What is it about a new ball of wool that excites me? Am I a bit of a saddo, an anorak of knitting? I love buying new wool, it’s full of promise and potential, for with two long sticks and a bit of patience it can be transformed into just about anything you can imagine. I once came accross a website from New Zealand where a group of elderly people had knitted an entire spread for tea including the teapot, loaf of bread with board and bread knife, sandwiches, cakes etc. It was quite accomplished, if a wee bit redundant and just goes to show what you can do with a humble ball of wool.

I’ve enjoyed having time to myself this week and beginning to catch up with all the things I’ve not had a chance to do whilst being full-time carer to Toby. I’m really pleased with this shade card. Because I knit with a range of yarns (Rowan, Jaeger, Sirdar and Patons) I often find it difficult to imagine which different colour combinations will work together and so I decided to make a shade card incorporating all the cotton 4ply yarn that I have in stock. I think it’s almost worthy of being framed and I’m enjoying looking at
it propped in the corner. Well I’m off to enjoy the rest of the day. Funny to think I was dreading this week – wasn’t so bad afterall! Have a great weekend all.

Well, here I am, trying not to think about how Toby’s getting on. It’s his first day at school and because he’s autistic I wasn’t able to prepare him as well as I’d have liked. Still he should like today – they’re swimming this morning, PE this afternoon and half an hour of soft play at the end of the day (because it’s a severe learning difficulty school they do lots of pyhsical activity and have their own bouncy castle and soft play room!). Tomorrow he’s got his first horse-riding lesson – still can’t imagine what he’ll make of that. Anyway, the point of posting is to take my mind of worrying about him – so I should move on. Back to Hazel…

My new friend Hazel (mum to Madeline and Jack who is also autistic) invited me over to her house last friday evening. She’d organised a charity fund raising evening (Hazel – where do you get your energy?!) selling beautiful handmade cards, children’s clothes, Tibetan furniture and accessories, knitted corsages and more. Well, what a great evening – everyone had a fab time drinking, eating
cakes (Hazel’s chocolate cake is legendary) and shopping (what a heavenly combination). I was chuffed to bits as I sold 10 rabbits and 5 cakes so a big thank you to the lovely ladies of Townshend and West Streets who were so complimentary about my work. Above are some of the cakes that I sold for the charity.