I've been ignoring my blog recently. I have good(ish) reasons. The world cup for one, the end of my constructed textiles course (and the rush to make sure everything is completed to standard on time) for another and last but not least, the wonderful weather. On good days, although drugged up to the eyeballs, you will find me outdoors enjoying what I can of the sun and the beautiful sites around me. On bad days, still drugged up to the eyeballs, and not an ounce of energy, surrounded by soggy tissues and eye pads. Dems the breaks unfortunately. I have chronic allergic reactions to very ordinary things as well as the usual seasonal suspects. Summertime is the best and worst for me. On many occasion, knitting has to take a back burner because I can't see a pattern, never mind even following the pattern - as witnessed by Karin the other day when I was constantly ripping out Crinckle because I couldn't get the 8 row pattern right at all - or even worse, I'm reacting to the yarn!!
On a more positive note, Karin has been keeping my spirits up. I received a package from the postman while Karin was on her road trip in the USA. The postman was spared a barrage of bad language for getting me out of bed at 6.45 in the morning when I saw the senders address on the box.
The yarn is Peaches and Cream and its yummy.The yarns have wonderful names like faded glory and sea mist. One quirk of the yarn we noticed is that the solid colours are approx. 70 grams per ball while the variated colours are 59 grams per ball. Dish clothes are coming to mind....
And on her return She gave me these. The yarn is so soft, it's almost too good to use.
Her generosity and good will does not stop there. On Saturday, Karin became my personal shopper. While spotting bargains in the John Lewis sale, there were calls flying to and fro as she went through all the sale yarn they had to offer and made my purchases for me. Thanks Karin.
And my sister has been (dragging) escorting me to the gym for the past two weeks. The things we do for love!! We both received special passes to an exclusive gym for two weeks by way of a taster to entice us to acquire membership. We have been pampering and occasionally exercising ourselves. I'm actually surprised to see results in just two weeks and have found classes that I like. I won't be able to join that particular gym, but I will try and carry on the good work, (she says reaching for the Green and Black's).
Knitting
On the knitting front, Crinkle is almost finished, I have one sleeve to do. I'm picking up Faye when I can (this is what happens when you look too hard at what other people are doing and think the grass is greener on the other side). I'm going to start Gwen for my sister and before summers end I'm hoping to complete Danielle, by Twilleys of Stamford from the Demin freedom book 2 - who said Mary????
Stash flash - update
You may recall that I started to flash my stash. After careful consideration, I decided to hold off flashing anymore - due to my complete paranoia about who would be looking. However, since reading yarn harlots view on stash, I am in complete agreement and feel that my yarn is my thing and I'm proud of it - but its mine and something that is cherished and personal to me, so it stays my little thing for the time being (notice the use of the word little). It may also appear that I am backtracking on my promise to use up my stash. Having just completed a constructed textile course and not even waiting to see if I was successful or not, I have decided to do the next level. It should span 2 years, but I'm aiming to do it in one year. The requirements this time are around set pieces of completed work and samples, but the work must be to my own construction and design. I'm already planning in my head, so it seems only natural that I should take advantage of bargains when they present themselves as well as using present stash. I hear there's a sale on at Loop.......
All I have to do now is buy the ribbon. I'm still gearing up for Mary, so I've started making cushions from stash yarn and from the frogged cotton silk aran yarn. 
The cushions are from the Debbie Bliss book number 3. I've made myself a promise that the next post will be about a completed Mary - I'm using her as my incentive to start a log cabin blanket using stash wool cotton yarn - wells that's the theory........
