We're Off!
Singalong now!!
"Oh this year we're off to Sunny Wales
Y Viva Espana!"

We'll be leaving as soon as we've packed the stuff into the car - this could take some time.....

I'll see you when we return..... be good!

Two Large, Blue Packages Arrive
Early yesterday morning the Parcel Force chappy drew up outside our house to deliver these two humungous parcels of yarn:

















Don't worry, I didn't break Stashalong! I have a virtual yarn shop on eBay and this was the delivery of yarns I needed to restock my baby yarns. NONE of this yarn is for me, I promise. I have my work cut out for me in updating all my listings today though, but by early tomorrow afternoon today they should be done.

Knitterly Stuff
I'm desperate to throw out all of my tatty fleece jumpers and cheapo knitteds that I bought and wore for work last year and the previous year, and want to knit myself some quick, easy and reasonable knitteds to go to preschool in. I daren't wear luxury yarns at work, much as I'd like to, in case they get covered in unmentionable children's stuff like...... oooh can't mention them sorry..... and paint and glue.

So I've also cast on yet another project and am knitting the ribbing of a cardigan jacket that's plain stocking stitch on the bottom half with moss stitch yoke. I'm knitting it in Sirdar Country Style DK in a lovely crushed strawberry colour called Cerise, and want to knit another in Sand.

Piccies tomorrow!

I'm glad to see that my blogging cyberknitter palsy-walsy Denver Jon of Colorado Knits fame has updated his blog and is telling us things that happen in his life that he considers to be boring and mundane, but which we consider to be a good read. And he gives me good make-up tips too *wink* Probably one of the bestest buddies I have.

Monday, Monday
Well the penicillin is indeed working and I can swallow again now without folding up in pain. I still can't blow my nose or cough without my throat hurting tho'. In fact, I feel better than I have done for weeks, so I'm wondering if this bacterial infection has been lurking round for a while, ready to jump in when my immune system was feeling a bit urgh.

So what else has been happening in the Melody household?? Erm.... not much really! We're off to North Wales on holiday on Saturday morning - I'd like to say ‘bright and early' but in reality I'll still be faffing around getting stuff into the car on Saturday morning just before we leave. Last year I was ironing all our clothes to take on holiday at 10am and I still hadn't packed.....okay, so I'm not good at packing and leaving on time *grin* but we all have our weaknesses don't we?

Glan-Y-Bala

We're off to Llanberis, the village at the bottom of Snowdon, where we've been for the last - ooh let me see - five or six years except the year that Danny was born; we'll be staying in the Coach House if you click on the link above.

It's the type of holiday that changes every time we go with the boys as they are one year older each time we go, and their interests change in what they want to do on their holiday. This year I think we'll be swimming, walking, travelling on a few steam trains, making sandcastles on the beaches and going to the cinema lots. Oh, and knitting, reading and playing with our Superhero figures. I'll leave you to figure out who'll be doing what....

My Purchases from My Day Off Stashalonging
On my day off Stashalonging I bought this beautiful shade of Patons 100% Cotton double knitting yarn from yarnsmith It's shade Azalea, and it's just the colour I wanted to knit the Ribbed Collar Jacket from the Debbie Bliss book ‘Simple Living'



As I'm going to use 4mm needles for the body of the jacket rather than 3.75mm that the pattern calls for, I decided to order myself a pair of 3.5mm Brittany Birches for the ribbing as the pattern uses 3.25mm so I've gone up a needle size throughout. Oh, and I also ordered Brittany cable needles too.....



I'm doing quite well with Stashalonging this time round and have only bought the yarn above for a specific project on my Day Off. It's probably something to do with the fact that I'm not now on the computer almost all evening knocking out college stuff and I can't wander off into websites selling yarn and feel tempted to buy :)
What a virtuous Melody! *wink*

Other News
I've not been too well of late, spending most of Friday evening, all of Saturday and Sunday morning in bed with bacterial pharyngitis. I felt so ill that I didn't even knit in bed, and I haven't eaten for three days and have been on cold water rations as it was all I could swallow. A second trip to the walk-in centre on Saturday morning and the doctor diagnosed strep throat, and gave me penicillin. Amazing stuff! My glands under my chin started to go down yesterday afternoon but it's taken until Sunday afternoon to swallow half properly. So I've just eaten two bags of Walkers Steak and Onion crisps, with fizzy water and Peach and Grape cordial.
Just what the doctor ordered.

