Tickled.

Something tickled me last night. Not literally but figuratively. Which is nice.

Masa and I went to Verity's house for dinner - we had lasagne, chips, peas, chocolate (lots), tea from a pot and pink lemonade. Bloody marvelous readers, bloody titting marvelous! We watched Miranda (I think I may be her?! But without the two FIT men loving her... Can't wait for the next episode). Verity and I crocheted, Masa knitted. We bitched a little bit. Laughed a massive lot. And then the baby cried so I was left to appreciate Verity's ever growing stash (books and yarn to die for!) and two shawls sort of fell about me, which is what I want to talk about today.

Before Christmas, Verity came to me asking what to make for the MIL. She had some leftover Regia Laceweight in the beautiful Plums colourway and knew she needed to make some sort of scarf-y thing and that it probably needed to be triangular. I told her to make the gorgeous Elise Shawl which I thought was just perfect. Took me a while to persuade her. Then she tried it and it went tits up. Then I told her to try with the chart which I thought was much better written than the pattern pattern. And it worked. She made this beaut:

We hope it went down well but Verity couldn't gauge the reaction. 

She did however, fall in love with it and made another in some aran-ish handspun yarn that her sister bought her for Christmas on a MASSIVE hook: 

Look how different it looks!

And then just after Christmas, I logged onto facebook and saw that she's only gone and done it again, hadn't she?!

This time in the Wicked DK and something from stash which is the equivalent of our Cygnet DK. Beauts?!

So, yesterday, I had to set out early early early in the morning, I had an appointment at half past bloody eight which is about half and hour before I usually get up. I grabbed any items of clothing I could and just happened to include in the maelstrom, my version of the Elise Shawl:

(That's my dad. I'll tell you the story. I was blocking this beaut on a spare bed, he heard me, decided to be a wanker, and lay right down on it. I had to roll him over to get the pins on that side in place. I took a photo and put it on facebook and rav. He wasn't very happy. I told him it's his own pissing fault for being such a wanker. I'm now making it my lifes mission to disseminate the photo as widely as I can. That'll teach him). 

It's not quite so well blocked now, it's been a while and I rarely reblock scarves. 

So, Verity's first shawl was out of the house but the purple aran, the green dk and my foresty-kinda-berry coloured laceweight were all in the same room. At. The. Same. Time. 

COLOUR ME TICKLED!

So, whilst Verity was doing a sterling job of keeping the next generation content, happy, comforted and sleepified, I took a load of really shit photos with the flash on her lovely patchwork blanket. I'll share them with you. 

One of the loveliest things about seeing something worked in lots of different weights is the different aspects of the pattern that show up. I really thought that the most important part of this pattern were the 'shells', like the actual crochet parts rather than the holes. Turns out, when you see it done on a massive needle that the most important parts are the flowers that are created by the holes:

Once you can see it in one shawl, you can see it in them all: 

Once I'd got over that excitement - I moved on to cat porn: 

I didn't get to see my favourite of V's cats - a massive ginger tom called Ollivander (the girls are Minerva and Ginevra. Geek) but the girls are sweet, affectionate and purr like you wouldn't believe. 

We rounded off the evening by preparing for Masa's hot date tonight. She won't thank me for this photo but I think you lot might: 

Note the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyoooooooootiful Humping Reindeer Hat. 

So that's that folks, I thought I might say something more interesting than I have. Instead I've splurged a little of the inside of my head. I have been making tea cosies and I will share them with you soon, once ends are sewn in. And I'm still working on my new year's resolutions - I don't think it's a bad thing to take my time because I'd like a more successful haul in my next years 'have I done my resolutions?' post. 

Lastly, and most importantly, I'm trying to work out if I'm allowed to eat a proper greasy chicken and mushroom pasty today even though I had a sausage sandwich and a bucket of chocolate yesterday? Thoughts? Suffice to say, I'll have had it by the time you answer so please be positive... 

Love Eleanor. :)

P.s. I forgot to say. I was also tickled by the fact that V and I were both crocheting with the new shades of the Galaxy DK (which haven't yet made it onto the internet yet - that's a job for today...). I was making a tea cosy and V was making some sort of small triangular shawl that you might have heard of.... Here's a photo of the new colours in case you missed it/aren't on facebook: 

I think I may finally have found love. 

P.P.S It has now reached the internet - click here for the Galaxy DK.

And I've also added the Knit Now magazine because we're now a stockist and this is dangerous for me because it's all I want to read all day.....