Bits & Pieces...

This just literally arrived through my door :o) lovely isn't it?

It's my fibre club parcel from The Yarn Yard a 50% merino & 50% tencil blend. As always Natalie sends a lovely covering letter describing the fibre and how she went about dying it and her opinion about spinning it and/or suggestions... it's certainly brightened my day up... It's a beautiful combination of colours, it's soft and has a beautiful sheen to it....

Here's the Wine Sap roving all spun up and plied now... I must admit I'm pleased with how it turned out, though as you can see the colours in the roving don't always come through into the yarn as strongly as you would want

I got a very respectable 336m weighing in at 114g with 11tpi and 21wpi, and I'm pleased because my plying has improved and is more even and firmer. Previous plying has been a bit sloppy in places and firmer in others so this is a definite improvement.

I got one or two suggestions for the yarn, and I've bookmarked them on Ravelry for future use, but at the moment I'm toying with creating my own shawl pattern following Evelyn's suggestions in her book Knitting Lace Triangles. I'll let you know what I decide and how I progress....

My Princess shawl pattern was delivered on Saturday so now I have the yarn, the pattern & the needles and I'm ready to go but it will be a few months before I start as I don't "feel" ready to begin yet and I have a couple of shawls I want to do before starting this, so I think it'll be summer before I begin....

Both socks are progressing nicely so hopefully it won't be too long before I have a couple more pairs of socks....

Is it...

... S.E.X if I don't buy it?

This is 100% pure French silk in Silver Grey (2/28NM) from Colourmart When it grows up it's hopefully going to be the Alpine Lace Scarf from VLT; well actually I'm going to put a few more repeats of the centre motif in to make it wider to make it more of a stole... It will be a 70th birthday present from my Mum to her cousins wife next April (so I have plenty of time) so in effect Mum bought the yarn so is it really S.E.X, That's the question.???

I can't tell you much about it at the moment as I'm only just starting to swatch with it. I can tell you however, it's a 4ply yarn (a 2 & 2) so there are two distinct strands when knitting.... which doesn't bother me as I've been knitting holding two yarns together for a few projects. It feels a bit harsh at first, but after a few rows of stocking stitch the fabric softens up and I can see it being quite drapey and even more so after washing and blocking.....

I'm using 2.5mm needles and so far I like the result :o)

O.K. confession time.... I sent a link to a friend to show her the yarn and Colourmart had just had a new delivery of 1/20NM 100% Cashmere and this colour was there just glaring at me and begging me to buy it....

It's just such a beautiful shade of green it's called "Asparagus"... I gave it thought as to what I could use it for I didn't just want to buy it for the sake of buying it and then I'd remembered I'd subconciously been persuaded to pre-order the "Princess Shawl" pattern from Heirloom Knitting. Sharon Miller gives a couple of suggestions for yarn on her site and the Merino is just a little thinner (about 4 metres per gram) than the cashmere, so I bought it :o))))

I have to say I'm impressed with Colourmart's photography as the yarn is true to the colour on their website.....

So in the end I did succumb to a little S.E.X ;o)