I've been rushing around all week and keeping all my balls in the air has been a bit like juggling slugs.

Didn't get any knitting done over the weekend and any spare time I did find was spent spinning. I found this wool fibre in my felting box, I think its about 4 years old, its 100% wool and the coloured bits are viscose nepps, I've been trying to spin thicker yarn (not as easy as it sounds) and the first plyed skein of this is my most successful to date. I'm thinking of making some mittens and if there's any left over a hat, once I've got the whole lot spun and plyed. I've also found about 400 grammes of a white variation, which I will spin up and do some dying with...I'm dying to find the time to do some dying at the moment!

I finally got the handle attached to the booga bag, and we had some decent weather yesterday to get it photographed.

Monday evening saw me finish Shedir off but again I had to sit tight through Tuesdays torrential rain waiting for photos. I wore it out to Knit Jam last night, infact I'm a tidgy bit proud of it so I'm telling anyone and everyone who shows the slightest interest in it that I made it, it was tricky but I think it was worth it. I decided to cut out one row of repeats because I know I only have a small head.

On my needles at the moment are the jaywalkers, but I'm still procrastinating over changing the heel to short rows, and last night I cast on a pair of gloves. Yes I know I still haven't completed my Vintage Vogue sweater in the gorgeous Noro Silk Garden! What on earth is wrong with me?!

BOX OF DELIGHTS!!

A huge box arrived in the post this week, absolutely stuffed with well chosen delights from my secret exchange pal. Starting from the left are handmade beeswax candles, hot chocolate, dunkin donuts coffee, some christmas eve tealights in the back row, with a bag of Sanders mixed chocolates (just seen, top right) okay I confess its an almost empty bag already but they're delicious, all my favourites.

Just below this is some supersoft merino wool,( I am lucky enough to have 4 and a bit hanks! Its fabulously soft, I have big plans for this) and alongside that who could miss the beautiful handpainted blue Koigu. Hiding beneath this is a selection of teas. Front row we have a vintage guitar string, really cool packaging, a small bag of well-chosen buttons, and a couple of vintage dishtowels.

A HUGE thankyou to Kimberly who put this package together for me, there aren't enough adjectives to describe how special and wonderful and well chosen this package is! And a big thankyou to Mrs K for taking the time to organise this gift exchange, its been so much fun!

I'm just a little bit tense this evening as my flickr badge wasn't working when I logged into my blog, infact the message it was displaying was no such photos, and I can't seem to get it working, I have therefore left it in the hands of flickr for the moment and removed it from my blog. Grrrrr!

As you can see I have a new WIP, this is Shedir. The colour is more green than the photo, its Rowan Calmer in a shade called peacock. You can find the pattern here. I've decided that I'm in a special knitalong with Marianne. I really love knitting hats in the round and just like socks they are nice portable projects to carry with you. Anyway feel free to join in our Unofficial Shedir Knitalong.....just link to my blog and if there's a huge response I might even find the time to make it official and design a badge.

There has been a bit of a delay finishing the Booga style bag, firstly I ran out of black yarn and was waiting for a ball to arrive just to finish the strap off, then yesterday I was hit with an i-cord catastraphe.

Its not called Idiot cord for nothing! Any idiot could just leave it lying around on the sofa in the living room for days as she works a little more every night, until disaster strikes, the little imp who inhabits my life came running into the dining room yesterday after completing many laps of the said living room, unfortunately he had liberated my i-cord from its happy home on the needle first and the almost completed i-cord was frogged back to a foot in length, instead of the almost completed 5 feet!

Not to worry though, the 2nd Tuesday every month is Games night and I took my knitting along with me. As we settled down to discuss what we were going to play I started to re-knit my i-cord.

We had a game of Jenga, moved onto a few rounds of Boggle and then a game of Scrabble. I could knit and play Scrabble at the same time so by the end of the evening my i-cord is back to its former glory... this is my pre-felting photo. Whilst I was at the bar purchasing a drink one of the other girls Ivy got talking to a bloke and he was asking what I was knitting, Ivy told him I did martial arts and that I was knitting a black belt!

