Yes, it's raining.

Now, that's a sentence you don't hear me say very often. I hate rain. But this afternoon should have been Emily's sports day. It's her last year of primary school and so the last sports day I'll need to attend. I should be wanting to be there cheering her on. But I find Sports Days incredibly boring. You sit on the edge of the school field watching everyone else's kids run up and down. YOur child's race takes about 10 seconds out of the afternoon. And it always finishes late. The nice thing is if you've got friends there and it's sunny. sitting chatting to a friend and soaking up the sun makes the whole thing more bearable but still, I wasn't sad when it was cancelled.

I'm in the middle of doing a shop update. I've listed the remaining Super Merino, Amazing Cashmere Lace, Luscious Lace and if I have time there will be Silky Merino, one skein of Dreamy Lace and Exotic Cobweb Lace and some Almerino sock yarn and BFL sock yarn to come. I'm slowly catching up with the leftover yarn from Rav Day. It's taken me much longer than expected to get all hte yarns listed.

Simon is off sick again. he was off last Friday and recovered over the weekend. Then yesterday he rang me and I had to drive to Plymouth and pick him up from work just after lunch. considering I'd drive nearly an hour each way in the morning to take a friend to a dentist for an op I could have done without another long drive (30 mins each way) in the afternoon. I hten had my friend's daughters here after school which was fine. The girls all behaved themselves. And I had to go out to a friend's in the evening to plan our child protection training session which we are running at church on Saturday.

So today I'm shattered and have done very little apart from edit some yarn photos, the shop update and lots of knitting. I'm still swatching. I'm working on a lace swatch. I saw a lace pattern in a book yesterday which I tried out nad loved it. Combined it without something else and swatched it in sock yarn and it looked fab. Changed to laceweight yarn and not so good. Changed ot smaller needles and a little better but not sure. If Iget to a point where I'm happy with this one it'll be submitted to a mag. Not decided which one yet though.

I've had a skein of Alchemy Silken Straw in my stash for a few months now. It's an expensive yarn and come in tiny 40gr/200 yds skeins. It looks and feels like straw but it's 100% silk. I was so intrigued by this yarn I had to have it. It's been sitting on my desk lately and I've been keen to dosomething with it. A couple of days ago I wound it into a ball and last night I started swatching. Tried some lace patterns that didn't look right. But I've found the perfect stitch pattern now and I'm knitting away. It feels like straw when you first touch it but it softens as you knit with it. I frogged and re-knitted a few times last night and it got softer and softer. It'll be interesting to see what the finished item will be like. i'm tempted to get some more in another colour when I go up to Spin A Yarn tomorrow, where I'll be teaching a continental knitting workshop.

The shop update is done for today. Go and have a look. More BFL and Almerino sock yarn to come later in the week.