What's that?

Look at the view from our front door this morning:
in Cornwall we're not supposed to get snow in March. Last week it was all sunny and warm and I thought about getting my wintercoat drycleaned and packed away for the summer. This morning I wore it again and put a hat on too. It was freezing.

Fantastic News:
Got some fantastic news last week. I submitted a pattern for MagKnits and Kerrie asked if she could use it for Yarn Forward. I'm so excited. The original pattern I knitted up for myself to use so have got to knit another sample item to send off for photography. I can't believe one of my designs is going to be in a proper magazine (not that there is anythign wrong with online ones, but there is sometghing about it being on paper). I didn't want to say anything last week in case I spilled the beans and told you all exactly what the design is and showed pics and all. But I'm keeping it all top secret. It'll probably be in issue 4 so a bit of a wait yet. I'm just so grateful to Kerrie for giving me this chance.

Kerrie also sent me some gorgeous Schaefer Elaine and a couple of other yarns to do some felting with. The Elaine looks gorgeous but not gotten started on a design yet. Got some ideas but need to sit down and swatch (me swatch?!!!) and look at yardage etc.

And talking about Kerrie, read on Dee's blog that Kerrie has given birth to a girl. Congratulations to Kerrie and her family.

And I've got this shawl for my Mum that needs finishing first. I cast on last week and it's ever so quick. And if I hadn't been distracted bysome new socks for Em this weekend I think the main rectangle of the shawl would have been done. I'm halfway and my only worry is that it seems very small so far. I'm using 2ply (Posh Yarn Eva) and 4mm needles (pattern says category 2 yarn and 4.5mm needles). It does havea wide border though and needs to be blocked so may grow a bit. It's an easy lace pattern. Very repetitive and relaxing but can get a tad boring. I always try to make sure I never finish mid repeat though so when I do some knitting on it I knit at least one repeat (16 rows). Hoping to get it done by tomorrow evening and then start the border on WEdnesday whihc is going to be the real challenge for me. I've never done a knitted on border before and this one does look complicated. The reason I chose this design was for the simple main rectangle so I can concentrate on the border. I'd like to get it finished and posted by the end of the week so it may get to my Mum before she leaves for Spain in 2 weeks.


The design is The Victoria shawl form Victorian Lace Today.

Now to the socks I mentioned earlier. I'd promised Em a new pair of sock after I ruined her in a wash a couple of weeks ago. She loves this yarn from The Yarn Yard, it's the March Club yarn. I've got a new stitch pattern book called '200 ripples' whihc has really insprired me to try ripple patterns. I lvoe this chevron pattern and it looks great knitted up with this yarn. I've called it Speedway and once this pair is done I'm planning to size it up to adult sizes too, possibly 2 or 3 adult sizes as this pattern doesn't have much stretch. I wasn't sure whether or not to post photo of this as I was thinking ofkeeping as a mag submission but Ihate not being able to show pics of my wips so here it goes:
And to finish off some Yarn Candy. The bottom four balls are Yarn Yard (green ones are Pea Green boat and there's Damson Crush and the blue one is a skein of the solid that came with the March Club Yarn. On top there's a ball of Schaefer Anne. This has got brilliant yardage so I'm thining of using it for a shawl instead of socks.