Major stash enhancement !

On Thursday I took a day off work and went to the Knit and Stitch Show at Ally Pally - highlight of the knitting year ! It was great - really inspiring. I came home exhausted and loaded with knitting goodies. Firstly, it was great to pick up some spinning supplies without having to pay a load of postage - and to feel the fibres first. I picked up some lovely soft wool roving in a natural cream, brown and some hand dyed. Also a bag of different coloured wool tops. I plan to get adventurous with my spinning wheel. I also found a niddy noddy for winding skeins - something I was particularly on the look out for. The Colinette stand is always a big attraction for me as I have long been a fan of these wonderful yarns in their many fabulous colourways. Two hanks of the new Tao silk are now in my stash and I am thinking of making a crocheted collar/necklace with one of them. Two hanks of Parisienne in a wonderful purple colour were also irresistable. These may be destined to become a shawl from the new Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts magazine. It seems quite like Kidsilk Haze and I cant wait to knit it up. A couple more hanks of Fandango for more of the boa scarves also made their way into my bag. Oh, and not forgetting 200g of dk in the Monet colourway. You don't often see the dk and I was tempted to buy enough for a cardigan but then considered how many I could already make from my existing stash. So, restraint was exercised and I am thinking maybe legwarmers and gloves. When I tore myself away from the Colinette stand there were plent more goodies to be found. I have been drooling over Nicky Epstein's Swanderful bag from her new book of felted bags for a few weeks now. It is such an original design and looks great fun. Jamiesons Shetland were selling yarn packs for some of the bags in the book and when I saw this one I couldn't believe my luck. I had almost ordered it online a couple of days ago at a considerably greater cost. I have ordered the book from Amazon and am looking forward to getting started. There is a KAL for this project and I might just join. The single hank of Noro Daria is to be a belt using either knittting or crochet. The flower kit is all I could afford from House of Hemp's stand by the time I reached it. I've wanted to try hemp yarn for a while. It is quite expensive and feels quite hard and stringy but it does take the colours beautifully. The woman on the stand was wearing a lovely crocheted waistcoat that I liked a lot. Perhaps if I had seen it before the Colinette stand I may have bought the kit. Oh well, I took a card and will track them down online when I have more money.

There has actually been some knitting going on this week. The Madeline Jacket is coming on great now that I have worked out how to do the edging. I'm about half way round and fairly pleased with how the whole thing is looking. Two repeats are complete on the Alien Illusion scarf - just four more to go. Two crochet dishcloths are finished . Blogger is playing up again and won't let me download any more pictures so I will have to try again later.