Oops I did it again!

Once again I must seek the forgiveness of the collective!

I missed blogging again last weekend! In my defense, I was a tad pre-occupied!

It's been a difficult fortnight. Friday was the end of the school year and marks the closure of a big chapter in my son's education. He's finished primary school now. It's very exciting for him to be moving schools and heading for the big smoke. He'll be going to a huge secondary school in town. There are more children admitted each year to his new school than there are in the whole of his old one! 

His new school is great. They put a lot of time and effort into making sure that the transition is as smooth as possible. Teachers go to the primary schools and do sample lessons, the kids go to their new school to experience a school day and meet their new classmates. Ben has been excited about this for months. But when it came to the crunch of going for the whole day, he had a bit of a wobble! Who can blame him? He's going to be a teeny tiny fish in a huge ocean!  In the end, he had a great day and all was well. His enthusiasm for moving schools has returned. Praise be!

Leaving his old school was stressful too. Not for him, for me. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say I'm also glad he's moved school. 

I have relied on my crafting to keep me sane over the last two weeks. I've achieved much. 

So let's get to the nittygritty. 

Feeling the love - 

Gosh, where to start!?

Well needless to say, the fyberspates gleem lace I unraveled in the last blog was quickly cast back on as Almost Autumn by Booknits. The Close to You collection it comes from is truely stunning and inspirational. I want to have ALL the shawls NOW!!! I was so taken with the patterns I may have bought her other collection too it's called the In Love collection and the shawls are as beautiful.

Wow!

On a more mundane front I've picked up, worked on, and put back down many of my WIP's in the last two weeks, my sock yarn and spiral blankets have both felt some love. They're getting big now, so a lot of time working produces little visible progress. But sometimes I like to mindlessly crochet so they will continue to see action for a while yet. 

Ben's socks have had some progress made. Mainly because he asked me how they where going and I had done nothing much with them since ripping them out! I took them with me to a production the school put on. Dear lord help me it wasn't good. It's was like interpretive dance. It mostly washed over my head. Essentially I think the point of the production was that the school had looked into what makes girls girls and boys boys. It's odd listening to a 5 year old explain what they understand of gender stereotype. I mean, does a 5 year old really need to be posed these questions at this stage of their life? I'm not sure. But at least that hour or so in the hot, sweaty and frankly smelly hall allowed me to make good progress on the foot of his sock. I'd say I'm probably about halfway towards the heel. 

The sun ray shawl has seen lots of action. I've completed chart C and now I'm racing to the top of chart D. I say racing, it's all relative really. The transition between charts saw the stitch count rise to 640. So one round takes quite a while to complete now. But I love the yarn, I love the fabric I'm producing and I love the pattern, so slogging my way through each round isn't a chore still.

I've spun some too. I'm halfway through a naturally coloured BFL/silk blend. I bought it last year at Woolfest, it's a commercially produced top which was sold from a huge bag you just ripped off as much as you wanted. I neglected to weigh the top before I started, but I think it's 100g. I weighed what's left this morning and I'm at 50g. I'm now stuck. I'm not sure if I want to carry on and spin the lot then chain ply it, carry on spin the lot and then ply it with a completely different and colourful single, change bobbins and do a simple 2 ply or spin the lot and leave it as a fulled single. 

Do you know? I'm going to make a poll on the knitstostaysane rav board. Let me know what your opinion is!

I've spun on my little spindles too. My Turkish lives at work and I'm loving how my turtle is developing. At home my alien spindle is bedding in. I'm still not overly happy with the length of time it spins for, but it spins fast and you can't have it both ways. So for spinning as thin as I want to go, it's fine and I'm enjoying it.

Friday just gone was particularly difficult. Lots of things made a particularly rubbish day. So I cheered myself up by casting on a new, beautiful project. What's one more WIP between friends?!

I'm using a beautiful yarn by Nimu. Now I'm telling you how gorgeous this yarn is, but the snag is you'll only get it in a de-stash right now. Sorry!

The lovely lady (who's name escapes me sorry!) who runs Nimu has essentially closed her shop. She's gone back to university. She now only dyes sporadically. She did offer a summer club to those who are on her mailing list. I can't recommend enough to you guys to sign up to that list, the opportunity to get your hands on some of this yarn can't be missed. 

Any hoo, I'm working with her Isel base. It's a fingering weight BFL/silk/cashmere blend which is pure joy to use. The fabric it's producing is nothing short of divine ! The lustre  and softness combines with stunning colour saturation to make for a wonderful knit. I knew this yarn must be
something special. So I cast on another Booknits creation. This time is Rainshine. I can't wait to see this finished. But equally I don't want to have to stop knitting this yarn and cast it off! It's lovely.

In other news, Camp Aloha Friends continues apace. Since I last wrote to you I have mainly been making yo-yo's. I may be a little obsessed with them now! 

As you can see, I'm well on my way to filling my second vase. We will have a little swap shortly so I must reign in my desire to use all of my circles. I need to pass some on to my swap partners! 

Craftiness know no bounds at camp! The main reason I didn't blog last weekend is because I spent the time I'd usually write to you making beads. It was such great fun. 

These cute little critters will be stitch makers soon...... Hum, maybe I'll do that this morning after I've finished my house work! 

There are many more things for me to do, I need to get my finger out and make myself a loom. It's so clever the way it's done, I just need to sit for a bit, collect my ingredients and crack on. The fabric we are going to weave will be needed later, so I'd like to make a start soon. 

Speaking of ingredients I cooked up a storm last weekend. I made ganache puddings, s'more clusters and a lovely vegetable soup. This weekend I think roast strawberries have been mentioned in camp, so I'll have to investigate that recipe too! Nom nom!!

On the Horizon - 

I have 2 weeks to go until my summer holidays start. I can't wait. I'm starting to get tired! So I'm counting down the days. 

On the crafty front, I'll see what you guys think about that spinning project.

I'll work on all of my WIP's. 

I'll crack on and finish processing that yarn I recycled a while ago. I sat and wound 1000yds onto the niddy noddy last night and there was no visible change to the ball!

I need to get on with it as I need it to be relaxed by September. I'll be starting a new KAL.  It's another Susan Pandorf pattern. This time we'll be knitting her In Dreams creation. You can find information about the KAL in the Evenstar KAL group on Ravelry. It's being organised by Annagret and CODfishh, if you want to join us, check out the thread on the group. The Evenstar KAL was great. A lovely group of people supporting each other with no pressure. 

So, enough pontificating. I'm off to get this day started!

Until next week (hopefully!)

Ellen x