Pink and sparkly.

This has been the theme of the week here! I am moving along as quickly as I can with my test knit and I can now tell you (I think) that it is for the mystery shawl KAL from Yarn addict so if you fancy joining in that would be fab. You need 800m of lace weight (sparkles are optional) and some beads for the edging.  I also bought myself a chiaogoo lace needle to try as I have heard they are amazing (plus I didn't have a spare needle). The pattern for me has been great so far and I am almost at the edging but for the KAL they are only on clue 1 this week.

Also I can spill the beans that our Yarn dyeing friend has been having a go at some fluff for spinning and she sent me some pink sparkly to have a go with!

It is, as always, a fab colour and really lovely to spin. I am hoping that I am spinning fine enough to get a  little lace shawl but will keep you posted.

Finally here is a rather rubbish picture of the firmaments shawl - I have too many stitches on the needle to stretch it out but I am sure you can get the gist of it? The little blue bits are where Dee has marked the start of the rounds and I wanted to leave them in until the end.

That all I have this week but hopefully I will have more to show you once my mystery sparkles is off the needles. Take care of yourselves this week, Sxx

Payback time.

On Friday (last week) I was lucky enough to go to 'the world largest coffee morning' at a friends house. I took along a few beady bracelets and a button necklace to add to the craft stall and brought home a jar of chilli relish and some lemon curd plus a lovely handmade notice board for Lottie. It is one of those that has ribbons on to tuck things behind.

The reason I was so excited to go was that back in the summer I was lucky enough to receive a half finished shawl from 'Posh yarns' Dee as she decided it needed a new home - she wasn't ever going to finish it! I asked her what she would like as a thank you and she said that a donation to Macmillan was what she would like best. So it was with much pleasure that I attended on Friday in order to fulfil my promise to her.

What is this shawl like I can hear you asking? It is chocolate brown (like Ted) and has alpaca in it. The pattern is called firmaments and is a circular shawl. Dee had knitted to the final section of the circular pattern 'fountain lace'  but I couldn't work out which row she was on so I carefully took it back a few rounds to the increase where I could start this part from the beginning. There are 517 stitches per round so the going was fairly slow but it kept me company whilst we were over in Norfolk at the end of the summer. The light is amazing over there and I had no problems but back home the dark yarn on my knit pro tips were a nightmare so it will have to wait a while longer to be finished.

I am also doing a spot of shawl testing at the moment in a really pretty pink sparkly yarn but I am not allowed to show you just yet as it is a bit of a mystery but you are going to love it!

I saw my friend again this week and the coffee morning raised over £700 so I think that was a really fantastic event and I hope they do it again next year.

I will try to get a picture of the shawl but it is usually dark when I get the time to blog so will have to try harder - sorry. I will leave you with this though:

This is what happened when I didn't get the new lawn laid because I needed to wait until the scaffolding was done with!