Blocking Action

I've been doing a lot of this lately:That's two lace scarves knitted by Pixie. She's been rather busy lately knitting stuff for me. This is the wider version of the Slinky Scarf. the original was very long and skinny and I thought a wider version would be nice and it's gorgeous. I love the gold silk yarn which is my own Pure Silk Lace. One skein is enough for the scarf. The old version of hte scarf is still listed on Ravelry and the new version including the wider version will be listed very soon. If you've bought the old version on Ravelry you'll get a message saying you can download the new version when I've uploaded it. Will try to get that done tomorrow. I absolutely love the colour of this yarn. The gold is just stunning. There is one gold skein left in the shop I think. I've got more of this gorgeous silk lace arrive this afternoon so more will be dyed up next week.The purple scarf is the Celtic Knot. The original was knitted in Handmaiden Lace Silk which has 600m per skein but my Pure Silk Lace only has 500m so I wanted to know if it'd still work and it did but I don't have enough left to do the fringe but I'm not a big fan of fringes anyway so that's okay.And here is a brand new pattern for my Amazing Cashmere Lace and Luscious Lace. Pixie knitted it up in Amazing Cashmere Lace. It's not the easiest lace pattern to knit but I just love the look of it. The pattern will be ready in time for FibreFest and takes only one skein of Amazing Cashmere Lace or Luscious Lace or you could use one skein of Pure Silk Lace instead. If you want a longer version, you'd need two skeins.I have more blocking to do. At the moment a secret project is blocking and then there is this pile of shawls to do:There are one Golitha Falls knitted by Pixie and two of my new P/hop shawlettes to be blocked. the new P/hop shawlettes will be launched at Fibre Fest. I'll blog more about p/hop and these shawlettes another day.

I've had two big deliveries today. this box of Bambino Lace, Silky Merino Lace and a brand new Angel Lace which is merino/tencel blend arrived today. The Angel Lace is brand new and is the same blend as my merino/tencel sock yarn which has now been renamed Angel Sock. It's gorgeous and has the same silky look and feel and lovely bounce that merino/tencel sock yarn has. I can't wait to knit with it. It has the same yardage as Bambino Lace and would be perfect for Bambino Lace.

I'm also re-launching the Blossom shawl which was published last autumn in Yarn Forward. Pixie is knitting it up in Bambino Lace and it's on it's way back to me (Pixie is an amazingly fast knitter). Blossom could also be worked in Angel Lace.

After I'd finished taking photos this afternoon I had another delivery, a big sack yarn including cashmere, silk, merino/silk, cashmere/silk and probably some other stuff I've forgotten about. I've not dug into the sack yet.

Apart from all these new designs and the blocking I've been busy dyeing yarn ready for Fibre Fest. I did a big batch of Organic Merino and Exotic Cobweb Lace the other day. Tomorrow I'm dyeing Angel Lace and probably some of the exotic yarns that arrived. Silk or cashmere perhaps. I'm aiming to get all my yarn dyeing for Fibre fest done by Tuesday whcih means I'll be doing very little but dyeing yarn over the weekend. I'm praying for good weather so the yarn will dry fairly quickly. If we have a week of rain it'll be a disaster.

As it's the summer holidays it's not all been about knitting and yarn dyeing this week. Yesterday Emily and I went cycling on the Camel train from Wadebridge to Padstow in Cornwall. If you cycle fairly quickly without any stops you can do each way in about 30-40 minutes but it took us more like 1.5 hours to get to Padstow. We then had a walk around this lovely seaside town and some lunch. It was packed with tourists, a bit too packed for my liking. Then we cycled back to Wadebridge. On the way back we agreed we'd only stop 4 times as Emily wanted to stop far too many times on the way to Padstow. Emily cycled ahead of me and I couldn't keep up with her and at every stop she was waiting for me. I must admit I was struggling on the way back. It was hot and sticky, my neck/back was aching and my bottom and legs were aching too and I'm very unfit, so it was a struggle but Emily enjoyed it, apart from a fall right at the end. Although it was hard work we had a good day and two months ago I would have never thought that Emily would learn to ride her bike at all. She only decided she'd finally give in and learn to ride her bike in June so being able to do this long ride with her was fantastic. I really enjoyed it.

On Tuesday we went to visit a friend of mine in South Devon and to collect Sam, our dog, who had been there on holiday for a week. We had a lovely day out. They live in a beautiful spot and have a lovely house and garden. Marianne and I also spent time knitting while Emily played with Marianne's 3 dogs. So it's been a busy week. Tonight I'm treating myself to some spinning time.