Two posts in three days?!

What is the world coming to?

But I seem to recall promising you pictures of my lace and Secret Pal related loot, and I thought I'd shock you by doing what I said I was going to do for once. It's all fun, fun, fun round here :)

Anyway, my Feather & Fan lace has grown rather a lot since you last saw it. Here it is, stretched out on my lounge floor with a ball of yarn carefully positioned to give you an idea of scale.


Lots and lots of lace

This project has actually grown on me quite a lot in the making. Now there's more of it I feel a lot happier about how it's going to turn out and I am beginning to love the colour scheme (for which I'd look at my previous post but one if I were you - this is not a great colour reproduction). RLBF's mum has christened it the Heathland Shawl as it reminds her of the Scottish Highlands. This seems highly appropriate to me when you look at it closely - there's all kinds of green in there, together with some subtle purples, blues and yellows which evoke that part of the world extremely well. RLBF kindly offered to adopt Heathland should I decide that I still felt 'meh' about it when it was finished. Unluckily for her I think she is going to be dissapointed :) I look forward to a giant adventure in blocking some time over the weekend, which could be fun as I've never blocked anything quite this large before. I'm thinking that I need to invest in a load more dressmaking pins. And do you think it'll need a full-dunking wet block or will I be able to get away with a quick spritz? Decisions, decisions.

So what else have I got to show you? Well, finally here is a picture of the yarn part of my first SP4 gift. Thanks Peep!


Yay for my Secret Pal :)

Note the mohair in delicious Atropos-ish colours on the left and the tempting experimental R2 on the right. Fabulous, I thought. And you could also note the basket they're sitting in if you like, because I made it myself on a course I went on over last weekend. It's a little eccentric in its shaping but I'm rather proud of it nonetheless. Go me!

Speaking of Secret Pals I received another small gift from mine earlier in the week. It's a handy pocket torch come calendar thingy that I plan to keep in my handbag for those difficult moments when I'm wrestling with my keys in the dark. And I started plotting my next parcel to the knitter whose Secret Pal I am. This whole thing is turning out to be a lot of fun.

Finally, here are two recent additions to the stash. I really shouldn't have bought either of them I suppose, but hey, if it wasn't full of yarn that I wasn't going to knit for some fair old time it wouldn't be worthy of the term 'stash' now, would it?

Anyway, first up is a Colinette throw kit in glorious shades of red, which will match the bedroom decor in Norfolk perfectly.


Stash enhancement - blame Theresa

Now I'm afraid this purchase can be entirely blamed on Theresa over at The Keyboard Biologist, as that was where I read that these kits are due to be discontinued in the UK. The word "Why?" springs to mind given how popular they seem to be in the knitblog community, but still. I just hope I don't love this so much once I've knitted it that I wish I had invested in one for the spare bedroom too - a distinct possibility looking at the yumminess of the yarn that's included in the kit. I haven't even dared open the plastic bag yet, for fear of distraction. Perhaps I'll find a spare couple of hours some time over the weekend :)

My final loot is this from the nice people at The Yarn Warehouse. It's a Weasley jumper kit to knit up for my 2 year old nephew. I can't wait to get cracking on this one as my sister in law is a big HP fan too, so I'm quite sure she'll get the reference. One of the best things about this purchase was the price though. £10 for the lot! Quite a bargain, I thought.


O Lordy - it's a Weasley jumper in the making.

There was a lot that I wanted to say about the trendiness or otherwise of knitting as a hobby in the UK but it's late here and I'm starting to type funny. Maybe next time when I'm not falling asleep at the computer. Sleep well everyone.