The land of sweets cowl

As soon as Helen of Curious Handmade mentioned that this years (last year's!) knitvent collection was inspired by The Nutcracker, I knew that I would be knitting along. I have loved the magic of The Nutcracker ballet since a child, and two years ago my parents gave me tickets as an early Christmas present to take P to see it at the Royal Opera House. So beautiful. And Helen's first pattern of knitvent 2017 was perfect.

 This pattern is made up of twenty-four stripes of varying stitches and was designed with yarn advent calendars in mind. Sadly I had no gorgeous yarn advent calendar, but what I do have is lots of yarn oddments. Oh and one dreamy skein of Cosmic Strings - not at all an oddment! Rather than do all twenty-four stripes in a different yarn, I decided to knit the lace sections in the same yarn, and chose the deliciously named Cosmic Strings in marshmallow (and this way I would get to see more of these lovely speckles). I then dug around in the basket to see what other 4ply yarns I had in typically Christmas sweet colours... the ubiquitous tin of jewel foil covered chocolates. Oh and red for the candy canes of course.

This has been such a popular pattern this wintertime, and rightly so... a chance to play with colours, all those gorgeous different textures. It may be one of my favourite patterns

I get ridiculously giddy when my woolly make, project bag and progress keeper match. Just look at that star filled bauble! Purchased from the lovely Jooles of sew sweet violet

I have been wearing this cowl so much this wintertime, it is so snug and colourful and long - quite unlike any other cowl I have. It softly folds and drapes and looks most cheery. Today is day three without heating and oh my it is cold out there, and in here, but my neck at least is toasty...

February is the new January...

So happy new year! That way we can ignore the silence on here of the past few months. Suffolk has been grey this January. Perhaps more brown due to all the mud. So brown and grey. It would appear that when all is brown and grey all I want to do is curl up. Everyone has been clothed (in fact that has been a highlight of January, saying hello to the bottom of the ironing basket), appropriately fed and the house is vaguely tidy and clean-ish, and that has been it. I have high hopes for February!

Starting with a sunny shawl

Mr R gave me this yarn for Christmas last year (oh, I think I might meant two years ago. Not this Christmas), my first gradient yarn cake, from a dyer he found all on his own on etsy. The yarn is the Merino-twin from Wollelfe in the colour Gloria Dei

 I think this colourway is named after a rose, and it was such a pretty yarn cake. I think it might have looked slightly prettier as a cake than knitted...

The pattern is a free Ravelry pattern - the storm shawl by Joanna Davies designed with gradient yarn sets in mind. I have called mine the petal shawl as it reminds me of a peony petal

 Such an easy pattern though fairly lengthy to knit all 800 meters of yarn. The colour changes did help to keep my attention, and the interest of fellow swim parents, as this was my at the pool knitting make last late winter and early spring. Looking forward to wearing it again in the sunnier weather, or maybe I should wear it now to combat the grey...