And the winner is....

.... Andrea. You won the 2 skeins of Artesano Definition sock yarn. I've sent you a message through Ravelry and will post the yarn when I hear back from you.

Thank you to everyone for taking part. I really appreciate it. And it seems that although some of you do like knitting socks with your sock yarn, most of you prefer to knit one skein shawls. I'm assuming it's two reasons for this. 1. sock yarn is just gorgeous and 2. it's relatively quick and easy to knit (or at least it is compared to a garment) and fit is less of an issue.

It's not been a good week, apart from Tuesday, when I was teaching at Social Fabric and had a great time. If you're in Totnes you ought to pop in as it's a beautiful shop with a great workshop programme for all sorts of crafts, not just knitting. 

I've spent a lot of time knitting and crocheting. I'm working on two secret designs now using one of my new favourite yarns, Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend Fino. Both designs are for US publications, it's different publications but same publisher. I can't share what I'm working on but here are the colours I'm working with:

There's a lot of red going on right now. Here's a semi-secret shawl I cast on for last week with red beads. The read beads didn't match the yarn that well and I decided gold beads would look better but I did't have the right size. Well the right size beads arrived yesterday. So I cast on again for this shawl this morning. The yarn is Madelinetosh Prairie which I bought at Loop in London last October. It's my first time knitting with this and I love it. 

All the three yarns I'm working with right now feel quite similar. The Prairie is laceweight and the Fino is 4ply but apart from that they are all singles yarns and feel very similar to work with and I'm enjoying all three projects a lot. I'd like to get the blue Fino design off the needles in the next week. 

This weekend I'll be at Purlescence in Oxfordshire teaching Steeking on Saturday (I think there may be a couple of spaces left, but hurry up). The workshops at Purlescence are always fun so do join us if you can. And steeking is really not as scary as it sounds. No idea what steeking is? Check out this blog post. 

I need to decide which project(s) to take with me this weekend. I won't get a lot of time for knitting but i may manage a bit of knitting in the car on Friday and in the hotel room Friday evening. On the way home on Saturday I'll be sleeping.

Simon and Emily are coming with me and they'll be spending the day in Oxford while I teach. Simon is coming mainly to be my driver. I'm too tired after a workshop to drive all the way home from Oxfordshire and Emily has to come along as she's too young to stay home. They've had a few days in Oxford in the last year, when I've been teaching, and I think they quite enjoy it.