Wet, wet, wet

It's been yet another weird day of bright sunshine and torrential rain: at about 7pm, one bright streak of light appeared on the green... (The brown stuff on the road is lime-blossom, floating in the puddles)



Finally finished something - the ripple-stitch sweater for my colleague Richard's new(ish) baby. One ball of cotton/wool sock yarn (from Jan) with a satisfyingly small amount left over - I wasn't panicked too much about this one now I've got a scale which goes down to 1 gramme increments... (3 grammes left).

The rest of the day was spent at the Fibrefusion (no website yet) summer "do" (the Fitzwilliam Museum and Loch Fyne), and buying clothes for a Thing on Thursday. And trying to stay dry, of course...

And as a final random thought, I'd just like to point to this week's a softer world - it's generally pretty excellent, but this one stuck...

Harrogate

... was fun! I spent longer than I'd anticipated stewarding our stand, but we still had time for a little recreational shopping, and a proper look at the exhibits. Being a Bad (and shy) Blogger though, I didn't take many photos at the show itself (this one is an exception - we hijacked this lady and took photos of her sweater despite not asking her name... She told us it was a Colinette pattern - if anyone's reading this and recognises it could you please give me details as one of my colleagues would really like one? )



The Ally Pally photos give you an idea what the stand looked like although we rearranged a little for Harrogate. The editor of Workbox Magazine came by and took photos, and we also talked to the ladies from Classic Stitches about articles two members of the group are doing for them, so that was cool. Disappointingly, I only spent half an hour or so at the Relax and Knit stand, near the end of the second day, but met Fred again, and saw Yvonne teaching people to fingerknit.

While stewarding, I crocheted a curly whirlie scarf, modelled here by Sandra; this one is made in Lion Brand Homespun from the Tajcrafts stand; quite heavy (about 250-300g of yarn) but very warm... Treated myself to a very cool 8mm sparkly Addi hook to make it with...

Also did some stash acquisition: first some sock yarn - the centre ball is Opal Rainforest in Chameleon (socks for the friend-I-went-with's partner), and the surrounding ones are Socka; I love this stuff...



Then some laceweight from Kaalund, and some Debbie Bliss Maya (which was £5 because unlabelled)...

And some random bargains from Linton Tweeds (who only sell these at shows) - £1/ball. These are destined for items to be sold at Textiles in Focus at Cottenham in February. Better get knitting for that!

The journey home was somewhat... interesting. At Doncaster, someone broke door locks and sounded the emergency alarm on the train in front of us, so we spent 45 mins in detailed scrutiny of the platform while the train manager fell repeatedly on his sword apologising at approximately 4-minute intervals... Then at Retford, we spent more time staring at vending machines and photobooths while the track ahead of us was examined; eventually we took a 'pilotsman' on board to steer us over a broken rail... Halfway through this, we decided to take up my companion's partner's offer to pick us up at Grantham, and got home only an hour and a half later than scheduled in some degree of warmth...

Back to reality now until Christmas though; happy Christmas knitting, all...

Okay, here goes...

Inspired by the posts from Ally Pally, I'm dipping my toe into the ocean of blogging...

First: the Ally Pally stash -

Clockwise from the top; 6 balls of Elle Mexican Wave for a home-designed sweater; a ball of Schoeller and Stahl Fortissima Colori Socka; two of Limbo Color in the same colourway but DK; a ball of Louisa Harding Impression; and a Thing of Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon.

Ally Pally was fantastic; this is the 7th or 8th year I've been, and there so much more yarn there than previous years, and from all over the world. Special mention to the Alchemy people who were so friendly and enthusiastic at 9 in the morning while I was rambling round the traders' hall before it all opened.

A couple of other pictures of the stand I was stewarding (our embroidery group Fibrefusion).

Pauline, the group leader among the cards and samples; and a general view of the stand.















And this is my contribution; a mask based on Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence (fantasy for children/young adults); this all came out of a conversation in the spring with a friend who also read it as a child; put him off masks, and switched me on to them...

Tomorrow, photos of WIPs and I'll attempt to find out how all those clever things like links to other blogs work...