Tour de Fleece Rest Day 1

It's a rest day in the Tour today, so no spinning for me. Instead, a chance to catch up with what else I have been doing since the Tour began.

School is crazy busy, with lots of deadlines to be met before the end of term next week. I feel totally drained and cannot wait for the holidays to start! I have plenty of plans for knitting, spinning and sewing to keep me busy over the 6 week break. More of that in a future post.........

In the meantime, I have started knitting a new pair of socks. The pattern is Gabriola, designed by one of my Ravelry friends, Kim and she came up with the pattern to cope with 'busy' yarns. With that in mind, I rummaged through my stash and picked out a skein that I bought way back at Knit Nation in 2010. I fell in love with its bright colours and it has sat in my stash since then, waiting for the perfect pattern to come along.

I wound the yarn into a lovely, colourful yarn cake - the colourway is called Summer Bunting - and it makes me feel very happy every time I look at it.

The pattern is easy to memorise and grows fast. It almost knits itself! I've reached the heel flap already - look! The yarn has decided to stripe, which I wasn't expecting, but I do like it!

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my first squishy parcel from knitspot's Purple Passion club. Pattern release is on Thursday and I hope to have the yarn all ready to cast on as a weekend treat. We have been having a little swapping fun in the Purple Passion clubhouse over on Ravelry. I received my package from Donna last week and it was filled with lovely things.

Donna sent me two beautiful skeins of yarn from Spirit Trail, some exceedingly yummy Reese's Pieces (now sadly long gone!) as well as some purple buttons and an ebony shawl pin. Flo wasn't left out either with a fun purple mouse to chase around.

I've been busy baking at the weekends - chocolate brownies mmmmmmmmmmmm!

and banana and peanut butter muffins (they were meant to have Reese's Pieces in them too, but Mr JK and I were piglets!)

Before I go, I must share a new find with you. My friend Carie has just opened an Etsy shop selling stitch markers. I received my order from the USA in super-quick time and I just love them. She has just restocked her shop again, so why not pop over and take a look. See you tomorow! xxx