Happy Sunshiny Days

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's blog post.  I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

I've had a great weekend.  Plenty of knitting got done and we had a lovely day out.  I have also been lucky enough to have two patterns gifted to me over the weekend.

First of all, I'd like to share with you my lovely finished shawl.

I can't begin to tell you how pleased I am with this.  The beautiful gradient yarn was a gift from Grace and it's called Antarctica (she picked it deliberately for me because she knows I'm interested in anything to do with the South Pole).  It's very hard to get a picture that reflects the true colours.  It starts as a deep teal, lightens and changes to dark grey, which in turn lightens to cream.

I used a pattern by Helen Stewart called Spindrift.  The pattern is a paid for pattern, but you can sign up by email for a free workshop and the pattern comes as part of the package.  The link to the pattern page on Ravelry is HERE.

It is a well written pattern and is great for assessing your yarn usage.  I particularly wanted to maximise my use of the yarn so that I got the full splendour of the gradients.  It's also a nice quick knit.

So now I really, really do need to get back on track with my other works in progress - until the next distraction!

Yesterday was such a lovely day, weather-wise, that my husband and I decided to have a day out, so we drove up the coast to Lytham (about an hour and a half away).  As my husband is retiring later this year, we called this our practice retirement day!

There isn't a great deal to do in Lytham, but it was lovely to just walk along the coastal path.  I hadn't adjusted the exposure on my camera, so my pictures are very bleached, I've used some pictures I found online so you can see what we saw.

pic from www.lythamtowntrust.org

We called into the windmill to see the museum run by the local heritage society.

pic from www.lythamheritagegroup.co.uk

And we had a picnic in Lowther Gardens (these are my pictures - it had clouded over a bit so the exposure isn't as rubbish).

A very relaxing day and it's always nice to visit somewhere new.

When I got home, I was watching one of my favourite podcasters, YarnderWoman, Melinda from Perth in Western Australia, whilst doing some sewing.  I was absolutely thrilled when my name was read out as a prize winner for her Hat Knit Along that ran last month. My prize is a beautiful shawl pattern and I'll show you the details when I receive the copy.

The same evening, Grace got in touch with me to say that she was gifting me a new pattern by the Sockmatician.  He has written a toe up sock recipe that incorporates a heel flap and gusset.  This is exactly the construction I want to try next.  So I'm really delighted to receive this.  Now I can't wait to cast on for my next pair of socks - but didn't I just say, no distractions!!!

So everything is wonderful here in Yellow Pink and Sparkly land.  I hope that the sun and happiness are shining down on you, wherever you are.  And if there are clouds, both literal and metaphoric in your life at the moment, I hope that they pass over as quickly as possible.

Have a good week. X