Happy
Friday to you! First of all, let me say thank you very much for all the
lovely comments that you've left on my last post (and also in the Facebook
groups) about the British Knitting Awards. I appreciate each and every
one of them and the time you took to leave them. Thank you!
I usually try to answer all the comments on the blog but must apologise that I
haven't been able to this time because even as you read this, I'll be speeding
up the motorway towards Skipton! In case you didn't know - and if you
didn't, where have you been? - this weekend is YARNDALE WEEKEND!
Boy, am I excited that it's here at last! My car's loaded up and
I'm on my way!
It's
been a week of manic preparation and a rather large surprise last weekend as
big daughter, who had been planning to commute to university, landed herself
accommodation and announced that she would be moving into her new room in
two days' time. There's nothing like having time to prepare - and
this was nothing like it!

There
was frantic shopping, rooting in cupboards, delving into boxes of kitchen stuff
that we'd saved from Dad's house specially for this occasion and general
rushing about as we gathered up our girl and her belongings and deposited her in
her student digs. Perhaps it was better this way, as there was no time to
work up to being worried or sad about her leaving - and of course we've waved
her off at an airport to travel 6,000 miles away from us so a half hour drive
up the road doesn't seem quite so bad. Anyway, there she is. An
Official Student. So far, we've managed to keep small daughter from
moving into her bedroom (why is a big sister's bedroom always so much more
exciting than your own?) but it's tough going! Big daughter has announced
that she will be coming home on a regular basis to make sure that no small
lodgers have taken over - whether this will happen or not remains to be seen,
but it's nice to think that we might still see quite a bit of her.
Thank you for all the good wishes for her when I shared this picture on Instagram last weekend - I hope that everyone who's been waving their student sons and daughters off over the last couple of weeks (and next couple of weeks) is managing to get used to a house that's quieter, tidier ... and emptier. It's funny; you might not see your teenager from one hour to the next as they hole up in their bedrooms but suddenly the house feels different when you know that they're away. I guess it's something that we'll get used to.
I've
got a few things to share with you to keep myself up to date ... firstly, I
must show you the sock that I made from the new Stylecraft yarn. I was
able to give you a sneak peek but nothing more until the
official launch. That day has arrived now, and you may well have seen the yarn in the various
colourways now - there are six altogether - and very nice it is too. If
you're a fan of Opal yarn, this one feels very similar and is definitely worth considering
for your socks - and shawls too as the yarn is intended for making both.
In fact, it's called Head Over Heels so you should definitely get the
message! Here's the sock that I made - only one sock so far so I will
have to get on and make the other one as hopping is exhausting. This
colourway is called Kilimanjaro and is one of three striped colours; the others
are gradient yarns which I won't be choosing to make socks from. I have
decided to embrace my stripe OCD and don't plan to use gradient yarn for socks
in the future if I can possibly help it! J

Luckily,
the yarn that Blacker Yarns sent me to try out wasn't a gradient yarn but is a
very lovely limited edition mix of British fibres blended together in
celebration of Blacker Yarns' 11th birthday. It's called Cornish Tin 2
and each shade is named after a tin mine - you can read more about the yarn and
the fibre blend here. They very kindly sent me a mini skein
and a small ball of yarn to try out - 25g in total - and I decided quite
quickly that I didn't just want to knit a square swatch, I wanted to do something
with it.

I
decided to see if I could make a pair of wristwarmers from the amount of yarn
that I had - and I could! It probably helps that I don't have huge hands,
but I split the yarn into two balls, then split those two balls again so that I
had four balls of yarn (two in each colour) for each wristwarmer to work with.
I cast on 40 stitches on a 3mm needle, knitted until I used up all of the
first two balls (one grey, one blue) and then reversed the pattern to use up
all of the second two balls. There's really not much to them at all!
You
can see here that my pattern is really quite simple, but I like the way that
the colours work together. They feel very traditional and I felt that I
had to use a Fair Isle-style pattern to get the best out of them.
It
also gave me another chance to practice my two-handed colourwork which I
discovered how to do earlier this year at the Arne and Carlos workshop that I attended.
If only I had known how to do this years ago when I used to knit Kaffe
Fassett sample jumpers for my local yarn store - it would have been so much
quicker!

So
having been sent the yarn to review - what did I think? I liked it very
much. It's definitely on my 'to-buy' list at Yarndale because I'd love to
see how it works as socks. It's softer and less hairy than the Hebridean
Mohair that I used for big daughter's Peru socks but even that softened nicely
with washing and wear, so I think this yarn would definitely get nicer with
age. There's no nylon in it so it but the fibres that have been chosen
(including mohair) should work in the same way so the socks should be sturdy
enough to withstand walking the dog every day. There's only one way to
find out - and I plan to do just that! I'd even go so far as to say that
I'd use the yarn for a cardigan or a jumper (this from someone who used to run
a mile from wool jumpers when she was little!); what stops me is that I know
that I don't have the time (or the patience) for such big projects these days
but I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures that will be around on social
media of other people's projects. A word of warning though - this yarn is
a limited edition and when it's gone, it's gone, so if you want some then
you'll need to buy it quickly!
My
final finished off knitting project is my Yarndale sheep. Oh dear.
She does look rather sad (and not particularly sheep-like, I don't think
either!), but I'm hoping that she'll cheer up when she meets the rest of the
flock at Yarndale!
Have
I mentioned that it's Yarndale this weekend? Yippee! You'll find me
in the knit n natter lounge surrounded by socks! These are all the pairs
that I'll be bringing with me for the Yarndale Sock Line - if you've ever
wondered what 97 pairs of socks looks like altogether, then wonder no more
because you're looking at it!

I'll
be writing more about this year's Sock Line after Yarndale but in the
meantime, I've photographed them all and they're all up on the Pinterest board now so do go and have a look -
they look wonderful! You'll notice that we have 101 pairs on the
Pinterest board and there will be 101 pairs hanging up on the Sock Line - this
is because four pairs have already been gifted so I'll be hanging up
photographs of them so that they are still included. I can't believe that
we have over 100 pairs already and I know that Lucy has more pairs waiting for
me in Skipton and I also know that more pairs will be being hand-delivered over
the weekend. Isn't that amazing? Thank you so much to everyone
who's got involved this year - what a lot of knitted love we'll be able to give
away! It's not too late to add your suggestions for where you think they
should go - have a look at last year's list if you need some inspiration!
I
had intended this to be a short and sweet post, but I think we both know by now
that short and sweet isn't really my style! Have a wonderful weekend,
whatever you are doing. If you're coming up to Yarndale, do come and say
hello - if you've got socks to show off, I'd love to see them, and if you've
got questions about your socks or getting started, then ask away - it'll be
lovely to see you!