Competition Results and Sp12 Comes to an End!

Ok let's get straight down to business.....I took all the comments from the last post (yes you too Nicole because winning a competition doesn't excempt you from entering another) and put them into the List Randomizer.....in the order in which they were left....

And I pressed the Randomize button and tahdah.....

There they are in the order of randomisation, and the winner is Kim! Well it is fitting that Kim was my first ever swap partner, in a swap organised by Miss Knightingale, she's also recently celebrated a birthday, which almost co-incides with my blogiversary, which I'm pretty sure makes us fraternal twins, ;-) I'll be talking to you pretty soon Kim about which colour STR you would like me to have sent from Blue Moon Fiber Arts! Thanks to everyone for the comments, there were some great suggestions for colourways for me!

This week also brought the arrival of my final Secret Pal 12 Package, here it is before unwrapping, we knew my pal was in Finland, but everything else this far has been kept a Secret.

Unlike my downstream, because I stupidly managed to reveal myself before the second package arrived with him, but luckily he took it in good humour!

First up is a pair of gorgeous handknitted socks that were tucked away in this great little project bag, I've never recieved handknit socks as a gift before, and even better they are a perfect fit!

Edited to add, this sock pattern is called Autumn Lace Socks from the six sox knitalong (ravelry pattern link)
Here we have lots of sweet treats, some chocolate covered bilberries and lingenberries, some tea, ravelry pins, and some special chocolates, very yummy!

A ball of Noro Sock, in gorgeous greens, perfect!

More Finn sheep!


And some Bluefaced Leicester Fibre! This round of SP has been most enjoyable and my dear spoiler has finally revealed herself to be Hanna. Thankyou so much Hannah for being a such a great Secret Pal!


Had to show you that even Willow loves the package, Hannah!

Yay, I've been spinning again! I do love the subtle colour variations in a two ply yarn, lots of purples, violets, lime and green through these two skeins!

This is Superwash BFL, one of my favourite fibres to spin, it's just so sproingy!

So the blogiversary is Thursday, hard to believe it's been 2 years! I've decided to have a little contest, I was looking at colourways over on the Blue Moon Fiber Arts website, there are so many lovely colours to choose from I've been finding it hard to pick one, so to win a skein of STR for yourself all you need to do is pick one out for me and leave a comment on this post telling me why you've picked that colour.

I'm going to leave the contest open till Thursday 25th September, I will either pick my favourite comment or I'll put all the entries in a random number generator, it really depends how many entries I get!

Obsession is Normal!

Edited to add this photo of me and the braids hanging too!

Here's Jon, sitting behind our stall just before the doors opened and everyone arrived! For most of the day the stall was surrounded by people fondling fibre and yarn and Jon was rushed off his feet all day as people went wild for his 'sushi sock rolls' a machine knitted handpainted roll which is then handknitted as you unravel, and his bamboo mix too!

At 2pm sharp I left Jon to it, as I hightailed it over the road for the Harlot addressing the masses. It was pouring with rain as we all queued outside Lindley hall, but thanks to my new best friend, whoever you are, who didn't mind sharing her umbrella with me while we waited to get in, I didn't get too wet as I was only wearing a t.shirt!

As I was on my own....I managed to nab a stray seat 4 rows from the front, and who should be there directly infront of me but my friend from City & Guilds Knitting, Heather, and just infront of her Celtic Memory Jo too!

After the talk (it was hilarious and so true, of course) I went for a wander around the other stalls, and settled back with Jon for a bit, but the above photo is just to show you, that Stephanie was seated right behind within almost touching distance, for the rest of the afternoon doing the book signing.

Eventually towards the end of the day, as the queue started to dwindle Luke and I took our places.

Here is Stephanie writing Obsession is normal in my copy of Things I Learned From Knitting! hence the title of this post.

I had a wonderful, wonderful and busy day, not only did lots of nice people come and buy my braids, I got to meet lovely UK Swap Pal, Rosie, blog friends Cassandra, and Jen (again), I met Natalie from the Yarn Yard, and Probably Jane, and even a lurker who reads here, lovely to know I have lurkers! Hi Caroline, and a special hello to Larissa who we queued with for the book signing, and who took the photos for me, and who was lucky on the draw and won a spindle and a whole pile of gorgeous fibre and didn't spin, it was fate, she had to learn and a quick spinning lesson was the order of the day! and hello to anyone else I met in the excitement of the day who wanders in here who I may have forgotten to mention.

So all the excitement doesn't really stop here: I need to get dyeing and get some more fibre up in the etsy store, my 200th post is coming up aswell as my blogiversary, and I've also had a brilliant idea to start Bigsock from the toe up to travel around Europe and the UK, so that when the top of the sock comes back from the US we just need to unite the two parts by grafting!

On My Way!

By the time you see this I will probably have left for London, I have 7.4 kilos of dyed fibre, that's about 15lbs, and equates to 74 braids!
It would be nice to show you the vast pile of fibre but it's all labelled packed and ready to go!
See you on the other side!

Not More Fibre?

Yes, indeedy, sorry to be such a blog bore, but all I seem to have to show you at the moment is another instalment in the great fibre mountain that I am in the process of dyeing, infact I've dyed another 1200g in the last 2 days, and will be dyeing at least another 1200g by Weds, but then that's it, as it will all need labelling ready for Saturday!

This is actually last weeks fibre, but we had a short break down to Dorset, so it had all been braided but not photographed. I may get around to showing you some snaps soon, although we've also been entertaining a houseguest from across the pond! I'm hoping we're both going to get to meet the Yarn Harlot on Saturday!

There is a sock on the needles, I'm working on a toe-up Baby Backward Ribs, (ravelry link) in S.R Kertzers, On Your Toes, a gift from Jill, which was all wound and ready to go, perfect for a holiday project!