A butterfly is born

Very unexpectedly, the postman delivered my March parcel for the Mystery Blanket KAL. That was the kick up the behind I needed to finish the last square for February- Butterfly:

Intarsia and I don't get on. Luckily Karin was on hand to offer support and encouragement as I waded my way through ends, tangles and beads.

So my squares so far:

March will be interesting. The blanket has a house!!

Time

The past week has flown by in a flurry of half term activity - and hardly any knitting. We spent a good while on public transport. This was not as helpful as it could have been - most of the projects I'm working on are not portable.

St Brigid has a second sleeve

I managed to finish socks for the young man

And one side of the jitterbug socks!!

I'm not sure I'm on target to finish St. B before the end of February, but I'll give it a try!!

Beloved

Fitting for St. Valentimes day.

I have much to feel happy about. My beloved Ecru denim finally arrived. Thank you Rowan!! Karin's gift of a years subscription to Interweave Knits arrived on my door step yesterday. Thank you Karin, and I went to a new knitting circle. A good time was had by all . Lots of knitting, talking laughing and drinking.... coffee and tea of course!!

St Brigid is resting for a couple of days whilst I play catch up on the Picnic squares. I have not really set myself a monthly quota for knitting the squares - on either blanket (Picnic and the Mystery Blanket aka In The Country) but it's been sitting for a good couple of weeks without any TLC, so I'm going to zoom along on it until the weekend.

St Brigid's back

I finished St Brigid's back!!

Completed back

Completed back and sleeve

Beginning of second sleeve

I've started the second sleeve. It feels managable. I'm slightly worrying about the sleeve length - it looks too short. I didn't realise how much I was carrying whilst knitting up the back. I understand why it felt so slow and arduous towards the end. I want to finish her by the end of February. I have 12 balls of yarn left so I'm quietly confident that I have enough yarn to complete her.

Oh, and I've discovered the close up button on the camera. I've been dispairing about how bad some of my photo's are, especially the ones I try to take up close - they always come out blurry. I feel liberated!! A small improvement along the way on my journey towards taking moderately decent photos of my knitting projects.

P.S I seem to have lost the spell check facility - apologies if I have missed any wrong spellings!!

O' what a wonderful morning..

The post man came today. He gave me a little package. This is what it contained:

I was feeling quite sorry for myself because I had just one project to work on (St Brigid) and quite frankly, I was'nt enjoying it (I'm on the last repeat of the back). So, as you do, I was off in fairy land thinking about all the projects I want to knit and I had a brain wave. I'm planning my next Alice Starmore project and decided to investigate what yarn I want to use. I love the Jamieson's yarn, but thought I'd see what her own yarn is like. I ordered one skein to play with last week and Mr Postie gave it to me today. I want to compare the two yarns. The yarn that came today is Hebridian 3ply. The photo does it no justice whatsoever. The greens and blues it contains are quite stunning. However, I can't find very much diffrence between the two makes of yarn. I was disappointed with the lack of information about aftercare, tension, needle size etc on the Virtual yarns ball band. you would think that the manufacturere would wnat you to love and cherish the gatrment you make woth such lovely yarn!!

I was also miserable because Rowan 43 is out and since I did'nt renew my subscription, I waiting for it come out in the shops. I've seen Karins and I quite like it. I can use up some stash yarn - always a good thing.

In the meantime, I'm nursing the ball of ecru denim Karin kindly gave me (left over from a project she knitted -thank you Karin) until the yarn arrives at my LYS - come on Rowan, please send my yarn!!! Whilst I was there, I saw these :

Marisol Hacho yarn 100% hand dyed yarn

Somehow they managed to make their way home with me; suddenly I don't feel so bad about Rowan 43......