Nice things

Well, I’ve moaned enough the past few weeks, and I still have plenty of reason to moan, but I won’t 🙂
I’ve forgotten to clarify what Secret Pal is for Little Stace – sorry petal! Secret Pal is just lovely! The new release lives here, so if you want to sign up, make it quick! Basically, you are assigned someone to buy/make gifts for. These can be anything you like, but the person you are getting them for posts the answers to a lengthy questionnaire on their blog so that you know what kind of stuff they like. As the name suggests, you keep a secret who you are until the end of the gift period – about 3 months normally. While you do this for your pal, someone else does the same for you 🙂 It is very exciting, and if you get someone good like I have done, they get it spot on each time, and it is fab! I hope my pal likes the stuff I got her 🙂 Anyway, you should go for a cardi or something, but maybe make one in chunky yarn for your first one – you could have it done in a week that way 😀 Or you could make one of those shrugs made from a square or t-shape to build your confidence up a bit. There is also a fab way of making jumpers just from 4 squares – one for the front, one for the back and two for the sleeves, so that you don’t worry about shaping. Go for it!
Next, many thanks to the lovely Sylvie for her nice comment on my bolero. I’m still letting it rest at the mo – too many things to get done for birthday gifts etc, but saying nice things means that I’m more likely to go back to it 🙂 And I don’t mind if any of you want to say ‘Bry, you look rubbish in it’ 😉 That’s why I asked!
Anyway, I made a small purchase today. Thanks to my lovely Pal’s stitchmarkers, I’ve worked out how to make some, so I bought some findings today and some beads to make some with, and will play with them tonight. I tried knitting with wire yesterday, and failed miserably, but a friend has done so with fabbooo results, so I’m going to beg lessons from her. And persuade her to blog her results too hopefully!
I also bought a rather nice bardot style jumper today from Sainsburys for not much cash. This is good for two reasons. The first is that it is nice 🙂 The second is that I can use the raglan shaping to work out how to measure and calculate my design… Woot! Because it is a really broad neckline, I can work out how big I need it to be when I cast on for the top down raglan idea, and just increase a la OSW in order to get the shoulders and sleeves I need (theoretically!). I’m going to play with some yarn without a project first and see if it works, and then find some lovely (cheap) stuff to make the full garment – I don’t have enough stuff to do that at the mo from any of my spare bits and pieces. Yay! Exciting!