Wow, that was quick!

This beautiful ball of mink/milk/merino from Great Northern Yarns arrived a couple-ish weeks ago and it's already been knitted up:

I know if I'd knitted only on this I would have done it in a few days but I've done a lot of other knitting too and I'm pleased to have this finished. I got very, very closed to running out of yarn. Only a meter or two left. The shawlette looked very, very small before blocking and measured 34in wide and 18.5 in along the spine.

I gave it a bath and pinned it out and blocking it measures 45 in wide (a growth of 11 in) and 25 in along he spine (6.5 in difference). I know it will relax a bit once unpinned but that's still a pretty good growth.

I had swatched the two stitch patterns separately but not together and while knitting the second part I was a bit worried about whether or not they would go together but I'm pretty happy with it.

I also did think about continuing the top border around the other two sides too but in the end I didn't have enough yarn to do that and the final scalloped edging ended up being smaller than I wanted.

I am planning to have it re-knitted in one of my own yarns, perhaps Supreme Sock or Bamboozle Sock. The pattern for this won't be published yet. I've got plans for an Easy Lace E-book and this will be one of the patterns. At the moment i'm working towards an April release date and I may get it printed into a pattern booklet too. I'm waiting to hear back about a lot of magazine submissions though with possible deadlines around end Feb/March/April so I may end up not meeting the April deadline for the E-book.

I've got another ball from Great Northern Yarns (the green one) which is a mink/yak/?? blend. Same yardage as the blue  mink/milk/merino, about 360 yds  I think. I don't think I will do a shawlette with this one. Perhaps a cowl but not yet, although I do like the colour.

Most of my evening knitting on Saturday was devoted to the mink shawlette. Most of my daytime knitting was devoted to my Scrumptious Scarf. I had 2 skeins to start with and last week was convinced I'd need at least one and even two more but then on Friday I thought perhaps it would be long enough so I didn't order another one. I wish I had. I finished  my second skein on Saturday and it's not long enough. I've got another one on order.

I'm hoping to see my friend, whose birthday was this weekend, at the end of the week and really would like to get it finished by then. So let's hope the yarn arrives very soon, like tomorrow would be good.

In the meantime I've got a secret project to get on with. I had planned to cast on for it last week but never got around to it and must, must, must cast on tonight. I've got as far as bringing a ball of yarn downstairs, get needles ready, bring the swatch down. I need to find the hand-drawn chart and do it in Knit Visualizer, grade and write the pattern. Don't need to do the whole thing straight away, just enough to get me started on the knitting tonight. I'm hoping if I can get going tonight I can knit on it during my workshop at The Cornwall Yarn Shop tomorrow morning.

I also did lots of swatching this weekend. All of my Sunday knitting was devoted to swatching. I watched several episodes of 'Pride and Prejudice' on Saturday and Sunday night to get some inspiration for a Jane Austen submission and it worked a treat. Have my swatch knitted up and plans for another one tonight.

Most of my swatching this weekend was with a new Manos del Uruguay yarn due to be launched in the UK in March. It's called Serena and is a cotton/baby alpaca blend. It's GORGEOUS. I've never been a big cotton fan but this yarn is light, has fantastic drape, even stitch definition, and no alpaca hairyness although it does bloom a little bit as you knit with it. I'm hoping I'll get some commissions in this yarn as I very much like knitting with it. This is the colour I've been swatching with. So pretty:

Just been dyeing some Merino Plus Twist and will have some gorgeous, rich, bright colours by the end of the week. Update will be Thursday or Friday.

I also want to finish this sweater this week:

I've had the first sleeve on the knitting machine for about 3 weeks now. I'm up to the sleeve cap. The sleeves are only elbow length so don't take long and it's silly I've not gotten around to finishing it. I will try and finish the first one tonight and the second one tomorrow/Wednesday. I really want to have it finished by Thursday so I can wear it to knitting group.

Don't forget to check out the Pattern Of The Week in the post below.