Whilst the cat's away....

Tony left me on my own in his house for the first time this evening... has been very strange being here on my own, but I've got lots done. However I have just realised I may be scuppering my plans to get him to make me a swift by winding balls of yarn myself. Hmmm.
Here we have two balls of self-kool-aid-dyed-anti-tickle-merino which I am going to use to make some special " keep your toes warm in Newcastle" socks for my secret pal.
Here is the major achievement of the evening however, a whole massive skein of HipKnits aran silk in a special custom-dyed colourway! I have to prove that this is one skein (or rather one ball now because I forgot to take a picture before... but you can see it here and blogger won't let me upload the photo but you can see it here) because this is my present for my very special One Skein Pal. She loves HipKnits silk, and she is 30 at the end of August, which is when I have to have her special hand-knitted gift ready for her.

Yes, ok, I am totally obsessed with the Jaywalker pattern, but I thought it would make a fantastic scarf. I started knitting as soon as the ball was wound (I couldn't even be bothered to get the ball winder out to make it into a centre-pull; I am bound to regret that later!) I am really liking it so far. Here's the maths 5mm needles, cast on 30 stitches. Knit one row, purl one row then this two pattern repeat:
1. (kf&B, k5, ddc,k5, kf&B) twice
2. Purl
ddc = double decrease - slip the next two stitches knitwise, knit the next stitch, pull the two slipped stitches over the one you have just knit.
See, just like Jaywalkers!

On the secret pal front, I stumbled across this yesterday, a Sockret pal exchange. I've signed up, seeing as I can't get enough of socks at the moment. I thought it would be cool to have someone knit me a pair.

And on the friends front, Annette has told me that they have a Knit and Natter group at Beatties (my local department store in Wolverhampton) on a Saturday from 3-5pm. I knew they had a Tuesday one which I couldn't make because of work, so hopefully I'll be able to go this Saturday and make some new knitting friends! Thanks Annette.