Nothing to declare

As the title suggests I have NOTHING to show you this week. My net knitting progress is a big fat nada, zilch, nowt.

It's not that I haven't done anything!  I have. I decided to pull out that mammoth cake of yarn I recycled from that sweater last year. Remember? 

I had a lovely mail day last Monday. I ordered The First Book Of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel. I may have also purchased the second book and a stunning book called The Magic of Shetland Lace Knitting by the rather fabulous Elizabeth Lovick. *coughs*

The two books by Marianne where originally published in the 50's and 60's, the way the patterns are written seemed odd to me at first, but they are clearly written and, when you get into the rhythmn of the pattern, they're easy enough to follow. 

I decided to knit the Sun Ray Dinner cloth pattern. It's going to be a 62" pi shawl of loveliness. In my infinite wisdom I cast it on at knit night. Not the best plan, I ripped it out twice after messing up the first lot of increases. I settled into a rhythmn then. Away I went, I got to grips with the charts and raced through chart A. Chart B was my downfall. I made a mistake right back at the beginning and with no lifelines it meant I ripped the whole thing out. Lesson learned. I started again. This time I got a third of the way through chart B before realising somehow I'd managed to get a completely different stitch count. 

And I mean completely! By row 26 I should have had 200 stitches. I had 400 and a few past that! Lord knows how I managed it. 

Needless to say, the whole thing got ripped out. Again! As I ripped it out I did think to myself I should take photos for you, but I was so twisted with myself I could to be faffed. So I have nothing to show for this week.

What a plank! 

So this week I'm changing things up a little. 

I want to ask for your help. 

Last year I took part in a Midnight Walk to raise funds for a charity called Hospice at Home. They provide nursing care to those terminally ill in their homes. They offer support to the patients and their families and are invaluable. 

While walking I knit on a pair of socks. My thought was that I'd raffle them off to raise more funds. In the end those socks raised £72 all on their own.

It seems that my walking and knitting stuck in the heads of the organisers as I was asked if I was going to walk and knit this year too. How could I resist? This year the walk is a Full Moon walk. I'm going to knit while I walk again this year, but I'm going one step further (lots of puns intended! ;-) )

I'm going to raffle off my socks like last year but this year I've set up a Just Giving page. A donation to my page gives one raffle ticket in the draw for the socks knit on the walk. I'm also going to do something a bit special for my blog readers too. If you do decide to make a donation to my page, please comment below to let me know that you've donated. On Sunday 8th June 2014 I will randomly select one person from those who commented on this blog entry to win a pair of socks custom made for you. You will get to pick a skein of yarn from my not unsubstantial sock yarn stash. I'll need you to make a foot template and email me a copy of that outline, but don't worry I'll walk you through the information I need. 

Blog readers will effectively get 2 oportunities to win socks, a ticket in the draw for the moonlit socks and the chance to win socks especially for you. 

Please share this blog post, I'd love to raise more than last year if I possibly can. 

That said, here we are halfway through May and I realised that I didn't draw for a winner in the March/April FO thread. Filipa and Kate both posted beautiful FO's so I'll give you both a pattern. Please   PM me on Ravelry with the details of a pattern you'd like up to the value of $7. 

Have a great week guys. 

Hopefully I'll have some progress to share with you next week!

Ellen x