Would you like to see.....

....what I've been knitting inspired by my new muse?

There is my first piece of lace - the Forest Canopy Shawl which I'm doing as a KAL with the At Home in Harrogate group.

There is a cracking mistake at about 1 1/2 repeats - can you spot it?  I decided not to rip it out because it doesn't have to be perfect, just beautiful.  As my first piece of lace I had to get to grips with the whole repeat thing combined with yarn overs and k2tog psso.  I realised that I actually have to concentrate.  I would like it to be really large, like a blanket that I can wrap it around myself when I go camping.  When Sue blocked hers it came out 30% larger which is encouraging.  It's knit in Kauni and goes from dusty pink to dark cherry.  I'm using much larger needles than the pattern calls for so it's very lacy and I love it!!!

I never have just one thing on the needles.  Excitedly a colleague at work is having a baby in the summer which means just one thing - a Baby Surprise Jacket

I realised half way through that this one is really a jacket for a boy.  As I don't know if she's having a girl or a boy I get to knit another one in girly colours.  I would be showing you a picture of the finished jacket but yesterday afternoon (Easter Monday) I ran out of yarn.  I got to the point where you pick up stitches and realised I couldn't change colour at that point and that I was going to run out.  What a shame I have to go and buy more yarn at lunchtime today.

I was knitting a pair of socks but hated the yarn so much that I decided to rip out the sock and a half that I'd done and THROW THE YARN AWAY.  It's OK though becuase thanks to Sue I have a new mantra "No knitting is wasted knitting.  No knitting is wasted knitting.  No knitting is wasted knitting".

To make myself feel better I decided to cast on the Cranford Mitts - a lovely pair of fingerless gloves inspired by the recent BBC show Cranford.  I've found them really fiddly to get going and I'm not sure yet that the yarn is going to work with the lacy pattern - it's a bit of a love/hate thing.  I love the finished gloves but at the moment I am hating the process.  This is the yarn I'm using

The orange/brown one I got about 3 years ago from the Knitting & Stitching Show, it's Fyberspates and I bought it for socks but it's perfect for Cranford.  The brown that I'm using as the contrasting colour I bought a couple of weeks ago from the The Yarn Yard and it is the perfect match for the old yarn.

I could go on - Foxtail Cardigan is finished, I did spin for 1/2 yesterday and I've got my next couple of projects lined up and ready to go - but I really have to go to work.