I've been a BAD blogger...

...In more ways than one! Apologies for the delay in posting, it's been a hectic week (and weekend) and I needed a bit of a break from typing. In typical fashion, my dedication to my crafts has resulted in injury, namely a ganglion in my right wrist whach has somewhat cramped my style for most of this week but more about that later.

Anyway, onto other naughtiness!
I may have spent a few of my Birthday pennies...

(Well, it was a deal too good to miss!). Fifteen balls of Wendy fusion in Allspice (I think!) for the pinwheel sweater and five each of saffron and the browny one to add to yarn I already have, one for the pattern shown, another for a future project. I love this yarn and have knitted 3 swaeters in it so far.

In knitting news, I completed my Mystic Light Shawl last week...


...after blocking, it grew, and grew and grew (a bit scary for a sock yarn)! Still, I am pleased with the finished effect, this is the yarn I dyed myself with Kool-aid some while back.

I do like the way the "flames" turned out, and even though there's four different colours in the yarn, it doesn't detract from the pattern so I'm pleased with the overall look...even if I can't fit it all in on a camera lens!
I didn't let wrist pain stop me from doing this though, washing a ginormous fleece (which was filthy by the way) and then 6 seperate stockpots of dye over the space of 2 days produced this colourful mass. Quite when I'll get around to preparing it is another matter, but it'll no doubt be another self-striping masterpiece when it finally gets on the wheel.

This was one of the culprits (the other being the transportation of 5 clear boxes with lids home from the local shops)..

...The result of weeks of woolcombing. It produces lovely yarn but it is rather wasteful, there's roughly 400g there from about 750g of washed fleece. Still, I do have 1 1/2 of these prizewinning Ryeland fleeces so there will be plenty for a sweater by the time I'm finished. The thing is that my mini combs are wrist intensive and it can take around half-an-hour to produce one of those little bumps so a target of 10 of these each day was a little optimistic!

I've reduced both my knitting and woolcombing time considerably to give my wrist a break, use a wrist support at certain times of the day and because it puts a fair bit of pressure on the wrist it has actually reduced the lump somewhat so it is more bearable now.

After I completed the Mystic Light Shawl, I wanted to cast on something for summer...

...it's Sirdar Calico, a cotton/acrylic yarn which is nice to knit with but unfortunately, I got about 4" in and totally went off knitting it! I'm in a bit of a DK rut at the moment and considering how many pairs of socks I've churned out recently am looking for a quicker knit.

That plus the fact that whenever I knit with cooler materials like cotton, the weather takes a turn for the worse means it might take longer than it could if I gave it my full attention. Still, it'll be ready for the cooler weather! I'm back to wool and socks from tomorrow as Summer of Socks begins in the hope that we get good weather for Woolfest (wool knitting + hot weather = uncomfortable!) which is less than a week away now. I'll be travelling down on the Thursday which will be another adventure but it'll be great to meet up with so many other crafters.

Maybe by Sunday I'll have a sock to show you. The first on the list will be The Monkey sock I was knitting for a friend. Yes, I started that a few weeks ago BUT...I've had to frog my one nearly finished sock right back to the yarn again! Too many mistakes, too many corrections, loadsa frustration. I want it finished and off the needles ASAP (or as least as fast as my wrist will let me!) so I can knit lots of other lovely patterns. 'Till then it'll be some more lovely cotton, yum ;(