I've decided to take a little bit of time off blogging and possibly off knitting too. I am absolutely not stopping knitting, but I am going to take the pressure of myself for a bit. I think, maybe because of this blog, that I put myself under pressure to 'knit, knit, knit' and then get really angry and frustrated with myself when things don't go the way that I want and my tension is off or I realise that I forgot to do half of my increases on a completed back. I really need to take a bit of a step back and remember that knitting is something that I do because I love it, not for any other reason.
The good news is that I have suddenly accumulated a lot of pictures so you shouldn't really miss me on my blog. After all, one of my secret projects has arrived with its recipient so I can speak about that. And there are a few amazing birthday gifts that I got a few months ago and there's always yarn...
Oh, and there's the Innocent hat project. I worked out yesterday that I have knitted 100 hats to date. Not bad, huh?
If you still have hats to send me or if you have sent me hats but I haven't said thank you, please let me know some time this week. I am planning to do the draw in the next two weeks so you need to make sure that your name is in it to win it. And trust me, there are some nice prizes there.
In the meantime, here are a few more pictures of the some of the hats that have been flooding in from all over the place.
These were from Jacinta.
These are from Jeanie.
Darleen sent these.
And Patricia clearly had rather a lot of Felted Tweed left over from something or other.
I love the Rowanette Exchange. It's a really lovely exchange, organised by Polly, full of lovely people knitting really lovely items. Each year there's a theme and this year's theme was Seasons. I think this is my third exchange. But this time I think I love it more than most.
Because of what arrived in the post for me.
Yes. A shawl.
Isn't it stunning? Here's another view, just because I want to show off how pretty it is.
It was knitted for me by Thomas and it's an amazingly generous and thoughtful gift. I had said in my questionniare that my favourite season was Spring. I think it's perfectly suited for the light cotton knits that I tend to like - there's often a chill in the air so you need something to just keep you that bit covered without being really warm.
Thomas clearly had a good read of my blog and chose the perfect colour for me - it's very neutral and will therefore go with all of my clothes. Here's how I like to think that I will always look when wearing the shawl.
The shawl is made from a 50% silk and 50% linen mix from . It's slightly stiff at the moment although I can see that it will soften (and Thomas mentioned this in his accompanying note) as it gets washed and used. And trust me, this baby's going to get plenty of use.
Here is a close up of the shawl.
And another one just because it's so beautiful.
You can read a bit more about the shawl .
I don't think that Thomas followed a pattern. For those of you who don't read his blog, Thomas is a very proficient and gifted lace knitter so, unlike me, he's not much in need of detailed instructions when it comes to knitting shawls. Me, I need to be told when to breathe when I am knitting lace.
Thomas was very generous as he not only made me the shawl (thank you, thank you again) but he also included the following goodies in the package.
This is some of Thomas' own hand spun yarn. It's a gorgeous grey and I am toying with what I will do with it. And then this:
It's a sock darner. Considering the amount of sock yarn that I have in my stash, I may well need it one day...
And finally there was more than a bit of chocolate.
Suffice to say that it was sort of like Christmas.