1. Stiletto heels and Sheffield’s sidewalks do not mix.

2. Driving in stiletto heels is difficult, but do-able.

3. Being tickled can also mean being elbowed in the eye.

4. Broccoli and blue cheese soup is not as good as it sounds.

5. People at the office really don’t like other people at the office.

6. It is possible for the fridge to be full yet contain nothing to eat.

7. Snowflake Chunky is really really really awful to knit with. (This I actually knew beforehand, it’s just been re-confirmed.)

8. Tesco brand milk chocolate is bad.

9. Tesco brand plain chocolate is good.

What’s pink and lacy and so totally me? This gorgeous thing!

I used Eos (50/50 merino/silk) from The Unique Sheep on 3.75mm needles. It was slow going, but so worth it. Still, I did get it done in less than a month. The only thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was the weird way the centre stitch separated itself from the rest of the star chart. It doesn’t look bad, just different.

Now where can I wear this? I need a fancy party to go to!

Since I’m still plugging away at Laminaria (only three rows to go before bind off!) and that’s my only current knitting, I decided to show off my scarf. My Mmmmmmmmmalabrigo scarf. The yarn is so yummy it’s unbelievable.

I knit this back in March, but only got around to blocking and photographing it this weekend. Pretty isn’t it? The color’s a bit off in the picture though. It’s actually a very pretty almost mint-y green, not the grey-ish color it’s showing up as.

Another plus is that the pattern’s free (New Day by Heather Zoppetti; it’s on Ravelry)! And it only took me one hank of Malabrigo Lace to make it.

Done! It still amazes me how quickly a pair of sport weight socks go. A nice an easy pattern. I added an extra pattern repeat to the leg since I shortened the cuff a bit. Other than that, no mods. The yarn’s Foot Prints in the colorway Quechua by the Unique Sheep. This was the third shipment of the coffee Sip N Stitch. Isn’t it pretty? And no ugly pooling which is a bonus.

As for Laminaria, it’s still on the needles. Got two and a half Blossom Chart repeats to go because I can start the first edging chart. I’m also still working on the squares for the blanket, but I had to finish the socks before I could make any more. Kinda running out of suitable yarn which means I must knit more, right? :D

Look at the extremely cute stitch markers I just bought! Aren’t they just adorable? On Saturday I was browing Ravelry, like I do almost every day, and saw a picture of these stitch markers in someone’s projects (I forget whose, I’m sorry!). They were in a different color. But the picture I saw didn’t have any info on where to buy them. So off to Google I went and found Atomic Knitting. They weren’t listed on the site, but found contact information and asked if it’d be possible to get a custom set. After a few e-mails back and forth, voila! They arrived on Tuesday. :D

That knitting in the background is the Laminaria shawl. I’ve started the Blossom Chart. The rows now take awhile, so it’s slow going, but oh so worth it.

Those two bags now contain 1/4 of the blanket. 216 squares. So it’s coming along. But, I’m now almost out of leftover yarn to use for it. So I’ve just wound the yarn I got from the final coffee Sip N Stitch shipment: Footprints in Quechua. I adore the colors. It shall become socks. Spindle socks by Anna Bell to be exact. Since it’s sport weight, I’m expecting them to go by quickly. I’ve also decided to just use one of my handspun for the blanket entirely. It’s too rough to actually make a garment out of it, but it should be fine as a part of squares.

And speaking of handspun, I’ve also brought down from the stash room some fibre. 100% Shetland wool, one of the fibre club shipments from Wildcraft last year. It’s all greens with a bit of yellow and some black in it. Hopefully, it’ll grow up to be a hat.

On Wednesday I cast on Laminaria. So far I have two repeats of the star chart done. At first I wasn’t sure I liked how the stars look, but they’ve grown on me. Since I’m doing the shawl size, I’ve still got four more repeats of the star chart to go before changing to the next one.

Little bits of stuff have happened since I posted last week.

- It’s August! Yay! This means cooler temps (not that it’s gotten that hot over here anyway), but the cooler temps also mean that I get to break out my handknit sweaters again. Turns out that I don’t have a lot of summer clothing that can be worn to the office. But sweaters fix that problem nicely.

- Speaking of sweaters, I’ve almost got an FO to show. Just need to seam up the sleeves and add the ribbon into the neckline, then my Sheerly There sweater’s done. I shall do that today.

- We have our plane tickets to Chicago!

- The cherry tree is still producing loads of cherries. No clue what to do with them all.

- The weeds in the driveway are still driving me nuts. Why won’t they just die and go away like I want them to?

- Dancing starts up again in two months! Must build up endurance if I want to do the Viennese Waltz without dying. Same goes for Jive actually. So I’ve taken up jumping rope for a few minutes a day (hoping to build up to being able to jump for at least 15 minutes non-stop). I’ve also been talking to my older sis and it has encouraged me to really try losing weight again. So we’ll see how that goes…

Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The books are from O; the yarn was bought with gift cards from O’s sister. I got one skein of Austermann Step Duett and eight balls of Sublime Baby Cotton Kapok DK. All of it was on sale too. :D The books are awesome. I love them all. I’ve already decided that I will be making at least two of the sweaters in the Northern Knits book: Annemor and Pia and quite possibly Unnur as well. And the gloves and sock patterns are quite tempting too. I need more time to knit!

Also, I bought myself a birthday cupcake but that was long gone before I got a chance to even think about taking a picture of it.

Things at work have been… a bit hectic to say the least. And it’s not even month end, let alone year end! But since we’ve got one person off on holiday and another who is sick, I’ve been given quite a bit of extra work to get through. So when I came home today, seeing two packages waiting for me was very very awesome and made my day a lot better.

The first one was a skein of Eos in Blushing Bride. See how pretty it is? That’ll definitely turn into a shawl once I can get someone to wind it for me (there is no way that I’m doing that by hand!).

And the second? Sip N Stitch! Since I was in the coffee club, I received a handmade tea bag holder instead of a mug. And those sticks? That’s honey. I can’t wait to try out the tea. :D And that yarn is just begging to become socks. Not sure which ones yet, but it definitely wants to be socks.

Just hit 54 squares. That’s 1/16th of the amount I need. Still have a long way to go.

But the funny thing is, it just hit me that the amount of leftover sock yarn that I have right now won’t be enough to complete the blanket. So that means I need to knit more socks, right? Right. So I just spent over an hour perusing my pattern queue on Ravelry and looking at my stash options. Turns out that I don’t have as much sock yarn as I thought. Only 24 full skeins and not all of that is suitable for socks (like my Handmaiden Sea Silk!). Then when I had finally settled on my next pair and what yarn to use even though I wasn’t quite feeling the mojo, I rummaged around the craft sack I have down in the living room and found a bag of leftovers. Ta-dah, problem solved. I’ll just keep using up that before I feel like casting on a pair of socks again. No point in casting on a project that I’m not quite in the mood for.