Acceptance Speech

I was checking out my blogroll yesterday and discovered that I have been awarded the Stylish Blogger Award by Tink at Master Of A Thousand Things *grins*

I know that some people don't like these awards (and there are some disingenuous ones out there) but I was very excited to be linked, and have the opportunity to discover other blogs I may not have read.

In her post, Tink mentioned that she's been blogging since December, same as me, and has just reached her 100th post... I looked at my stats and realised that I've just passed the 100th post mark. How bizarre!

Part of the award is to share 7 facts about myself... 

1. I have the most terrible sweet tooth. Part of being a grown up is eating vegetables, I know, but I would happily live on cake, chocolate, rhubarb & custard sweets, penny chews... You get the idea ;) My favourite breakfast is actually chocolate cake ;)
2. I spent nearly 3 months travelling around Australia by myself (I was supposed to be meeting a friend, who came home a week before I flew out!) - I did things I never thought I'd do, like white water rafting, and came back so much more confident
3. I have a BSc in Psychology 
4. I read extremely fast - to the extent that my mum used to quiz me on the plot of books I'd just read because she couldn't believe I'd actually taken any of it in. 
5. I have an appalling memory when it comes to things I need to remember. If I don't write something down, I forget it.
6. I have a fantastic memory for random trivia - nothing that may ever be useful, but things I find interesting. 
7. I'm fascinated by Ancient Egypt. I've been to the pyramids, Valley of the Kings, the Cairo museum, the Red Sea, Abu Simbel... Mum and I had a hot air balloon ride at sunrise over the Nile, which is one of the most beautiful memories I have.

So, that's 7 facts about me. Now I'm supposed to nominate 7 other bloggers for this stylish award. The problem is that I have a massive blog roll, and there are so many blogs out there that I really enjoy, so whittling it down to a handful is tough. I really don't want to leave anyone out! Some of the blogs I'd pick are on Tink's list, which helps, but this is still only a small list of bloggers I'd consider stylish...

Happy Elastic
Peppermint Mocha Mama
{a 1/4 to}
Ohdessa Knits
The Wooly Adventures of a Knitting Kitty
Good Enough
Knottyville

So Many Patterns, So Little Time

I have been very remiss and completely forgot to post about this book:

I was lucky enough to win a giveaway on Yarn About Yarn, there were 3 books in the giveaway, I said I'd choose A Knitting Wrapsody, and lucky for me, the random number generator picked me to have it!

It's a really interesting book, with lots of wraps/scarves/stoles (unsurprisingly I guess, given the title *laughs*) One thing that's quite interesting, the author has drawn a lot of inspiration from crochet. I've seen crochet patterns that emulate knitting, but I've not really come across it the other way around.

My favourite pattern is the one on the cover, but there are a few that I may have to make...

Right now, I'm trying to knit from stash (as you may have noticed the growth in storage requirements *grins*), so I have been busily organising things on Ravelry. I have all of my yarn logged in there, and have been assigning each one to a pattern.

In spite of my ADOLS (Attention Deficit...Oooh, Look, Shiny), I'm hoping to work through at least a chunk of the patterns I've picked, using the yarn I already have. As much as I love acquiring new yarn, I seem to get it, be excited about knitting with it and spend a while planning what to make, get something new in the meantime, get very excited about what I can make with that... And the circle goes on ;)

Having yarns and patterns linked together means that I should (hopefully!) work my way through. The difficulty is that there are so many patterns, and I don't knit fast enough for my liking! Of course I already have plenty of WIPs on the go as well.

Of course, there are also loads of patterns that I want to make, that I don't yet have the yarn for *sigh* But I should avoid buying the yarn for those when I already have so many other projects I can complete without spending more money and overloading my entire house!

Work In Progress Wednesday Number 5

I only have one WIP to share this week. All others have been benched *laughs*

But, needs must. I've been invited to a party in a couple of weeks, and I decided that I need a wrap. I seem to have a little confidence boost when I wear something I've knitted myself :)

So, I have jumped on the bandwagon and am knitting a Clapotis. Nearly 18,000 people on Ravelry have already made this, and although I don't really like to follow trends, I like it and it fits the bill.

I did start off trying the Coin Lace Stole, a really pretty lace version, but after ripping it out 4 times having made silly mistakes, I realised that it wouldn't be something I could work on while tired. As I'm making this out of sock weight yarn, and want a decent sized wrap, I need to be able to work on it at any available time so that I have a hope of finishing it in time *laughs*

I've made it through 3 drop stitch rows, and it is quite exciting (if unnerving) to deliberately unravel my stitches!

