Needles on the Move

I’m really trying hard to blog about knitting, but everything I’m making at the moment seems to be either incredibly boring to photograph, or a gift for someone!

Today I have been ‘getting things done’ I think the spring cleaning bug finally caught up with me (spring wasn’t that long ago…) and I’ve been de-cluttering. This includes gathering up skeins of yarn which have been lying around on my desk since being plied months ago - just waiting for their bath. Those are done, which means I can start knitting up one of them into a project I have planned - the others are only half of a spinning job and I won’t start knitting it until I see what yardage I get.

I have also blocked the shawl I finished a couple of weeks ago, it’s a birthday present so - once again - no photos. Sorry to be so boring! I’ll show you in a few weeks when it’s arrived. As an aside, are blocking wires really so awesome? I’ve been thinking of buying a set, but it just took me literally 8 mins to pin out the shawl after its bath. Will wires really be quicker/easier? Thoughts below please. I think perhaps for a long rectangle/scarf they might be, but triangles I have down to a fine art.

Here’s something I can show you:

It’s currently being turned into a particularly boring strip of garter stitch, the foundation of the Shetland Shorty. It popped up on my friend activity and I decided I had to have one! Really too boring to take pictures of yet though. I love the way this yarn looks exactly like cookies and cream ice-cream!

I’m also knitting two Socktopus Mystery Shawls - I finished the first clue of the red one so quickly I couldn’t bear to wait for the next clue and cast on a second.They look a bit like this:

The red one (Malabrigo sock) is nearly done, the green one (seasilk) is still at clue one. I initially meant to give away the red one - but then the intended recipient jpoined the KAL! If you were knitting the mystery shawl, would you still like to get another one for Christmas??

Spinning at the moment is the next Spin! project, I’ve done one bobbin and finding it hard to get back into it with the stickiness prevailing in London at the moment. I might dig out the charkha and spin some more cotton - much more suited to the climate.

As we would (might) say down under.

Last summer I worked on a BIG project, but didn’t tell many people about it as I was 1) not really supposed to, and 2) really really afraid that fate would turn around and bite me on the butt. Gradually, there was movement. I finished, sent it off, waited some more… still didn’t say anything.

Then the preorder page for the book (a book!) appeared on Amazon, but I know all about fate and I didn’t want to bounce around just yet and then discover that actually, I’m not in this one - maybe next time…

Then on Friday I got a cheque in the post - a pretty good sign I thought - and then today I thought to look again aaaaaaand

You can actually look inside on Amazon and my name is right there in the table of contents :-D I’m on page 32 (which is also my age - coincidence?) and you can see a pic of my shawl on the facing page as well.

To celebrate, I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off!