Lovely stuff

So much good stuff. The most amazing has to be this pillow which was a surprise present earlier this week. It is astonishing.

It's called 'Thoughts and Dreams' and is by the artist Louise Riley, and it was her that gave it to me. I met Louise through working with her mum and she is such an amazing person as well as artist. I was gobsmacked when I saw it.

The first side is dreams...

Isn't it beautiful?

Then naturally the second side is for writing down thoughts. And look at what you write it on...

Isn't that amazing? Look at the detailed sewing she's done to get it to look like a real page.

I just adore it. I keep picking it up and stroking it.

Another present although of a rather different genre also arrived last night. Pooch got me some shoes for my birthday but they didn't fit (not his fault - right size but just too small for some weird reason) and so I finally took them back. I didn't get the same ones but I did get these, which he keeps suggesting might fit him with a bit of 'stretching'. Hands off dude...

What will they go with? Who cares, it was love at first sight!

And as they say on the news, on a happier note, I knocked out one of these little buggers a few nights ago.

It's a free pattern for doing two on 2-needles and then seaming. There is also a pattern on ravelry for doing them in the round but it wasn't working on magic loop and there's no way I was breaking out the dpns after all this time free of them. Plus the seaming went pretty well. The recipient got it yesterday and loves it. She's having a bit of a stress at the moment so I wanted something to cheer her up and remind her she's my best friend x

Yikes, sorry for getting soppy there for a minute. Stiff upper lip, Byrne!

WIP and FO round up

I've been pondering Ravelry and find that I have no less than 13 WIP and 9 UFOs. 22 projects lying around unfinished! That's some serious bad knitting karma. One might think at this point that I wouldn't start a new one but you'd be so wrong. (This kind of thing would never occur to a knitter, but a Pooch might think it.) My best friend has announced her engagement and so the swatching should begin. I'm not going to be blogging about it though so Ravelers will see the action evolving on there.

This is doubly good because my main project has been the adult surprise and as that has reached these proportions...

It's a like a fluffy lap blanket and definitely not suiting the current climate which is decidedly scorchio. It folds up quite presentably.

It's a definite comfort cardigan!