Ohhhh ! There has been so much going on around here and not much of it knitting 🙁

The short and snappy list goes like this…

• Starting my new job – going really well, Thank you 🙂
• Stopping Ziggy falling in the pond (!) – once so far…
• Starting to get Kitty to come out from under the bed and be stroked – good progress – she’s sometimes even soppy and purrs!
• Buying furniture for our odd little room off the hallway (currently called “The Snug” …) – Rug and sofa being delivered tomorrow
• Making a formal objection to our neighbors plans to build a huge extension that would rob us of all our daylight – Grrr.
• Dealing with an exploding halogen lamp that burnt holes in our living room carpet and sofa (and thankfully not us,the cats, anything flammable or my knitting)

All of these are under control except the last one. It was an uplighter with a halogen bulb we’d had about 2 years. Ben turned it off and bang !  Red hot glass flying around the living room scorching where it landed.

We have claimed on our house insurance but we’ve ended up Yak Shaving as a result – not heard of Yak Shaving ? No, it’s not some new knitterly yarn spinning fad… The urban dictionary says it’s…

There’s a great explanation of it’s origin here >>> Yak Shaving

So, we claim on our insurance for the ruined carpet and sofa….

Carpet can’t be repaired so a replacement is chosen to match the old one…

So we decide it would be a good idea to decorate before the nice new carpet arrives  while we have the room empty…

And while the carpet is up it would be and ideal time to lay new speaker cables under the carpet…

And research choose and buy new speakers…

And get that new Amplifier Ben has wanted for the last 10 years…

And replace our living room furniture (still in the research and funding phase!)

And upgrade our Sky box to HD

And…And…And…

So hopefully you can see why I’ve been “Yak Shaving” and had little time for knitting, let alone blogging!

So just what knitting have I done?

Well, quite a lot of a big cardigan thing that I just have the sleeves to do and I’m not sure if I like…(Another blog post for that one) and a really fun little shawl type thingy I picked up at the Olympia Knitting show back in March.

I was blown away by the beautiful yarns at the Nimu Yarns stand – lots of beautifully dyed yarns in scrummy colours.  What really attracted me though, was the unusual shawls pinned up to showcase the yarns. Resistance was futile  – I had to have this pattern just to see how it was done – Different Lines by Veeta Valimaki… For sale here on Ravelry>> Ravelry Different Lines

From Different lines

I spent ages choosing  a lovely demin blue and mottled green in Nimu’s Mickleden – a perfect superwash merino. (I’ll be knitting with this again 😉 )

I was worried , at first, that my colour choices wouldn’t contrast enough to show off the pattern but as it’s developed I’ve become more and more thrilled. What do you think?

From Different lines

The shaping is quite unusual and uses short rows to dramatic effect – we’ll see how it looks on with my denim jacket when it’s finished…

I love the curve where all the lines meet – it really draws my eye…

From Different lines

And the nice thing is, no end to sew in – I could just neatly carry the yarn up a row for each change as at this point, you only have 2 rows of each colour….

From Different lines

On the opposite, wide egde there is a very pretty increase that forms an edging too – nicely thought out 🙂

From Different lines

All this design fun and lovely yarn in sumptuous Monet watercolour hues…why have I let my self forsake knitting for Yak Shaving? Anybody tell me?