Rain Rain Go Away

A grey and wet day in London seemed as good a time as any to finally start the blog I'd been promising friends for months. The mad rush of christmas and my hustle to get presents finished on time is finally over (despite the fact that my mother's scarf is still sitting on needles in my knitting bag). All the presents were received near Christmas, thanks to the post taking a tiny bit longer on some than others and all were received gratefully.

Finally after more than a year Anne's cross-stitch picture of Wells Cathedral was completed. That one was a real labour of love and probably the most exhausting thing I've ever managed to finish. 23,000 stitches later and I got it to the framers in time for them to mount it by Christmas.




A flurry of scarves was mailed out all over the place too, Mel's to California, Julia's to New Orleans, Barb's to Ontario and Stephen's, well just handed over personally in London, not quite as exciting, but he loved getting a handmade gift all the same. Corrina's hat and scarf went down a treat, although the slightly pointy top to the hat did encourage some pixie jokes during our ice skating adventure for her birthday celebrations. Learnt from that mistake though and the hat I made myself afterwards in some lovely Debbie Bliss Cashmerino had nary a bump in sight.




Barb's




Mel's Scarf



Corrina's Hat and Scarf



Stephen's


With the mad Christmas rush over I can finally start getting through some of the sock wool stash I'm forever adding to. Opal's my big obsession at the moment, trying to collect at least one ball of every collection they're putting out. Finding some of the older ones has been a drag, but they're so damn tempting. So far I've finished two pairs, not such a bad number considering I only started knitting them in August and the learning curve was a long one. The two completed pairs were both from Opal's first Rainforest collection, Chameleon for myself, Ladybird as a christmas gift for Jann. I'm a big sucker for anything in shades of green, blue and grey myself.




Each pair I make I learn something new about where I've previously gone wrong, maybe by the time the third pair's finished (a basic sock pattern using Opal Elemente, shade 1078), I'll finally have a pair I'm completely happy with. After the first one in the pair I've already realised I've decreased in the wrong place the last couple of socks and I've been doing the Kitchener to close the toe backwards, purling when I should be putting the darning needle knitwise and vice versa. Pictures of that pair'll follow when I finally have them finished later this week. Till then it's just a matter of knuckling down and working on them when I have the time after work, and of course trying to force myself not to scout for more wool on Ebay. Resisting's hard when there are so many new yarns to try though, been drooling over the Lorna's Laces Camoflage colourway for weeks. Maybe the trip to the cinema tonight to see The Holiday will satisfy my need to spend and I'll actually get myself some willpower. Fat chance.