I may start knitting again!

As part of my birthday prsents a friend of mine has paid for two volumes of Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Stitches, volume 2 has just arrived from the USA and I've been poring over it. I've also just been given the unabridges audiobook of Lord of the Rings - I forsee plenty of knitting while I listen, especially lace is much better to audio rather than television watching.
I heard that I'd successfully signed up to Secret Pal 11, I was so spoiled last time I did a Secret Pal I'm not sure if it can be as good but I'm looking forward to taking part again.

Eeyore's gloomy place

I'm mostly in Eeyore's gloomy place at the moment, no major reasons, just lots of small ones that have left me without the urge to knit or blog, the sun shone today and I'm hoping that will help to improve my mood!
These were for my Mum for her 80th birthday last week, I told her they were from Hecate cat as she's always telling me not to 'waste' my money on flowers, I'm pleased to say these have lasted nearly a week already!

The Irish Diamond shawl is growing slowly, my first shawl where the rows get longer not shorter - it's no wonder I'm not feeling the lurve for it at present. It isn't helped by the fact that the yarn is oiled for machine knitting and rather rough, I think it will wash out well at the end, I'm on teh 8th repeat of 14 so it is progressing even if more slowly than I want. I'm still trying to find something in my WIP's or stash that inspires me to want to knit though, I didn't even take knitting with me to work today - a real sign of knitting doldrums for me!

The promised update

This arrived through the post this week, I have the first volume and I've been looking out for this one cheap, finally I found it - I still plan on making my own design of arran sweater sometime - that had been my intention for this year when I got sidetracked by shawls!

This book will enable me to sort out what parts I need for my wheel, I'm not much cop with a hand spindle so I'm hoping that a wheel may work better for me.

I've done the first 7 repeats of the Irish Diamond shawl, I can't travel with it as the cone of yarn is way too huge so it's only growing slowly. I've done very little knitting this last week due to tiredness leding up to teh exciting cold I now have - I've spent virtually the whole weekend either asleep or curled up under the duvet reading.
Not much knitting is likely to get done this week eitehr as I have a doctor's appointment and then, if I'm no longer infectious I'll be celebrating my Mum's 80th birthday this Wednesday.

The drive by blogging

I have a streaming cold that prevented me going to visit my Mum last night but that justified me staying in bed reding the latest Harry Potter when the postman delivered it, don't worry I shan't be putting any spoilers here - I wasn't that impressed with it, but then I only just got around to finishing the previous volume that I abandoned due to boredom when it came out. I may well be in a minority but I much preferred her books when she had to keep them short in order to sell them. I've done virtually no knitting this week and the camera batteries are flat so I've no pictures to show you, maybe next week!
I'm off back to bed with a new knitting book that arrived today - pictures tomorrow I promise!

I must be mad!

I finally finished this, the latest Spanish Dancer shawl, it took me for ever to cast off the ruffle as I made it bigger and hence had many more ruffle stitches, I'm pleased with it even if I did start it in March! It took a definite back seat to the christening shawl as I'm sure you can imagine.

In an excess of finishing off I also finished this fluffy scarf started before Christmas, I have enough yarn left to make the brim of a woolly hat, all I need to do is stash dive until I find some brown yarn to make the body of a woolly hat! I may just wait until Hecate unearths it as she has a knack of diging in my yarn stores and finding wool I never knew I had!

The living proof that I am mad, this is a second christening shawl, while I have the border pattern in my head I figured I may as well get on with it, I have two sets of nieces and the second set may one day require it, if not I'm sure I can find a home for it at some time, I'm not rushing at it, current estimate of finishing time is next year as I'm only doing about 8 rows a day of the border (according to my obsessive compulsive spreadsheet)

I've been trying to find something to knit that caught my fancy as nothing I've ben working on has inspired me, I finally came up with the Irish Diamond Shawl from Folk Shawls, it seems fairly straightforward so far and is using part of a humungous cone of yarn I picke dup on eBay last year, it is'nt a portable project but will make good TV knitting.

Hecate likes my birthday present, I think she'd live in this bag if I'd let her! Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed birthday wishes, it wasn't a great birthday as birthdays go, but I've had worse!

Happy birthday parcel

This arrived today, with perfect timing, Sibille managed to make this arrive on my birthday! Thank you - you spoil me!

Isn't this beautiful? Such pretty chocalates with roses on and a lovely artificial rose stem for me to keep

Here is the parcel opened to the next layer, a pretty card, a mysterious velvet pouch, a wrapped package and a cute bath and shower gel, ideal for taking with me when I travel for work. Not forgetting of course the vitally important chocolate bar!

Here you can see the loveliest pair of socks, I'm feeling inspired to get out the sock yarn and needles although Sibille makes much fancier socks than I do I must try and be more adventurous especially as she sent me a pattern not long ago. The velvet pouch contains a lovely pendant, I'll find a chain for it as soon as possible.
Thank you again Sibille, it's been a quiet birthday snd your generous parcel really made my day.

What a week!

It's been a stressful busy week, at one point on Monday we were warned that my neighbour might not make it and I was mentally preparing for the problem this would cause when her daughter and grand kids came home from holiday - luckily she made it and is at home again, any thanks from her daughter is noticeable by it's complete absence, I suspect she's having a guilt attack for going off on holiday without leaving me any contact details or instructions! I was cheered up by an early birthday present from a friend who has great taste! This bag will probably end up as yet another knitting bag as it's extremely capacious.

I've taken a break from lace this weekend and found the needles and yarn to finish off the ruffle of this shawl, I'm cheating by doing the final increase and the casting off at the same time using both ends of the yarn so as to avoid having 3500+ stitches on the needles at any one time, I'm only about a sixth of the way along but at least it's progressing again.

Slight hiatus

I'm just dashing off hospital visiting, my neighbour was taken ill in the early hours of this morning, I've spent most of the day at the hospital as her daughter who normally cares for her when neccessary is on holiday, if she make sit throuhg the next 24 hours which is in doubt I'll be fitting in hospital trips with work and not getting much knitting done, I did just want to thank people for their complements on teh shawl, I'm still at the 'Wow I can't believe I really did it' stage!

Victory!

I'm counting this as a June FO as I finished it early this morning! I'm thrilled to have finished it, I began it on 23 March and finished it much more quickly than I had expected to.
I did cheat a little as the very centre should have had a pattern in it but it didn't seem worth the aggravation of juggling DPN's and patterning such a small section, I made the executive decision to go with stocking stitch instead.
After so much 2 ply I picked up soem 4 ply on 4mm needles and it feels as if I'm knitting with pokers!