Xmas post

Have had a really rather lovely xmas - just me and pooch at home enjoying ourselves and relaxing. Knitwise it has been rather frustrating as I spent most of the holiday so far making the hourglas jumper from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. This is it when it wasn't wrong - I really like the colours and the yarn and the size and everything but I have completely cocked up the raglan decreases.

I am going to have to rip it back to the armpits which is terribly irritating. On the plus side I have tried it on and know how long it will take to knit and what I need to do differently next time so should have it within a week.

I managed some sale shopping this week and hit both liberty and john lewis on oxford street. As ever they had the same stuff at the same discount - roughly 50% off a load of jaeger and rowan and the DB Astrakhan. Also some Noro at John Lewis which I bought some of for a special project I'll be blogging about on ravelry to keep it out of the way of the recipient's eyes! Liberty's sale was on the whole better if only because they put the prices on things. John Lewis left it for you to guess or deduce. Bit odd. Got two full packs of matchmaker dk at Liberty in two shades of purple. Have done pretty well for purples recently really.

Xmas itself brought lots of goodness. Take a look at this little lot!

Two calenders, domiknitrix and fitted knits, both of which I have been after for quite some time.
My absolute favourite present though comesfrom Nic who made me the *most* beautiful shawl! Pooch agreed to model it for me.

In't it amazing? The yarn is cashmere. It is so lovely to have around my shoulders!

At first Pooch was quite reluctant to model but then he seemed to get strangely into it.

My second favourite present has to be one of the ones from Pooch. How can you not smile at this...

A gift tag sellotaped to a satsuma. Genius.

I've been having a stash clear out and now have a bag of stuff to swap at the yet to be organised yarn swap which I keep thinking I should organise. I had suggested it to a few people who seemed up for it. The Foyles group have had a couple where they have one table for free stuff and one table for stuff for sale which I thought sounded like a good idea. We could have it at Starbucks and people can get their fill of tea and cake at the same time.

With my final day at IOP coming up there are a load of things I need to get sorted before I give back my work laptop. It's amazing how large my 'personal' folder has got in 7 years so there's a lot of patterns and images that need transferring elsewhere. One of the things I started and hadn't finished was the blog book I talked about a month of two ago and on the podcast. I have finally submitted and ordered a copy of "Lixie Knits It 2005"! I had great fun putting it all together and have already started 2006. As I said at the time I was worrying about how blogs are only as permanent as the website hosting them and I didn't want it all just to vanish one day.