Swap Parcel - Alice in Wonderland

Today I received a wonderful swap parcel from an Alice in Wonderland swap I took part in on Ravelry.

Its full of beautiful things:

All in all I received:

A key to wonderland
Two different types of yarn plus some fibre (the fur of a Bandersnatch to be precise)
Some tea part gloves
A shell
A tortoise (or a sea turtle perhaps)
A Vogue knitting magazine with Alice in Wonderland themed patterns
A scarf
Some fruit tea
And all sorts of wonderful little things likes buttons, stitch markers, kool aid dye (I've always wanted to try and use this), sewing needles, hair grips, a dormouse (not a real one obviously), a tape measure and some Alice in Wonderland stationery.

This was a lovely parcel and I feel very spoilt! It also seems appropriate given that the first book I chose to read this year was Alice in Wonderland.

ChiaoGoo needles

I've knitted on cheap knitting needles since I started in 2009. I've admired, coveted and researched interchangeable needles several times over the last few years but never actually done anything about it.

95% of my knitting is done on circular knitting needles, straight ones hurt my shoulders and DPN's hurt my brain! So if I got a set of interchangeables it would do for pretty much all my knitting except for small circumference stuff like socks for which I use Hiya Hiya needles:

Tall Yarns

I've put off buying interchangeables because of the price though. Not that they are that expensive for so many needle and cable combinations in one go, its more that paying a few pounds each time for new needles doesn't seem as bad as paying the equivalent of several skeins of yarn in one go.

I've always preferred to spend my spare money on yarn instead of needles. Right up until a couple of weeks ago I got out fixed circular I hadn't knit with for ages and I couldn't get the cable to unkink. It was locked into a tight spiral that got in the way every time I tried to knit and I got fed up.

I'd heard people on Ravelry raving about ChiaoGoo Twist interchangeables and I am so glad I bought some.

The cables don't kink as they have no memory. The tips are pointy without me needing a blood transfusion every time I use them. The needles and joins are smooth, these have actually made my knitting speed increase. I'm in love...

Best of all they come in the prettiest little case:

Loop

Yarn that makes you happy

Have you ever bought one skein of hand dyed yarn and fallen in love with it and then realised its a one off, never to be repeated colour, and the other few skeins out there have been knitted?

This was the case for me with Posh Yarn Martha Sock in the Cha cha cha colourway. I only really bought it because of the name, I'm a big fan of Strictly Come Dancing and thought it would be fun to knit whilst I was watching the programme.

The more I knit it the more I fell in love with it. Martha Sock is my favourite yarn base. I might briefly flirt with other yarn bases but eventually I always come back to Martha. The colour of Cha cha cha is just beautiful. Its purples with subtle hints of cerise. Its what I imagine you would get if you mashed blackcurrants up and used them to dye with.

Other colourways have come close. I'm currently knitting with Martha Sock in Trumpet Voluntary which is purples with hints of blue and is also beautiful to look at. Still though, Cha cha cha is my favourite.

So you can imagine how happy I was when I saw on the Posh Knitters group on Ravelry that someone was destashing a skein which looked almost identical called Murder she wrote. Obviously I bought it, what else could I do?

It really is so close in colour, its maybe a little darker but the same underlying colours are all there. So I've decided its going to become a pair of fingerless mitts to wear with my Cha cha cha shawl. I already know I am going to enjoy every single minute of knitting because I will love watching the colours change and blend under my fingers as I knit it.

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Small skein society

Natalie over at The Yarn Yard has started the small skein society. I signed up before the New Year and received my first parcel yesterday. I signed up for the two skein and choconastick option. This yarn club is great for those who like to knit socks or mitts or who want yarn suitable for colourwork.

I went for the two skein option because at some point soon I really must start knitting socks again. Both the Husbeast and my father keep asking me for pairs and I would really like some more myself.

The first delivery was fantastic as it contained two skeins which have so many of my favourite colours in them and three of the choconasticks.

Natalie has hand dyed these skeins with brushes in small sections to try to ensure there is no pooling if we do use them for socks or mitts, where you can get pooling on the heels or thumbs if you are working short rows.

I would have liked to have included a picture of the whole parcel, you know with the chocolate... But that disappeared within two minutes of me opening it! To be fair I did actually include the chocolate option because I thought the Husbeast might be happy about yarn appearing every month if it had chocolate inside for him.

Not that he is ever disapproving about my yarn stash luckily, he's very good to me, but still a little bribery goes a long way.

Apparently the chocolate was rose flavoured and made a hot chocolate which tasted of Turkish delight. He did at least let me have a few of the marshmallows which came with it.

So here is a photo of the first delivery of yarn in all its rose coloured glory:

However this wasn't the actual point of the post. I've mostly written it because I wanted to praise Natalie at the Yarn Yard for her fantastic customer service.

When I signed up she double checked my address because I'd moved since the last time she sent anything to me and she wanted to make sure she had the right address. She then offered from the second parcel onwards to wind the skeins into cakes for anyone who wanted it. Well considering I have pain in my right shoulder most days from an old accident, and winding yarn exacerbates it, I think I answered her before she'd even finished typing the request.

She then gave me the option to have it in one cake or two and just generally was so helpful and accommodating I wanted to just say a public thank you. Being a knitter who mostly uses yarn from UK indie dyers has spoilt me. If I order it its generally here within a couple of days, the dyers are easily accessible on Ravelry to answer any questions and they are so helpful. Unfortunately I now get grumpy with other shops both online and bricks and mortar if they don't live up to the high standards set by the yarn shops.

