Mostly knitting.

Added later : This is one of my favourite fibre suppliers. Lovely blended batts and rovings of clean,sound,soft fibres. Very quick delivery.

I had a wonderful,thoughtful and kind Better Pal. It's such a nice,small [that's the vital point,I think] exchange,where the emphasis is on getting to know each other.
Thank you,dear Katy,for taking the time to discover my colour and fibre preferences. I appreciate it all the more knowing that Katy is one of many stretched to the limit mothers with a full house,including an autistic son,a job and,whilst she was my pal,home renovations.
I love the Green Mountain Spinnery yarn. We can't get it the U.K.,and I'd heard a lot about it. This is their Mountain Mohair in Periwinkle. A fabulous colour. The yarn is a softly spun singles,which interests me greatly. I have some beautiful batts of Romney wool/mohair blends that I want to spin into a similar yarn,a soft-spun aran/bulky [chunky] yarn. I've been collecting the batts for a while with a garment in mind. Just need to carve some spinning time. I'll tell you more about the fibre and the supplier once the latest batt I'm bidding on is mine !
I'm thrilled to see that Paula Simmons ''Spinning for Softness and Speed'' is being re-printed. Would anyone like to do a swap/exchange for a copy ? It can be got directly from here,so if anyone is desperate for anything from here leave a comment. If you're a spinner get yourself a copy !

I very enjoyed spoiling my giftee in the Better Pal exchange,the lovely Margene. It was great fun searching out things I thought she'd really like.
The second round has started and will,I'm sure,be as much fun.

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What's in my ''currently holding my interest'' knitting bag right now ?
A small sock.

A large blob of purple Alpaca !

I'm knitting another shawl in Elann's Cuzco. This stuff is incredibly soft and really warm. Too warm for a close fitting garment. I don't think a sweater would be such a good idea as it does start to look ratty with wear. I know because last year's black shawl is looking disgusting after being draped around my neck for the last two weeks,whilst I've had this,continuing,foul cold. I'm getting really bored with the cough and the sinus infection. Enough already. I digress ! The black shawl has been much worn,as have my fuzzy feet.

Please take this as an answer to one of the meme questions that Shetha tagged me with ! Shetha was one of the small band of original knitbloggers. Anyway,these are amongst my most worn pieces of knitwear.
Although I have the same number of balls of Cuzco,the purple shawl will be bigger. I'm knitting it on 12mm needles,not the 10mm I knitted the black shawl with [way bigger than my comfort knitting size],and,instead of an allover lace,I'm alternating garter stitch with simple lace bands. I use the word lace loosely here. It's just k2tog,yo.

There's also a cuff of an Estonian mitten.

This is the fishtail cuff belonging to ''Kristi's Mittens'' from ''Folk Knitting in Estonia'' by Nancy Bush [a gem of a book]. I'm knitting these on 2mm needles using Rowan's Yorkshire Tweed 4ply. I had two balls each of Deep Aubergine and Foxy,both now discontinued. Not enough for colour stranded mittens. Plenty of the Aubergine to be found,but I was struggling with the Foxy. Many thanks to K.T. for rescuing me.

There's more in there,but it'll have to wait until next time.

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I am still stunned by our incredible good fortune with regard to Oliver's Fund,and particularly the wheelchair. It is,indeed,humbling to be treated with such love,generosity and care by people who are,in the most part,complete strangers. Words cannot express our gratitude.
I'll write more about Oliver's stuff [!] next time. I'm running out of steam and brain power here !

p.s. A million e-mails I owe. There is a queue. I'll get to you all. Don't take it personally,you should see the state of the house. There's an evil lie going around that Christmas will soon be here. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek !

Added later ! :

I know,I know. A new post is imminent. In the meantime,for those who haven't heard,there's a new knitting podcast. I love Marie's ''Knitcast'',the interviews and her soothing voice. This is different,and equally fantastic I've really enjoyed knitting along to Brenda's "Cast-On". It's great to have such talented broadcasters adding these small pleasures to our lives.
Fab !

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A quick post that I'll add to later.

Does anyone have 2 x 25 gm balls of Yorkshire Tweed 4 ply in ''Foxy'' they'd be willing to swap or sell ?
I'd be most grateful.

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Remember Marion Foale ? Understated elegance. Very English knitwear.
She has a website,where she is selling a few,very expensive,patterns and the wool that she uses.
I made a few things from her book,and think the patterns are still wearable.

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Amy P has a great charity link on her blog.The Big Knit directs knitters to charities that need their knitting. I particularly like the squares to make blankets for those that survived the earthquakes in Pakistan. I don't really understand why the world has yet to galvanise efforts to stop thousands of people freezing to death in the next few weeks.