Ally Pally and purnkple yarn

I know. It's been a while.

It's not that I haven't been knitting these past couple of months - I have. But I just don't seem to have anything to show for it. With just one short side of the border left to do, the Melon scarf sits in hibernation, while indecision continues to paralyse me. In the meantime I've started a new lace project, the Myrtle Leaf shawl, using Jaggerspun Zephyr in a deep plum, but there isn't much point showing you that either, since I'm switching to a cashmere, so that's effectively just a big swatch then!

Thank you for all the nice comments about the Print o' the Wave. I absolutely love this stole and have worn her a lot in my overly air-conditioned office. In fact, another reason for not blogging has been because I haven't really finished the last post, and won't do so until I've put up the specs and a final picture of the stole in all her unblocked glory. However, this may not happen for a couple of weeks yet, so I've decided to move on for now, and when I finally post a picture, I'll link it for those of you who want to see it.

While I may not have any knitting to show you, I do have plenty of yarn. First, the latest instalment of Sundara's Petals Collection, a skein of merino in Poppy, a rich burgundy, together with a sock pattern and another pretty card.

Then there is some more Zephyr, intended for the Myrtle Leaf, but now consigned to stash.

A few weeks ago, I scoured the internet looking for pink and green sock yarn, and found two that seemed to fit the bill. First, this Bluefaced Leicester from Fyberspates in the

colourway Flower Garden, which is green, purple and pink, even prettier in real life, and is now being knit into a pair of Dublin Bay socks [pdf].

By contrast, I was very disappointed by the Socks That Rock's Socktopus colourway. At the top of this picture, you can see quite a lot of brown [taupe?], not to my liking. Having said that, looking again at BMFA's website, their colours in the image are completely true. Mea culpa, it was clearly wishful thinking that led me to hope the brown was more salmon pink. Still, it's STR, right? Gotta be grateful to get my hands on the stuff.

I'm late in blogging about this year's Ally Pally, but clearly some mention must be made! First up, my purchases:

Naturally, I had to visit the Fyberspates stand, and of course, I picked up another skein of pink and green. This is in fact a different colourway; there are just the two colours and they are both richer than the first skein. I really do think Jenny has an eye for colour; there was a skein of cashmere [I think?] in a beautiful, deep wine colour, and I am simply kicking myself for not buying it.

From Get Knitted some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Jungle Stripe. I've been after this colourway for some time, but it's always been out of stock on the GK website, so naturally I pounced on it as soon as I saw it.

[Ok, that's enough of the green and pirnkple yarn. Mission accomplished, I think.]

Other purchases were the Knit Picks Options set [hee] also from GK, a shade card from Jamiesons's, DB's Baby Cashmerino 2 and a charming baby jumper pattern from Laughing Hens.

We also visited some new stands - or new to me at least. Blogless Lynsey was particularly taken by the qiviut [click and scroll down for the fantastic story of the arctic musk ox], but couldn't decide on a project for it. She did buy some laceweight from the House of Hemp and a gorgeous wine coloured skein from the Natural Dye Studio [I have to say, NDS was a real find, I absolutely loved all her colours so it's wonderful that they are soon to be made available at I Knit London].

Lynsey and I hit the show around lunchtime, walked up and down all the aisles, visited many stalls (some of them three times), saw some of the Knit a River project and signed our support to end water poverty, made happy purchases and collected even more cards and leaflets. Luckily, I'm interested in a number of different crafts, so the question of whether there was more or less yarn this year than previously doesn't really bother me, and I found much at Ally Pally to inspire me to pick up old-forgotten crafts or try new ones. There were also many beautiful pieces in the exhibition and elsewhere for sale. We finally ended up in the Palm Court, drinking pink champage and watching Breakfast at Tiffany's [love that orange cat] and Roman Holiday [bizarrely, Lynsey was wearing Audrey Hepburn socks. Seriously.] until Gerard joined us. After more champagne, we met up with Craig in Vauxhall, and had dinner at Pico's, a lively and clearly popular Portuguese restaurant. It was a thoroughly fantastic day spent with lovely people.

Finally, in case you were wondering what the pretty case at the very top was: I have a weakness for small boxes and containers and the like, and simply couldn't resist this totally unecessary and utterly charming Cath Kidson sewing kit.

OK, that's enough for now, this post is wordy enough. If you've made it to the end, thank you. Next time I post, I'll hopefully have some knitting to show!