lsb's making me a stripy scarf in rowan big wool shades 14, and the very lovely but very discontinued shade 3. i didn't realise it was discontinued til i went to holmfirth today and couldn't find it anywhere. the reason i wanted some more of it's lovely lilac yummyness is because i want to make a nice warm winter hat, complete with earflaps (nelly from rowan's little book of big accessories) in matching colours. i really had my heart set on this hat and scarf combination and have actually resorted to trawling through pages of other people's big wool stash in an attempt to find someone with a ball of shade 3 to spare that they're willing to swap or sell. no such luck as yet though, so i turn to you - my lovely readers, in my hour of need to look deep into your stash and help out a fellow knitter.

if on the off chance anyone does happen to find a spare ball, i can be reached via a comment or an e mail (address to be found via my profile), i'm willing to do a swap, sale or even negotiate a deal whereby i'll do your ironing for a month.

as promised a few pictures, first is my finished version of kyle from rowan's little book of big accessories, i found it a lovely quick knit - the whole thing took a couple of hours on two evenings to complete, and i'm informed that big knits are in this season.





























and a couple of pictures of what i think is my favourite unfinished object of the moment, the lsb's not quite straight scarf in my favourite colour. it's very easy to knit but the diagonal pattern makes it seem more complicated than it is.







this would be my attempt at banff, it's a somewhat stalled unfinished project at the moment for no real reason, it's an easy but not overly boring pattern, and the yarn's lovely. i think i just don't have the time to sit down and make a really good go of getting stuck into big projects like sweaters.

after much making merry yesterday with lsb's family, and even more blood sweat and tears trying to get at least some of my academic work in time for the christmas holidays and about as much hard work on the ward (i finished my placement on the friday just gone, loved every minute of it and i was actually very sad to leave) i'm back. just a quick note for now to reassure people that i haven't been eaten by my stash or something similar, hopefully when i can get the camera working later i'll post pictures of finished objects and works in progress along with whatever else i've got on there. but to cut a long story short, my camera's having bursts of going on strike due to the battery being very worn out and desperately needing replacing - unfortunately the only place i can obtain one is from the manufacturer themselves, ah, le sigh.

I'm finally out of my sick bed, or sort of anyway - i'm still only really feeling up to very basic knitting projects in between trying to get all my essays done that are due in soon. As i'm currently in the car with lsb going christmas tree hunting i can't get online and edit the above picture so apologies if it's not a very good one.

i write this to you from my sick bed, this time i've been struck down with tonsillitis for what must be the third time this year (i suppose it's my own fault really, when you make the decision to spend your life caring for sick people you're bound to get sick every so often and so lose the right to complain about being ill) the short version of which is that it currently looks like i have a golf ball wedged at the back of my throat. anyway that's pretty much why i've been quiet over the past couple of weeks.

i've been just as busy as usual if not more so on placement recently, which has left me with very little time to do any knitting but somehow i've managed to finish the replacement for the felted scarf and start a not quite straight scarf for lsb in a very lovely purple (yet more handpaintedyarn, colonia140 translates as amethyst) which is very nice, and makes a change from blue, but purple's my thing! anyway, in between bemoaning my partner's choice of scarf colour and being taught how to run a ward i've been spending lots of time wrapping hannukah presents ready for tomorrow night (so happy hannukah to my jewish readers) so i intend to eat my latkes, play lots of dreidel and just generally have a good time.