A sneak preview....

....of a forthcoming attraction!
This is Kiri in Orkney Angora! I've been threatening people at my knitting group that I've been "nearly finished" for centuries, and here at last, she is. I changed the edging a bit. I'll tell you about that and the pattern specs after my countryside modelling shoot this weekend. x K 

The dye is not entirely evenly saturated, that is a feature of the yarn.  

The easy way to five-a-day!

If you want to give yourself a head-start on your healthy living regime by kicking off your morning with a massive fruity injection to your Five-a-day plan then follow these simple steps:

A) Arrange a local bank holiday.
B) Head to a countryside location.
C) Go bramble picking, just like scarybez .
D) Collect a good couple of handfuls, but leave some for the birdies.
E) Blitz them in the blender/ smoothie maker, with other fruity delights.
F) ENJOY! aaaaah.
You can almost smell the antioxidants.

















As a complement why not try something not quite as healthy, but equally yummy. Socherry always inspires with her home-baked cakes from Cupcakes Galore so I followed her lead and bought that and its sister publication Cookies Galore . My first recipe was Citrus Cream Clouds, or in my case, Citrus Cream Stars. Yummy! If the others turn out that well, we'll be laughing.



In knitting, I have decided to join in the Charity Mitt Knit in aid of Childline, as seen over at K1 yarns. I am following the pattern for medium sized ladies' fingerless mitts, and I'm using Rowan Kid Classic in an olive colour. A nice fast knit, and I don't think I'll need anything like the full 100g recommended. Yes the backpack and boots are mine, I AM knitting on a picnic mid hillwalk!

And in yarn bargains, Twilley's Freedom Spirit is only £2.79 per ball in Galloway Gems, Castle Douglas, AND they have a new yarn range called Sublime. Bought 14 of the former, none of the latter. Yet. (Laughs demonically.)

Lucky me!

Hee hee, I did really well at the Swap Shop yesterday!
As you may have noticed I'm on quite a lace kick at the moment so I was delighted to bag some purple 1ply Cashmere yarn which the donor (Gloria, no blog) used to use for machine knitting. I'll try a wee swatch of it as is, and then try doubling it up on the ball winder, as Glo suggested. I traded some books and four balls of sock yarn for this and some cornflower blue Merino yarn, which is very fine too, although not in the same scale as the Cashmere, which is apparently 2/30 for those in the know.

I also got two balls of Rowan All Seasons Cotton which I swapped for some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran with Mhairi, who I'm still trying to talk into getting a blog. She also took some of that red stuff off my hands, for which I will be eternally grateful.
Clever clogs has managed to put it away before photographing it, but I can tell you it is shade 195. Similarly I can't show you the Debbie Bliss Maya Karen gave me but it is shade 16, the fiery orangey mix. Too organised for my own good. Oh well, at least there's a good chance of you knowing what ASC and DB Maya look like anyway without a specific photo. I didn't have anything on me yesterday that Karen fancied so she let me off with an IOU for a future deal!

Didn't she do well? x K

Spot the difference!

The first picture is my stash April 2006, before the yarn diet. The second one was the stash this morning. Not a mega amount of visible difference except there is now one more box and even less daylight getting in through the spare room window, but no overspill sitting on top. The great difference unseen to the naked eye is that if you open a box labelled say "Rowan cotton and cotton blends", you will find exactly that, nothing more, nothing less. What I'm trying to say is that it now does what it says on the tin rather than fighting my way through random extras stuffed in each box out of the way. I've been through my stash over the last couple of days because the Glasgow Knitting Meetup is having a SWAP SHOP today!!!!! Wonder who's superb idea that was?

My contribution to today's swap shop at the Glasgow Knitting Meetup. A mixture of project ends, impulse sale buys, misjudged ebays and finished-with books and mags. The object is to swap this for something exquisite and TINY or nothing at all. I'll update you later to see if I managed to bring back a lot less than I took. 

Won't be putting this devil yarn into the swap shop. Will just give it in to charity I think. Spent quite a while making a nice jumper for myself out of this only to find it lost its look in 0.274 seconds. The problem is there is a core of fluffy wool cased in a fine mesh like ultrafine tights. There is no actual structure to the yarn. AVOID THIS YARN!  

Loved the side to side cabled jumper I made in Jaeger Como. Hated the fact it catches on everything and you look like you've been wearing it down the mines. 

Knitting friends

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the wedding reception of a lovely knitting friend who I first chatted to on the Rowan forum and then met in the flesh at a Kaffe Fassett talk in good old John Lewis.

J described her as "one of the original Dream Team", as I am spoiled here in Glasgow with many knitting friends.

She looked absolutely beautiful and I wish Jill and her new husband Kevin every happiness for the future.

Isn't the internet great, it's through the internet I met Jill, India, and Heather, and indirectly Nancy and Irene, who were all there to join the celebrations.

In case you're wondering about the lemur, the reception was in a beautiful venue- the Mansion House at Edinburgh Zoo. We took our time leisurely walking up and we chanced upon some friendly lemurs frolicking about.

And in case you're wondering about any KNITTING for the last fortnight I've been doing a little knitting, and a lot of frogging, sigh.