Lots of news

Been meaning to blog for the last few days as I have a few things to show but my neck has been icredibly bad. Been waking up during the night with excruciating headaches and pain in the top of my neck. Last night I went to bed late and slept 2 hours then woke up the headache I had was the worst I've ever had. My whole head was thumping and it was especially bad when I tried to lift my head off the pillow and get out of bed. I got up for an hour and took pain killers then back to bed and got another 2-3 hours sleep. Headache again when I woke up. That's what it's been like since about Wednesday. The pain during the day is pretty bad too which makes it very difficult to get anything done.

It's been affecting my knitting too. I've started a pair of socks for Emily for her school trip in 2 weeks (she's going to Isle of Wight for 5 days) and I've been trying to start the Sockamania March socks. But with the pain I've been suffering from knitting socks has just been impossible. It does aggrevate my neck more than some other types of knitting especially if its already bad. So instead I've been working on a new shawl in HipKnits Aran Silk. I've had the yarn in my stash for a while. I just love Aran Silk, it's the most gorgeous, soft yarn to knit with. And although it's aran weight it knits up into really light items. The shawl I knitted is done in garter stitch on 5.5mm needles and that was just about all I could cope with for the last few days. But the good thing is that's it's already finished. I cast off this morning. For the border I had casting off took a bit of time. It's a gorgeous shawl. Wasn't sure what it would look liek finished but I'm really pleasantly pleased. Okay, I hear you all shouting for pics. Well, there will be pics but not been able to take any yet. We haover 400 st sod planned a walk on the beach this afternoon but as I was really tired from my sleepless night last night I really didn't feel like a walk even though the weather was gorgeous, so slept instead. I'd planned to take the shawl and camera with me to the beach andget some good modelling shots with the Cornish sea in the background. I'll have to try later in theweek instead.

I've also finished spinning and plying about 220 gr of merino/silk. One singles was spun from purple/pink/lilac merino/silk from the YarnYard and the other singles was my own hand dyed merino/silk. It's 16.5-17 wraps per inch which makes it a sportweight yarn according to my chart. I'm planning to do a shawl with it. Thought about starting my Ocean Waves shawl but have instead decided on a new design called 'Lacy Ripples'. I may cast on tonight if the pain gets too bad for sock knitting.I went along to hte Liskeard Spinners group yesterday. I just popped in for 2 hours while Vanessa was at ballet as the spinning group meet in the hall next to the ballet school. I had a great time. The average age was fairly high and I was the youngest htere but the ladies there were great and very friendly. I was also the most inexperienced spinner there but I brought my merino/silk handspun with me and got compliments for it.

Some of us on hte Crafty Yarns n Threads forum are having a Round Robin gift bag exchange. My parcel from Terri arrived last week and this is the bag and what was in it:The idea is to spend max £2 and to use stuff from stash too. I got some gorgeous valentine chocs which disappeared very quickly. A rubber (which is very handy as i'm always nicking hte girls' when I'm writing charts), a small bag of some mystery British Breeds fibre (the ladies at hte spinning group managed to identify one of them for me and had a few guesses at the ohers), some hand made stitchmarkers which I just love and a shawlpin, beads etc to make my own shawl pin, a measuring tape (you can never have too many of those) and a lavender sachet.

I've laso acquired a couple of new books lately. The first one is Vogue KNitting Ultimate Sock Book which I wasn't sure I wanted but saw it in Waterstones and loved it. It's got some gorgeous socks and also a great stitch directory with some great stitch patterns I've not come across before. I want to knit the knee high EZ socks and Flow Motion socks from Cat Bordhi.Also got Noro Designer Mini Knits. I've got several small lots of Noro so thought this book was great to give me some ideas of what to do with it.