The only small frustration is that this is very fuzzy, quite splitty yarn, which doesn't make the unravelling as easy as it could be. I am loving the yarn, Mini Mochi in the Jungle colourway, despite its many faults. Although it's a sock yarn, I can't imagine socks would hold up well - the first ball I used had many underspun patches (to the extent that it actually came apart in my hands at one point, even though I wasn't pulling tight). It is fuzzy and splitty, but it's also soft and the colours are lovely :) I think it'll make a really nice wrap.

Final shot, to show the millions of new stitch markers I had to make in order to start this:

Ok, so I could count the stitches instead of using so many markers (one every 6 or so stitches!), but I know I'll lose count, and I don't have time to obsessively recheck my work!

Second and third pictures are the most representative of the colour - the sun came out for the first photo and made everything a little more vibrant!

To see what other bloggers have been up to, hop over to Tami's...

Photo Catch-up

As I don't post at the weekend, and I had my ABC meme yesterday, I thought I'd put up a bumper lot of 30 day photos today. Not sure if it really fits with the rules, but pictures were taken on the appropriate day, so I think I'm ok ;)

June 4th. Clouds, lack of. What can I say, the day I took this, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. If I took it today, the entire sky would be one giant, matt grey cloud. Neither would be visually exciting, but at least the blue is summery *laughs*

June 5th. Breakfast. I'm not really a breakfast sort of person... So I skipped this one.

June 6th. Books. Ages ago I saw something on a design blog that I thought was awesome - reversing all of your books so that the colours coordinate and look neater. So I did it to my main bookshelf. Ok, it makes it a little harder to find the book you want, but I do love the effect.

Against Defeat*

*"The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands" - Sun Tzu

Two Things

How imaginative a post title *laughs* Funnily enough, I have 2 things to post about today...

First: I mentioned in this post that I had received a skein of yarn from my Blog Hub swap. Well, the lovely lady I sent my parcel to received hers earlier this week, and posted about it here. Part of the plan was for everyone to post why they sent what they did, so here's why... (oh, and check out Ohdessa's picture of the parcel, it's much better than mine!)

The point of the swap was to post someone one ball from your stash, and that they could make something with... I sent this:

I used it for my shawl, and the stitch definition was lovely, the yarn is beautifully soft (in spite of being acrylic) and the colour is really saturated. Plus, I think it has enough length to make something out of!

I also threw in a partial ball of something else. I did think twice before including it (I didn't want anyone to think I was just sending scraps) but from reading her blog, Ohdessa really seems to like bright colours, so it seemed to fit.

Yep, it's the yarn from my happy socks!

Second: I came across this project yesterday... A month long photo blogging challenge

I keep intending to get better at taking photos (and fix my damn camera too!) so I thought I'd try and give this a go. As I don't tend to post at the weekends, I might take my photos then but blog them as a group the following week. Hope that fits in with the rules (which include the proviso that you have to take the picture on the day, or the day before... May need to be quite imaginative with some of my subjects in that case!)

As I missed yesterday, here are my first 2 shots:

1. Self Portrait (I am feeling very dopey, fuzzy and headachey today, so this is very representative of my "self" right now!)

2. My favourite shoes (I have too many shoes, and my favourites change weekly, but these are most likely my actual faves!)

Work In Progress Wednesday Number 4

Good morning and welcome to another WIPW round up of my current progress. I'm quite liking having a defined point to check up on where I am :)

Green top has progressed. Slowly. In fact, even though I've got up to the second buttonhole (about 16 rows from where I was last week), it doesn't look discernibly different *sigh* So, no picture this week, as the lack of visible progress is simply dull!

Mermaid scarf is still waiting to be frogged back to the mistake. I'm hesitating because I know that I'll get lost and confused and end up ripping the whole thing out. I'd like to avoid this, so I am pretending it just doesn't exist currently *laughs*

So, onto the more exciting progress shots...

I finished the cable part of my bag, and have picked up the stitches to knit the rest of the bag down from there. Stocking stitch in the round makes this a nice easy project, technically, however I'm trying to do magic loop for the first time and it's being quite strange... May need to check out the tutorials again and see if I'm doing it right!

I have bought fabric to line the bag with, which looks really cute. But I don't have appropriate bag handles yet, so this won't be finished properly by Friday as I'd hoped. Oh well, better to get it finished right than finished fast ;)

As I posted yesterday, boyfriend and I went to visit my mum at the weekend, leaving me with a good 2 hour car journey each way... Of course I had to cast on a small portable project to take with me *grins*

Zauberball socks:

I'm still sticking to the plain vanilla sock formula, but this time I've thrown in some purl rows for texture (and interest during the knitting!). As you can see, I've got as far as turning the heel, and the colour transitions are amazing. The yarn is quite splitty, but I'm not too fussed, they're just socks for me ;)

That's my lot for this week, but head on over to Tami's to see what other bloggers have been up to :)