After a busy Christmas I am finally back at the blog. So much has happened since I was last typing this that it is hard to know where to start. I guess that the most important thing is that I finally managed to get the Winter’s Comfort shawlette up in time for the final shawl club of the year. I am quite pleased with this – it looks simple but has some nice textures and touches, and a few festive beads thrown in too. I am grateful to one of my fantastic team of testers for the photographs, as I didn’t have time to bead my own version before sending it out for test. The yarn included as part of shawl club is the most amazing luxury base in a beautiful rich colour, but as I know there are folk who subscribe to shawl club from abroad I won’t say more than that for fear of ruining the surprise. It is designed to be a shallow scarf type of shawl, as I know so many people who like to wear their shawl that way and dislike deep, traditionally shaped triangular shawls as a result. I hope that this version will be really wearable and useable all year around.
I treated myself to a couple of Christmas yarn boxes this year, one from Unbelieva-wool and the other from Dye Candy. Both were, as I hope you can see, stunning, and Dye Candy introduced me to a new base of baby alpaca, silk and cashmere (swoon). I cannot describe to you how soft this combination is. I just need to find the right project for it.
In the Christmas makes department this year I have focussed on making socks, and so far they have been well received. I say so far, because my parents are ill at the moment and have banned me for seeing them until they improve, so they haven’t received their socks yet. I plan to gatecrash in the new year whether they want me to or not. Both have chest infections which sound horrific but also so bad they are very conscious of not wanting to pass them on to other people. Noble, but terrifying for me.
I am having a little break from shawl club this winter so that I can experiment a bit and come up with some new designs for the Spring. I also need to crack on with some of my other plans for the new year. At the moment I am resting to make sure I am ready to go for broke. I want to see what I can achieve with this now. About this time last year I started this blog. At the time I had no idea quite what the year would hold. I never dreamt I would get so far so quickly. So although it has been a modest start, it has happened much faster than I thought it would. And I am learning so much on the way.
The Knackered Psycho 