If you want to sign up to the Small Skein Society you can do so here.

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New yarn - again....

Oh yes I have more new yarn. This is the second batch of the Stylecraft Special DK to go alongside the yarn I bought here, and this one came from Wool Warehouse. Their delivery was just as quick as Deramores, there was just a limit to how much yarn I could carry home from work in one day.

This is the yarn all together, giving the below combination of colours:

Ignore the weird blueish tinge to this I'm not sure quite what was going on with the camera at this point.

There are more balls of white than the greys and black because some of the white is to go with the colours to make a Pop blanket.

As for the greys etc I may have changed my mind about those. I was going to make a Granny stripe blanket, but then I realised this could be a great colour combination to make the Ombre alpaca blanket I've had my eye on for awhile (although obviously alpaca-less).

It's supposed to be knit on 8mm needles, which should theoretically make for a quick knit but in real life I find thicker needles more awkward to knit with, so I am a bit concerned it could end up being a slow and awkward knit especially as there are a lot of slipped stitches in it so I wouldn't settle into a rhythm like I have done with my 15 stitch blanket.

I may possibly at the end have enough yarn left for a Granny stripe cushion cover which would at least pacify my craving to do some crochet.

Which would you make? A crochet Granny stripe blanket, or a kitted Ombre blanket?

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Ravelry - Swap package

As I've mentioned I belong to the Posh Knitters forum on Ravelry and we've been having a swap to cheer us up after Christmas. My wonder swap package arrived today and here it is:

(Please excuse the very poor photos I had rain streaming  down my glasses but I was so excited by it I wanted to open it there and then and needed to photograph the packaging.)

This is from someone who stalked me very well because I nearly squealed with excitement when I picked up the jiffy bag and found my all time favourite cartoon character Snoopy on the front:

I may have wandered around the house for a few minutes sorting this out after coming home from work, chanting in my head "Snoopy, Snoopy, Snoopy". Maybe I shouldn't admit that....

Then inside were beautifully wrapped parcels:

 

 Which revealed this little lot:

 

Which was a lovely card, a skein of blue Brooks Farm Yarn, which I haven't tried before as its from Texas. I love trying new yarn so this is a great swap. The white box contains tortoise shaped chocolates, there's also tortoise stitch markers, a tortoise charm,pencils with tortoises on them, some winter spice tea and a tortoise tape measure. The tape measure and some of the chocolates are shown better below:

In case you don't understand why so much tortoise stuff was in there meet Speedbump:

 She is a bit bigger than this now but not much. She is always my profile picture on Ravelry so my love of tortoises is well known. My love of Snoopy is not so well known so my lovely swap partner stalked me and chose well. Thank you Sue.

Always nice to have a surprise when you get home from work on a dull, wet day.

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New yarn

New yarn arrived today and lots of it!

We were having a chat on the Posh Knitters forum over on Ravelry about crochet. The term Posh by the way doesn't refer to us (I am not in any way posh) but to our love of Posh Yarn. We were discussing some of the lovely crochet blankets over on the Attic 24 blog. I love reading Lucy's blog its always full of lovely colourful projects which brighten up my day.

On Ravelry we found quite a few people had recommended the Stylecraft Special DK for crocheting some of Lucy's designs. I'm not a massive fan of acrylic but they said this was soft and not too hard on the hands, so at £1.99 per 100g I decided to give it a go.

I wanted to make a couple of blankets and whilst I might be a bit of a yarn snob at times acrylic is good for blankets because its cheaper to buy in the large quantities needed for a blanket, and its machine washable. This is a serious plus in our house (how do you toilet train a tortoise?).

So I bought two lots of Stylecraft and my first lot arrived from Deramores today:

It is very colourful, in fact it is very not me. And despite the fact I bought it following a conversation about crochet, its actually destined to be knitted into a Pop blanket. Its DK and not worsted but I've never let little things like gauge and yarn thickness bother me before.

I am still intending on crocheting a blanket from Attic 24 and that's the yarn I'm waiting for in my second parcel. Not quite so colourful but will go better in the living room where I intend on it living.

I don't think I've ever bought so much yarn in one go before gulp lets hope this doesn't become a habit!

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Knitting - Simple scarf

The Husbeast can actually knit. Well he can let me cast on, knit in garter stitch, pass to me whenever he makes a mistake and let me bind off, but still considering its years since I stepped in a kayak (his hobby) I appreciate the effort on his part.

He doesn't really wear much that I can knit for him. I have knit him a pair of socks he wears loads in the winter and has requested more pairs, but I lost my sock needles for ages (I only have one pair to try to discourage my WIP pile from growing any bigger), so there are no socks on my list for him any time soon.

He doesn't wear hats particularly and the one hat I knit him was way to big, went on the frog pile and "disappeared".

So when he asked me to knit him a scarf over Christmas I decided it was time I made him something. Especially as he asked for it in Moss Stitch which is apparently his favourite stitch pattern. Which basically means he's been paying attention which makes me love him all the more.

So I cast on 60 stitches on 4.0mm needles in Posh Yarn Martha Sock and knit in moss stitch until I ran out of yarn which took forever (or at least that's what it felt like). It was the perfect project for over Christmas though. I could knit it without concentrating too much over Christmas when the family was round. Then after they'd gone it was also perfect to knit whilst watching the Husbeast's Christmas present to me, the last season of House MD which we love.

So here is the simple scarf:

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