Knitting, Cycling (armchair) and Meerkats

Good grief where is the year going? It just seems a few days since I last posted, and yet is was nearly two weeks ago. It would certainly seem true that time speeds up as you get older.
Mind you, in that time I seem to have accomplished quite a lot on the knitting front.
Personal project plunge
2/26 is complete and was today posted to a Ravelry friend as part of a swap package, this is all I can show you for now, but all will be revealed soon

What is in these parcels???

3/26 is also complete, it is my first time of using the sock club subscription yarn from ripplescrafts.com . This gorgeous yarn named Harris was in my first package and I have turned it into this lovely shawlette.

Harris Shawl 

4/26 is a curving scarf using Manos del Uruguay silk blend yarn in the Gemini colourway which was sooo soft to knit with and such a pleasure to feel up against your skin

Gemini

This was yarn I received for my birthday and as I am a Gemini it was a lovely gift.
I am still knitting away and at the minute have three different light weight shawls on the needles. I am finding myself knitting 2 rows of each in rotation to try and alleviate stress & frustration.

We are still hooked on Le Tour de France and having explored the Pyrenees from our comfy seats, today we got our first taste of the High Alps, the tour has taken a brief hop over into Italy and will return to France tomorrow. Watching these fearless cyclists careering down these twisty roads is not for the fainthearted, but I am still glued to the TV every day.

Finally this week something odd happened to me. I am a fan of Aleksander Orlov, that so cute meerkat from the UK insurance adverts. He has captured the hearts of so many people and has such a following he even has his own website now meerkovo.com His Facebook site were running a competition to win 100 genuine cuddly meerkats each day. Well would you believe I actually won one!!! Here she is Meerkovo's wonderful school teacher.

Meet Maiya

1st Week of July

After all the medical mayhem of the end of June, it has been a time to settle down into a routine of sorts. Our car is at the crash centre finally being repaired after it's encounter with a rock back in May, doctor appointments are back to normalish and knitting has re-commenced with a flourish.
We have also discovered a great way to travel without leaving the living-room, July means Le Tour de France. I have never held any interest in cycling at all but DH was a road racing cyclist in his bygone days and we decided to give this year's TV coverage a watch. Well we have only stopped off briefly in this lovely country twice whilst on cruise ships and both locations were on the Mediterranean coast. Now however after the first week I am hooked on what seems to me to be a beautiful country. I find the Chateaus especially pleasing to the eye and would love to spend time exploring their history and architecture. If we were to win the lottery a road trip to France would definately be high up the list of things to do.

Knitting complete

Whilst this is happening on the black box in the corner I have of course been knitting away. I have finished all the knitting on the white baby shawl, it is awaiting washing and laying out to dry, and the knitting and washing of a project I am doing for a swap is also complete. I will take photos of this once it is dry and will post here after the recepient has received her parcel.

I have also set myself a couple of new challenges.

1   To complete 26 items between July1st 2011 and June 30th 2012. So far so good with the shawl being project #1 and swap, project #2.

2  To reduce my stash, not by cold sheeping, but by only allowing purchase in any one month of half the yardage of yarn which left my stash in the previous calender month. So if I knit 2000 yards in July I can buy 1000 yards in August and so on.
I think these will be do-able and will help keep me focused.
So back I go to the needles and roll on tomorrow for my introduction to the French mountains.