Goodies Galore!

What an amazing week! I have achieved and received so much this week I hardly know where to begin my account of it. It's probably simplest to start at the beginning, so I will - Woolfest! I'm starting with my favourite photo from the show. This is two of my spinning friends, Freyalyn and Sarah, gossiping over their spindles!

The hats were made by Sally Pointer. I may have to add one to my growing Christmas list - rather costly items this year (it already contains a Golding vintage, handpainted ring spindle!).

Due to family events I could only spend a few hours at Woolfest, so missed loads. I did manage a little shopping though, carrying two new spindles and some gorgeously soft hand-dyed alpaca/silk/cashmere blended fibre home with me. The spindle on the right is a square laceweight spindle (10g) made by Michael Williams. The other is a beautiful one I bought from Pete and Carol Leonard, called the 'Kelly' spindle.

We spent the weekend with Mr. Wigworthy's family, due to our nephew's birthday. I got lots of knitting done there, and can report that the socks for Lark Books are now finished - no pics allowed though :(

My other big achievement was getting my package for Lily all packed up and sent off with Verso yesterday. He arrived with it today and Lily likes her kit, including her hat (big relief!). I knitted an elephant tam because Lily likes elephants. Here are a couple of photos I took of a friend modelling it a few weeks ago:

An amazing coincidence that Lily got her kit from me today, as I received one from her today too! It was a 'Random act of Kindness', something we're doing in the swap to spread some love around. Lily sent me the most beautiful stitchmarkers I have ever seen, and some chocolates. If you let your pet mouse nibble the picture you'll be able to see a lovely detailed close-up of the markers:

I was busy showing off this picture in Ravelry when yet another owl arrived, this time carrying a huge parcel of knitting goodies I ordered from Knitpicks (mecca for knitting witches), kindly forwarded to me by Lavender Ackerly. That girl has such a generous spirit - she included lovely extras in the package - yummy American cookies, and a bag pattern I've been coveting for some time now. I've also put the needles in this picture that I've bought to try out socks on circulars again, this time with longer points as I didn't get on with the very little ones.

Alas, I only had time to munch one of the cookies before I had to rush out, aglow with happiness, to attend a prize-giving day at my middle-sized little wizard's school. I barely even had time to open the box!

The yarn I ordered (Wool of the Andes) is to make some needle rolls in house colours. I've taken a picture of the main colours with the buttons (from Woolfest) that I bought to fasten the rolls with (rather blurry I'm afraid = and the green rather greyed here):

Finally I've been making a little more progress on a bag I'm knitting based on Kaeelana's pattern. I'm knitting the bag in the round instead of double-knitting it: