Happy New Year to All!!

Thank you all for my lovely welcome back to the realm of technology - it's taking my a while to both get over Christmas and get up to date with every ones blogs!
I thought I'd bring the New Year in with a thorough report of Christmas knits and knitting gifts but have just realised that I can't find the lead to upload any photos on to the computer so you will just have to use your imagination until I master technology fully (we still have a few odd quirks on the PC - to get the '@' sign I have to press 'shift' & 2 and some symbols are still yet to be located - think the keyboard thinks it's American but can't quite fix the darned thing yet!).

Gifts-wise I'd made some lovely little lacy fingerless mitts that will be under consideration for myself, can't quite remember where I got the pattern from but will search it out again to add to faves (again) along with a cozy headband from Garn Studio which was both quick and easy to make. I also made a Moebius Cowl from Cat Bordhi's site using her Moebius cast on from 'A Treasury of Magical Knitting' which makes great reading even if the concept of the moebius cast on does turn your head funny until you grasp the concept. That was great to make - the cast on is the centre of the work and you work outwards to the outer edges with one side appearing as the 'right side' and the other appearing as the 'wrong side'. Very clever stuff and I'll be doing more or these later on! Just hope I have more luck with starting the next one off - even with Mum's invaluable help it took several attempts to get right. Also I had a go at Perdita from Knitty which was fun to do if fiddly to knit using the embroidery thread an tiny needles and was my first attempt at beaded knitting - Mum still hasn't told me if it fits her or not so we'll just have to read her blog to see!

Christmas this year was rather knitting oriented for me gift wise. You already know about my lovely Spinning Wheel which DH and Mum and her Hubby gave me and which I love to bits; but I also got more yarn (as if I really need it!) namely 5 hanks of Colinette Tagliatelle in a colourway that MIL and Mum said suited me but that I wouldn't have chosen normally which is a good thing as I'm sort of in a colour rut knitting wise. This is such a lovely purpley pink with flashes of blue and green - sound horrible but is really vibrant and warm looking. Thanks again to Mum-in-law Lil!
Also on the yarn front is a lovely deep wine hank of lace weight wool that Mum gave me as part of a 'Box of Delights' and is to be a yarn challenge between the two of us - same yarn each but what will we both make? No deadlines or anything set yet so will think about that for a bit. Also in her box were some sheepy stitch markers from Knitz and Glitz which are lovely; a sheep pencil (its wool related so I'll count it with the knitting goodies!) and other lovely bits.
DH also gave me 2 copies of Interweave Knits - Spring and Fall '06, both of which have some lovely patterns - more on that in a moment. I also got some new knitting books - 'Knitting without Tears' by Elizabeth Zimmermann; 'Ultimate Source book of Knitting and Crochet Stitches'; 'Hand Knit Holidays' by Melanie Falick and 'Spinning Designer Yarns' by Diane Varney which if any of you spinners out there have not got or read already I strongly urge you to do so - such a great and inspiring book! Oh, and I've now got a Swift/Skein Winder to sort out all my hanks with which is a life saver!

There are some FO's for you other than Christmas ones but they can wait for another time and I've yet more hand spun ready to show you that is in the progress of being made up into a beret from the Fall issue of Interweave Knits.