I have been making steady progress on the Jaywalker as you can see, I think it looks like a blue fish in the photo, but the colour is closer to what I'm actually using.

I don't think my last post was very clear, so I am just going to talk about the Texere Variety Bag Competition again, as the bag thing has become a bit confused. This purple confection is a Texere Variety Bag, it contains about 15 different textured yarns, all in the same colourway, which all measure 3 metres. It is intended for any creative use that you can think of, embroidery, weaving, embellishing, tassel making. The competition itself was to produce a piece of work not exceeding A4 in size. Basically you could do anything with this variety bag that your imagination can think of, knit it, embroider a picture, weave something, in some ways the ideas are limitless, and basically my entry is a simple textile pot, sorry for the confusion!

After seeing them everywhere, but most recently here, I have finally cast on a pair of Jaywalkers. I have been procrastinating about the best sock yarn to use and finally decided on this blue grey and inky colourway. Although the flash photography doesn't really do anything for the colour representation at all, but I will update it as I progress with a better picture, just the best I could do with the nights drawing in like this.

Thought I would share with you my entry for the Texere Variety Bag competition, I'm calling it Pot Luck and who knows, maybe I will be lucky, maybe not, it was certainly fun to make and I really like the results. These first two photos are the truest colour match I could get, its more of a turquoise mix than the blue of the final two photos.

Basically what the competition asks you to do is do something creative with one of their Variety Bags. They suggested to let the colour of your chosen bag inspire you, what I have tried to do is keep to the KISS principle, which means Keep It Simple Stupid! I knew I wanted to make a 3D object, and initially I tried to crochet a simple pot, but it felt and looked a bit overworked and clumsy, so I experimented with just simply coiling the threads on the sewing machine with a basic zig-zag stitch and I think the overall effect works.

On the knitting front I finally stitched the raglan seams of my vintage Vogue sweater last night, only to find the side seams need a bit more blocking and tweaking before I can stitch them together and then its ready for its roll neck. Anyway its not like I'm working to a deadline, if I had wanted it completed I would have finished it by now. Why do we knit something beautiful and then spend alot of time procrastinating about blocking and making up, well this time its a combination of not wanting to ruin it by rushing the finish, and fear of it not fitting quite right once I've finished putting it together, which is silly as its been blocked and measured, and double checked, but I still somehow don't trust myself, its just plain daft, but there's nothing worse than labouring over a sweater only to find once its completed that its not how you imagined it. Like falling in love with a garment in a shop window or catalogue, only to be disappointed with it once you actually get it on. Anyway I'm going to chill out with my wheel tonight, and schedule the blocking for tomorrow maybe.

Its been a beautiful Autumn day. I love the way the sun sits in the sky and the way it feels like the earth has rotated 45 degrees towards the oncoming chill of Winter. I've been making the most of the daylight and have been taking some photos around the garden. The first few are of my favourite tree, the Eucalyptus, who was proudly tossing off her bark as I tried in vain to capture her shadowy glory!



I also love the simplicity of her rubbery leaves....by the way this is all in honour of the beauty of the tree up the road in Mariannes blog http://knotminding.blogspot.com/. I'd really like someone to share the secret of how I can link so that if you clicked on Mariannes name you would get to her blog as this kind of techie stuff is really foxing me.

This is Willow lurking in the undergrowth.

And now for a knit update, here's the bag that I've been working on since Knit Jam Wednesday night, its Noro Kureyon and Lambs Pride, the base has been in a bag in the bottom of my knitting cupboard for months, I came to the conclusion I didn't like the original black sheep bags kit I had bought, so I'm making it up as I go really and basing it on the free booga bag pattern here http://www.blacksheepbags.com/booga_bag.html

Here's Neo being unusally compliant modelling my Sublime mohair scarf for me.

Hope I've suceeded in capturing the Fuschias glory.

Usually the Pampas blooms only to be destroyed days later by gale force winds, but seems to be fairing well against the elements this year!