More stash for the Christmas Wool Pile

Brr - it's cold and winter is not even here yet. Yesterday Vicky came for me and we sallied forth to see DKY at Bolton market. I picked up the colours for the men's socks I have planned for Christmas. We met up with Sylvia and Kath and had a coffee in Cafe Nero. I finished the last premature baby blanket and gave it to Vicky for the Bliss appeal. I am going to concentrate now on my Christmas knitting. Charities will have to wait now for a while.

I wasn't going to start any of my Christmas projects until I had finished the purple crochet cardigan but I thought I would make the black shawl as when Buster comes he sheds hair over everything I am knitting or crocheting and I didn't want a Buster hairy black shawl. I am missing him not being here but at least my work isn't hairy. I am making it in Woolcraft Crepe DK which my niece bought from Bury market and it is really nice to crochet with. Quite firm for an acrylic.

Last night I joined Facebook as I seem to miss out on any news and photos that the Kings Arms Knitters post. I just hope that it is not another thing I get dragged into like Ravelry otherwise I will never get anything done!

I need to do a bit of housework today but the windows will have to wait for another time. There is no way I am going outside with wet hands in this weather. There is only me looking out of them anyway and I have learned to ignore the marks.

Vicky has just e mailed me better photos of the Blue Curacao shawl I made a couple of months ago so I will post some tomorrow. She took it on her holidays so you can enjoy a bit of sunshine albeit in photos!

Anna's soakers revealed

These are the soakers for Anna that I crocheted but couldn't post photos as I wanted the finished results to be a surprise. The little 1st birthday girl looked great in her new pants and modelled them for us at the Knit Out today. They are crocheted from Morning Glory Longies pattern which Linda bought online from Ladybugz Farm. They are made in an organic aran wool that she bought from New Lanark http://www.newlanarkshop.co.uk/. They are designed to fit over clothies and I was concerned that the butt area looked rather large, as you can see on the last photo, but they fitted just fine on Anna. She is a little young to be worried whether her bum looks big in them! The first pair was as the pattern (plus my own idea of adding crochet flowers) but the second pair I just let my imagination run riot and added hearts and little kitties in tapestry crochet. I had just enough yarn for the two pairs.

I gave Nikki the crochet hat (photo in last post) and she seemed pleased with it. I still think it looked rather large as she has such a tiny face but she seemed happy enough with it and would like another hat in the second pattern that she chose.

The Knit Out was held today in the new cafe in Bolton Town square. It's a much bigger venue to hold our ever growing band of knitters. I was grateful to Vicky for taking me there. She also brought me some new sock wool goodies which I will post photos of tomorrow. She also brought my new Knit Pics needles. I haven't tried them out as yet as I didn't want to switch needles in mid project and I am still slogging on with the second Tiger Sock. I might just have to cast on my niece's toe sock to try out the new needles but I have e mailed her with a choice of colours since I have added a couple more since she originally chose from my sock wool stash.

One of the Knitting Noras (Caroline) is thinking of adding our group to Ravelry so I must learn how to add the link to this blog. I hope that Caroline makes a little badge and tells me how to add it. I am a bit of a dunce with anything like that.

The photos over the next couple of days will be of the projects I did last week and could not post. watch this space!