A quick post today, between school pick ups, dance practice and confirmation classes (phew!).
I week or two ago, Lynette had a competition on her blog, to guess how many balls of Cotton Ease she had managed to secure. (131!!) I won, by guessing 130.
Today my prize arrived in the mail. Look!

Cotton Ease in red, a lovely little bag for my bits and pieces, and cute little ladybug stitch markers and a gift card.
Here’s a close up of the stitch markers and the gift card.

Aren’t they lovely? Thank you, Lynette!
Em had her first pointe lesson last night, and I forgot the camera! I’m slack 🙁 I had my newfangled phone, so I took a few pictures, but the connection between the phone and the computer isn’t working.
She said it hurt “a bit”, but hasn’t complained too loudly. Yet. 🙂

I think I see some blocking in my future!

I finished the cropped cardi! Overall, I’m happy with it, and I’m pleased that I fudged the neck shaping to get a lower “V” and it worked 🙂 I think i could’ve knit a smaller size, but I’m not redoing it.
I got buttons yesterday, and it was a hard colour to match, so I went with silver hearts.

Hopefully I’ll get it all finished this week, but I’ve got a horror week coming up. Canteen duty, (I detest canteen!), Open Day at school, blah, blah, blah. I still haven’t blocked the Fair Isle Hat either.
And I did these.

Monkey bits! That’s a body, two legs, and an arm. I’m halfway through the next arm now.
We’re off to the football this afternoon. Yes, the football. Em and I will look suitably puzzled everytime people cheer, and DH will be cheering 🙂
I won free tickets earlier in the week, and it’s DH’s favourite team. I’m taking knitting 😉
I have to decide on a shawl to start. I now have all this luscious laceweight and fingering weight yarn, intended for shawls, but I can’t decide on any patterns. I have ordered “Lavish Lace” and “Folk Shawls” from Amazon, so hopefully they’ll get here this week, and help me to decide. (More likely, with that much to choose from, I’ll never be able to make a decision 😉
Emily has spent the whole weekend in her pointe shoes. I have to keep telling her to take them off. She has her first pointe lesson tomorrow, we’ll see how much she likes them after that! She has even been going up on pointe (holding onto the furniture), but if her ballet teacher finds out, she’ll be in big trouble. I may have to hide the shoes.
Twinkies bed got scrubbed out yesterday. She felt the need to inspect the premises after it was done.

I think she approves!

Today was very possibly the most exciting day of Emily’s short life.

She got her first pointe shoes. 🙂
Oh, and it may also have been the most exciting day of Twinkies life.

She got up to the next level 😉

Some days you just feel like kissing the post office staff, don’t you?
Don’t you? Oh, maybe it’s just me, then 😉
Jill sent me more magazines.

This is the other UK magazine, Knitting. Apparently people in the UK spend all summer with their tummies and shoulders hanging out of their clothes. (I’m joking!) Or at least, the staff at this magazine think so. And it doesn’t even get that warm over there! There is one nice lace camisole top that I like. And theres a cute ballet set, but when I showed Em this morning, she gave me a Look. Apparently my little girl is hitting the “I’m not wearing *that*!” phase. Now I know she’s growing up! 😉
InKnitters has this shawl pattern in it, which I quite like.


Coincidentally, it calls for fingering weight yarn. I got two more swap parcels from Summer of Lace. This is the box from Cathy.

Look! Knit Picks Shimmer in the colour “Happy Dance”

Funnily enough, I did a little happy dance when I opened this box 🙂 Here is a close up of the colours.

And Frog Tree Alpaca.

Here’s a close up of those colours.

And the coincidence? This is fingering weight, and there is exactly the right amount of the pink to do the shawl from InKnitters. Is it fate?
And one more swap package.

You can’t see it very well in this pic, but it’s a perfect little cake shape. Flat on the bottom, and gently rounded on the top. Jaggerspun Zephyr in Vanilla. Next year, I’d like one of these for my birthday cake. 😉
Phew. I really need to stop collecting yarn and start knitting it! All of my stash hidey holes are full!
I knit away on the cropped cardi yesterday, was only 10 rows from the end, and decided to count the stitches. One stitch short on the right front. R-i-i-i-i-p.
I made the mistake 20 rows back. I spent a great deal of time last night ripping and untangling rather than finishing. I was Not A Happy Camper. It’s all back on track now, and I’m only 30 rows from the end. (whimper)
However, I am going to start Em’s monkey today. You know what that means? I finished something! Guess what it was?

It’s not blocked yet, so no proper pics, but I just had to show you all that
a) It’s done, and
b) my hubby is a dork.

I had a wonderful weekend, then I followed it up this morning with a trip to the Post Office 🙂
I had a lovely pile of parcels waiting for me! I’ve been trying to get a hold of the newest Patons Patonyle book for some time, and finally, it arrived in stores last week. Anita from The Wool Inn came through for me! I rang her on Friday, and it was here today! (Keep in mind that we don’t have Saturday mail here in Australia)

It’s full of sock patterns, gloves, scarves and hats, and it also has shorty socks in it. You can see all the patterns here at the Patons website.
A blog reader, Carol (Hi Carol!), had a look through her bookshelves, and found a Trixie Belden book that Em didn’t have and kindly offered to send it to us. She also put in some extras! Blinky Bill, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and The Magic Pudding. All classic Australian childrens books. (And adults, too!)

Thank you, Carol!
And a couple of weeks back, I asked if anyone at the Summer of Lace knitalong wanted to do a swap with me. I got heaps of offers, and some Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud arrived today, courtesy of a lovely lady named Beth.

This stuff has come from Heaven, it’s gorgeous! I must finish something so that I can get this on the needles!
Knit Picks won’t deliver to Australia, which is why I wanted to get some swaps going. Boo, Hiss, Knit Picks!! Then again, maybe it’s a good thing, or I’d be surrounded by Alpaca Cloud 😉
And finally, the last parcel contained Rowan Kid Classic. I got the most recent copy of the UK’s “Simply Knitting”. DH calls Em “The Wild Monkey” Then Emily saw this in “Simply Knitting”

What choice did I have? None! I’ve never knit with Rowan before, because in Australia, Kid Classic costs $AU18 a ball. I got both balls here, with postage for $AU21.50, from English Yarns.
I am in Yarn Heaven. Now I just need to make time to knit it all up! Em has her Ballet exam this afternoon, and her Tap and Jazz exams tomorrow. Send good vibes!!