Christmas Goodies

So, yesterday I promised you a look at all the lovely knitterly presents that came my way at Christmas.

There were lots of books -

There's Knitting Yarns and Spinning Tales which is full of great stories from and about knitters; Yarn Stash Wonders - 101 great patterns for all those odd balls from the stash (more about this later); Folk Style by Mags Kandis which has lots of great stylish patterns; The Best of Interweave Knits which has some great stuff in it including the Icarus shawl which I am intending to knit this year; Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan - beautiful organic designs and clever knits from one of favourite designers and Knit Knit - Profiles and Projects from Knitting's New Wave - cool patterns and inspirational interviews. That's a whole lot of really fantastic books to help keep me inspired and knitting.

Also in my stocking were these - Beautiful Lantern Moon rosewood needles - just lovely to knit with and currently sporting the Twisted Spiral Neckscarf from One Skein Wonders, using an odd ball of Noro Kureyon that was in my stash.

Best of all there was this -

An Ashford Knitters Loom. This was a total surprise and I was really chuffed. Pete had done some research and sourced it himself and got it delivered, all without me suspecting a thing. It's lovely and just what I wanted. It folds up so it takes up hardly any space (this is important in our house where I am already taking over with boxes of wool and the spinning wheel and dyeing materials and fleeces and allsorts of other bits and bobs.) It comes with its own carrybag and is very portable. Draped artfully across it is the scarf I wove on it on Boxing Day using some unidentified brown wool and some beige boucle that was in the stash. I've since bought some silk and some mohair from Texere and will be starting something a little more ambitious this week.

I've been knitting too. Here is the beginning of some Lapland Mittens from Folk Mittens by Marcia Lewandowski.

This is the second attempt at them as I wasn't getting the right gauge on the first attempt. I'm using some slightly thicker yarn now and slightly bigger needles. The yarn I'm using is some cream Guernsey, some reddish Jaeger DK Merino which I hand-dyed last year, and some green hand-spun hand-dyed unspecified British Wool.

It's the time of year for reviewing what I've done in the last year and setting some goals for the next. I think my favourite knitting project of the last year was the Luna Moth Shawl. I wear it all the time and it's had many compliments.

So my knitting ambitions for this year are to knit an Icarus Shawl (I have some laceweight in the stash for this purpose but be prepared for some swearing), to knit more of my handspun and to try and become a better, more accomplished knitter this year. I might even try and finish some of the socks that are on the needles too.

Tomorrow - my favourite and least-favourite books of last year, what I'm looking forward to this year bookwise and my reading resolutions.