Early Birthday & Tour de Fleece

For a while now i've been wanting a Kindle. I'd really love the Kindle Fire but it's not available in the UK yet. I'd hoped it would be available in the UK before my birthday which isn't until end of August. As we're going on holiday in August before my birthday I decided I really ought to get my Kindle before we go away so i can use it on holiday. that meant getting it before end of July but then I thought I ought to get it a bit earlier so I could get used to it and make sure it was working properly. Imagine if I got it a few days before our holiday and it was broken!

 So on Sunday I ordered a Kindle Touch 3G and it came today. I also got a cover to go with it. I must admit I didn't read the description properly and thought the cover was purple but it's purple on the inside and black on the ouside. I like it though. It has a light too so I can read in the dark.

 I love it. I've been reading e-book on a Kindle app on my phone for a while now so already have quite a few Kindle books but reading on a proper Kindle is so much better. So far I love it!

Tour de France has started. Over the last few years Simon and I've gotten really into watching it and I was looking forward to this year's tour especially as Wimbledon and the recent Euro football doesn't interest me at all.

Tour de Fleece coincides with Tour de France and there's an official group on Ravelry with all sorts of competitions. I've not officially joined this year as i usually fail miserably. I've set myself a personal challenge this year. My aim is to spin for an hour every evening while we watch the Tour highlight programme.

 it's Day 3 and above is the singles I spun on Day 1. The colour is all wrong as the pics were taken in bad light. It's much brighter green. I'm spinning a sparkly batt I got from Felt Studio UK last year at Woolfest. I've already spun the first bobbin and I'm working on the second one. I'm trying to spin it laceweight so it's taking a long time but below is the progress i made tonight.

 Last night I decided not to spin during Tour de France highlights as I was very close to finishing my beaded lace stole. In the end I gave up with 8 rows to go which I finished first thing this morning.

 I then had to graft the centre as this stole is knitted in 2 identical halves. And this evening I blocked. Again the pics were taken in poor lighting so the shawl doesn't look it's best but I do like it.

 This will be part of my 'Beads & Lace' Collection which will be published in August. I'm trying to think of a better name than Beads & Lace. Any ideas? I first cast on this shawl over a year ago and nearly finished the first half when i for some reason abandoned it. Sometime in May, I think, I picked it up again and I've really enjoyed knitting it. No idea why I abandoned it last year. I'm so glad it's done now. I'm hoping to do the photoshoot for the new collection next week. We've had a lot of rain lately and i need a day of dry weather for the photoshoot.

My right shoulder has been bad since Woolfest and yesterday I thought the pain had eased a bit but today it was bad again and i've had a killer headache to accompany it. Which means this blog post is short and to the point as I'm off to bed to read my Kindle.

My online Continental Knitting workshop with Norwegian Purl has started but if you want to join us you can easily catch up. Find all the details here or scroll down for my blogpost about it from last week. So far the feedback is good from the current students.