Sunday 5th July

Hello friends, I do hope you are all well. It has been a somewhat exciting week here as we got a new cooker on Thursday which meant an end to soup and sandwich dinners which we had been eating for a fortnight since our old cooker packed in. What a treat it was to have fish, tatties and sweetcorn for our first meal.
Last week I spoke a bit about how my needle usage has changed over the years. Today I want to address my knitting preferences. My gran, who taught me to knit, would be horrified that I love to knit lacy shawls with beads or without. That would be considered frivolous and a waste of time and effort in her eyes. Not practical and useful. I don't think she would mind the socks but would be shocked at the colours and especially at the price of yarn. In all, I think that today's reasons for my knitting would be beyond her comprehension. I knit to relax, and for the pure joy of it, it is my hobby and my passion. The fact that I can take some sticks and string and create something wonderful soothes my mind and swells my heart.

Last week I shared a lot of my outgoing projects. This week I have some incoming beauty to share. For the month of June, RipplesCrafts was the chosen dyer for the Flower Power Fund initiative for Marie Curie Cancer Care. She chose as her flower of inspiration the Northern Marsh Orchid

I just knew I had to have a skein to knit a shawl and I knew I wanted to knit the Hundred Acre Wood shawl in two colours so I chose the also stunning Gorse colour in her Burras base. When the package arrived I was more than delighted with my choice.

Now for my knitting round-up.
I have really just been concentrating on two projects this past week. First is the Stillness Shawl MKAL, clue 2 came out on Thursday and I am taking it nice and easy trying to stretch out the knitting for the whole week. I am knitting around 8 rows a day and then switching to the Habitation Throw.

I have just about 30 more increase rows to do on this and then it's time to start the decreases.
Like I mentioned last week I am really loving the patterns of Helen Stewart, Curious Handmade, and all three I have mentioned today are by her. I have also checked out her podcast and spent most of yesterday evening happily knitting along to her talking about all sorts. It really is worth checking it out, you can find it here, Curious Handmade.

I think that's enough for this week, stay safe and healthy.

Mary