New starts

Good morning. 

Happy Labour Day weekend to you all in the States. 

Happy Sunday to those of us who aren't! :-)

As the title suggests I'm looking forward to new starts this week. 

My baby (11 years old, but he'll always be my baby) starts secondary school on Wednesday. I'm a nervous wreck. He's completely nonplus. 

September also sees the start of a new epic KAL over in my Evenstar group on Ravelry. There's a thread entitled 'The consequence of Evenstar' I encourage you to check it out. We will be casting on In Dreams, another of Susan Pandorf's stunning patterns. This one is a half pi shawl with a measly 5000 beads. 

Yes, that's right! FIVE THOUSAND BEADS!!! No pre-stringing here, each one is placed individually. I'm not sure if this pattern will break me, but I'm going to thoroughly enjoy finding out!

As with the Evenstar KAL, there are no time pressures here. If you complete the pattern in a week (?!?!?) or a year that's great. The group is there to motivate, inspire and listen to your howls of frustration. 

Why don't you join us for a little slice of crazy pie this autumn?

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend here in England. We had good friends come and stay with us. They have a whippet called Floyd and while we walked our pooches down the lane our boys cycled. It seems that while the boys cycled they were also searching in the hedgerows. 

They found these three ma-hoo-sive mushrooms!

Which I promptly fried up for dinner! They were gorgeous. So fresh and mushroomy. I know it sounds daft, but the mushrooms you buy in the supermarket don't really taste of much. But these suckers taste divine!!

Feeling the love- 

Since I last wrote to you I've finished my It's All xraymd's fault socks. 

I'm sorry for the less than inspirational photo. I know I promised no more sofa shots, but I just realised that I didn't take a glamorous shot, and now they're in the wash!!

I also finished the With Mel shawlette. I was a little worried when I was knitting it that it would be a little small on me. Mel and I are poles apart size-wise! Once I'd cast off I felt a little better about the wingspan of the shawl, but I decided to block it hard too. 

It wraps just nicely over my shoulders, but I think I'll mostly wear it as a scarf

This is how I wear most of my shawlettes. I love how it turned out. I'll be knitting it again I'm sure. Check out WithMelDotCom for the pattern. 

 The Sun Ray shawl has also come out of hibernation this week. It dawned on me that September and the In Dreams KAL was looming. I thought I should clear off as many big WIP's as I can. I've made some progress up chart D. The snag is I spend an inordinate amount of time just gazing at the shawl! I'll knit a row and just look at it for a while! It really is lovely. However, I need to accept it's beauty and crack on with it! I'm no way near half way and looking is not progressing! 

I've also discovered the joys of washi tape..... I know, I know, I'm always last to the party! 

I have astigmatism in both eyes and even with my glasses I sometimes struggle to keep them going the same way (I'm special! I know ;-) ) when I look at complicated charts, sometimes my eyes will wander down to the row below or above. When I'm using the iPad and PDFexpert I can highlight the row I'm on, or enlarge the image so that I can only see the row I'm working on. This pattern is from a hard copy book though. I photocopied the pattern and I've been crossing off the rows as I knit, but sometimes I still wander off. Now I've put a piece of washi tape on the pattern though, I'm finding it much easier. Can't find washi tape? Well a low tack masking tape from the DIY store will do just as well and no doubt be a damn site cheaper too! 

I've worked some on Ben's socks, but not a whole lot. 

I've worked on that blasted sock yarn blanket. That ball just refuses to get smaller!  The only consolation is that it's now plenty big enough to snuggle under while I work on it. The weather has turned positively autumnal this last week. Dewy mornings and a distinct chill in the air. We've had the fire lit on more than one occasion. 

I've spun too this week, but again, I've not made a huge amount of progress. 

It's been one of those weeks when I've dabbled at lots of things and got nothing to show for my efforts! 

Hey ho

On the horizon - 

I'll be dabbling again I imagine! I could really do with winding my In Dreams yarn into a cake and swatching. Cast on is the 14th of September, so I've got a while yet. 

I'm hoping and praying that Ben survives his first days at big school. This is a huge leap for him and I'm sure he'll have a great time. I'm such a worry wort

Have a lovely week guys

Ellen x