Woolfest or bust

This year will be my first visit to Woolfest (along with the Mr), I'm looking forward to it very much! I've wanted to go for the past couple of years but it has tended to coincide with holidays elsewhere.

We'll be visiting on the Friday, thankfully this is one fibre festival that is within reasonable driving distance for us (still 2 hours though!). I will be wearing my Ravelry badge with my Rav/blog name knittyinpink. Please feel free to say hello if you so wish (or indeed skedaddle in the opposite direction). If I spot any of my blog/Rav/forum pals I will do likewise, I am mostly depending upon name badges though!

My Tempest cardigan is currently pinned out and blocking, and may be finished in time for Friday. I may even wear it if the weather is on the cool side. I ended up frogging Ishbel though, as I had made some mistakes and after starting the wrong section and not realising until the centre of the row, it seemed the best thing to do. I really must try to knit lace in (a)daylight, and (b) peace and quiet. No TV! It's a pity to have to frog it this time, I don't have a problem with lace per se (and the charts for this are excellent), but do need to concentrate :-)

In lieu of knitting photos, here's a picture of one of my moth orchids, I love the pale yellow.

Clapotis

Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, shade Watercolour
Yardage: 3 full skeins + 16g from a fourth

Very pleased with the finished object, it was wet blocked (gently pinned, not stretched too much) to even out the fabric and the dropped stitches. Beautifully soft and warm. The fourth skein used was from a very different dyelot, much darker, you can see it on the "wrong side" photo at lower left. More details on yarn usage etc. on Ravelry.

Sirdar cardigan in Calico

Finished last Bank Holiday Monday and added to Ravelry a week or so later. I'm adding it here as it has been a WIP on the sidebar for a while!





Details are on Ravelry. I'm very pleased with the finished item, and particularly pleased with the seaming, which I tend to take my time over and it does pay dividends. Sirdar Calico is a lovely yarn to use and knits up into a soft fabric.

I'm not sure what the future of this blog will be, as I tend to post and update my projects on Ravelry these days, and don't have time to duplicate information over here. If it's a choice between knitting time, and sitting updating the blog, I'd rather knit! In any event the blog will stay around, I may or may not update it, but I'm not going to delete it. I'm also way behind on other blogs, even with whip-up posts removed there are well over 400 new posts showing on Bloglines. It's probably a time to admit that I can't keep up with everything I might like to, and with the best will in the world I won't be able to read every post properly. I'll drop by when I can though!

love (1)

If you're not on Ravelry the post title may be a little mysterious, but I thought I'd mention some things that I think are rather fabulous, and chuck some positive vibes around the place.

Ravelry is, of course, made of awesome. I love the things you can use this site for. Whenever I need to check my stash, perhaps to see if I already have suitable yarn for a project, it's a click away. I can download it into a spreadsheet too, for offline viewing, and their sheet looks a lot tidier than my original pre-Rav version! The queue is another great tool for me, as although I have patterns all over the place, I never really had a proper "view" of things I may want to make. Every time I want to look up a yarn or a pattern now, I go to Rav. What an incredible resource, and free to boot. Thank you Casey, Jess and Mary-Heather, I think it needs saying! I don't know what I used to do before Rav!

Must also mention the Rav Store, I have some lovely Rav swag now in the form of t-shirts and lapel pins :-) I love my beta tee so much that I had to order some of the new ones.

Much kudos to Stash and Yarnbox for recent orders most speedily filled. It's well worth signing up to the Stash newsletter as they recently had a 20% off sale on everything, including sale items. Even better, it was repeated the following week! I snagged some Rowan Denim in Ecru to make Joy from "Nectar", and later some RYC Cashcotton 4ply for the Apres Surf Hoodie from the summer IK. I just wish the actual magazine would arrive - it seems all subscription copies via UK shops are delayed!

I also signed up to the Yarnbox Club recently which gives a permanent 10% discount on all purchases (again including sale items). I rather liked the cardi on the cover of the latest Simply Knitting, and received very promptly a pack of Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton from the sale.

Speaking of Kim Hargreaves' "Nectar" collection, I've ended up with yarn to make Ripple and also Jasmine (the latter being a kit from Kim ordered with the book). It's a lovely collection and a few of the designs are existing patterns that were only available as kits before.

My Flutter Sleeve Cardi is progressing, slowly but surely, with the back now complete and up to the rib short rows on the first front piece:



The Rowan Calmer is lovely to knit with too. I'm hoping to make some good progress this holiday weekend especially as I have tomorrow off as well.

Big thanks also to the lovely Lynne, who met The Harlot recently at an event and got me a signed copy of her latest book! And she sent me a skein of yarn too!