or small will be very much appreciated. Click on the link in the side bar or this link to donate.

Spinning news:

Here's is my drop spindle this morning before I started spinning

It's filled up a little more now but I havne't spun too much today. Been too tired really. This is the fibre I have left to spin of the first half.

Then I suppose I'll take the single off and spin the other half and then ply it. Not sure how to get it all off the spindle. I saw on a You Tube video someone who wound it off the spindle with a ball winder and someone else told me they slide it off onto a knitting needle.

I had a gorgeous delivery aobut half an hour ago and this is what greeted me when I opened the box.

There was 3 bags of500gr each of Shetland, Merino and BFL slivers. Now sidetracking a bit, what's the difference between tops, sliver and roving. This 'sliver' looks the same as the roving I got last week.

Taking the fibre out, I found this lot of luscious BFL yarns, there are 10 skeins each of sock yarn and laceweight yarn.

I only placed a small order to start iwth to make sure I like BFL. Never dyed it before and not knitted with it yet either. I'm planning to dye the sock yarn tomorrow nad the lace on Thursday. The sock yarn will be tested as soon as it's dry. Can't waitto see if it's as nice as merino. Doesn't feel as soft undyed but that may change in the dyeing process. I'm hoping it'll be on ETsy by the weekend.

In the meantime there are lots of other yarns in my Etsy shop. Lots of merino sock yarn, some cobweb laceweight, merino lace and merino worsted. Teh worsted and lace on Etsy is all I've got at the moment. But I do have some more cobweb but it's on a cone and I can't face winding it off right now.

Spinning progress

First, a quick progress pic on my spinning. I'm spinning up the roving from previous post into some yarn taht I actually want to knit something out of. This is not a practice yarn. This is how far I'd gotten last night, look at the beautiful dark colour:

Then I had a section of bright red which Ispun this morning and this evening, this is how it looks:

I'm making progress. Not sure how much I've actually spun, but I figure if I spin up half the roving and then take it off and then spin up the 2nd half I should be okay when it comes to plying it.

My other priority project is the 'Celtic Knot' Scarf, which is progressing beautifully. I did consider casting off tonight but I still had 30 gr of the skein left so decided to do one more pattern rep and then check the length again. Not sure how long I want it. And ofcourse it's the stretching to take into account when blocking.

My other main job today has been to finish the reskeining of skeins dyed earlier in the week. I'm nearly done now. Had to give up in hte end as my back couldn't take anymore. At the moment I'm in the process of updating Etsy. Here's a preview of some of the gorgeous new merino sock yarn available.

This one I particularly love and kept one skein of this colourway for myself. If you want it, but it quick as I may keep the other too. I was thinkign it'd make a lovely shawl.

Did I mention that Simon was getting me a Boye Needlemaster set for my birthday? Well, it came today and I love it. Its from Woolly Workshop and apparently it's flying out the door. I struggled to decide between this one, Denise and Knitpicks Options but as I like the Boyes dpns I decided it was best to stick with Boyes. The case it comes in is a bit boring on the outside - brown and looks like a pencil case but when you open it up this is what you find:

The number 3 set went straight onto my Celtic Knot scarf and Ilike it as much as the Addi lace needles I was using before, although the Boyes are not as slippery as Addi. I've got some Boyes dpns for my socks which I just love and I won't use any other needles on socks now, unless I'm flying and then Iuse bamboo. The needlemaster set is just as good as my Boyes dpns.

I've got some exciting sock news coming soon so come back soon for a BIG announcement. I'm just working out the details...............

Nominations

A couple of weeks ago I was nominated for a 'Rocking Girl Blogger Award'. I've seen these popping up on different blogs lately and it's an honour to be nominated. Chrissy nominated me. Thank you Chrissy. I met Chrissy at Fibre Fest on Saturday for the first time and it was lovely to meet you Chrissy. It's nice to put names to faces. I've known Chrissy from Knitting Forums and blogs for a while now though.

Now I have to decide who to nominate. Chrissy nominated 3 people. Does that mean I ahve to nominate 3 too? Anyone in the know please let me know. Where do the Rocking Girl Blogger awards originate from? I need a couple of days to decide who to nominate.

My dental op went fine today. I had a very crooked root adn they basically chopped the top off and sealed it (I'd already had a root canal filling and a crown) and stitched it up again. By the time I came home the local anasthetic was wearing off and it felt very sore but as Itake painkillers every 4 hours for my neck/back pain I'm hoping that'll keep the pain at bay. I was warned my face may swell up by tomorrow and I may even get a black eye. My face is already swelling up so it'll be interesting to see how bad it looks tomorrow.

This morning when I got up at 4.30am (due to severe neck pain) I got back to work on this project. It's a Celtic Knot Lace Scarf and that's all I'm going to reveal for now. It's knitted in Handmaiden Lace Silk and it's gorgeous to knit with. I typed up the chart early this morning so I can test knit the chart during the remaining repeats. Don't think I've got much more to do now. I'd like to ahve it finished by the end of the weekend or at least sometime next week.

I also got started on spinning up this lot ofroving. It's from the Yarn Yard and is BFL and feels gorgeously soft. It's lovely to spin even to a beginner like me. I'm getting it slowly. I'm getting it almost even now, athough not quite. And it's getting thinner. This roving I'd like to spin up into something I can actually knit with. I'm aiming for 4ply/fingering weight to knit some fingerless gloves. I'll keep you posted. Progress pics on spinning tomorrow.