Have I Been a Bad, Naughty Melody?
This evening I was sitting waiting to be seen at the NHS walk-in centre with an extremely sore throat and I took my knitting with me (I was thinking that I had a strep throat it was so difficult to swallow, the glands in my neck were as big as tennis balls and I had yellowy white flecks on the very back of my tongue, but that bit is really inconsequential to the story....)

Anyway, I was knitting away on Tide after having completed the armhole shaping last night and an elderly lady wandered over to me and struck up a conversation. She stroked my knitting and complimented me on it, and proceeded to ask all about the pattern, yarn, etc and I showed the pattern to her and we talked about how I was knitting it.

I had a photocopy in my knitting bag as I copy patterns so that I don’t wreck my actual copies or books, or indeed lose them. So we discussed sizes, yarns, patterns, an all things relating to knitting and she told me the reason why she was at the medical centre with her husband. The lady was not from the local area and was on a weekend away at a steam rally. We chatted about knitting for around ten minutes until my name was called.

"Do you like the pattern?" I asked the lady as I got up from my seat
"Oh yes, it’s beautiful!" she replied
"It’s yours" I said, handing over the copy to her.

She looked stunned, thanked me profusely and offered me money for the photocopying (I declined as we have a photocopier at home and it cost next to nothing to copy, and I had intended the pattern copy to be for my own use)

So was I a naughty Melody to give the lady a copy of my pattern? Or was that my good deed for the day?

Piccies of Progress
I was norty yesterday evening and stood chatting to our next door neighbour over the fence instead of taking photos of my progress on both Tide and the garter stitch baby cardigan and when I eventually came inside it was too dark to take decent piccies. So if you clicked onto my blogette and were disappointed that you didn't see piccies I'm very sorry.... I'll give myself smacked wrists *ouch! that hurt!*

Here they are:

Up to my armholes in Tide:



Garter stitch cardigan; boring but just the sleeves to do now:




I will get the baby cardi done this week.... okay, by the weekend....... but I don't think I'll be finishing Tide in time to take and wear and my holiday as a finished item unless I sit and knit and do very little else, and that ain't happenin'.
Poo.
I don't think the baby will care very much whether Aunty Melody has finished the sleeves on the cardi for his/her arrival to be honest, and the babe may well be late in arriving anywhoo. But I can finish it off in a couple of evenings, especially as I'm picking the sleeves up round the armhole depth and knitting them down to the wrist, so very little sewing up required.

Other News....
Flip flops are all the thing again this year and I don't like that thongy bit that fits between your toes... yuck... so I've been deprived of trendy footwear of late. I did buy some sparkly flip flop type sandals from Asda in a vague attempt to be trendy, and they're quite comfortable to wear in the house as opposed to wearing fluffy slippers in this heat. They have a strap across the foot rather than a toe thong though, which is more comfortable for moi.

Then yesterday I popped into the chemist in the next village to where we live and found these on sale:



I was so pleased that I bought them immediately. I had several pairs of Scholl sandals when I was a nipper, and they design hasn't changed in about thirty years *grin*. I spent all yesterday admiring my new Scholls and clumping round the house in them. (I'm a very sad person at times) In fact that's how the conversation started with our neighbour - she was in the garden watering her plants and I was walking along the path in our garden admiring my new Scholls and she called out that I looked pensive..... I didn't have the guts to admit was admiring my new sandals as I was walking along.....

It's A Dog's Life
Max the Dog has had the right idea the past few days - to lie in the shade of our garden and do nothing except potter in and out for food and water. He managed to raise his head for the photo though!



I'm not doing as much knitting as I'd planned on my days off from work; I've managed to get to the armhole shaping of the back of Tide, and the back and one front is done on the garter stitch baby cardigan, and I'm almost to the neck shaping of the second front of that. I thought I'd better get a move on with the baby cardi as my friend's due date is this Friday. Not that the baby will want a woolly pully in this heat so it's a good thing I decided to knit a size 18" chest size cardi. At least it should be cooler in October when the cardi will fit *big grin*

Piccies of knitting progress tomorrow....

Goodness only knows how I actually managed to do it - but look, the links are there to the left. If you're not there yet please don't think I've overlooked you, I tried adding four links out as a trial run and was astounded when the technical stuff actually worked!! I'll be adding more as and when I have the courage to try it out again.

The Start of the Summer Hols
Yes!! It's here! The start of the summer holidays!!
Great! I thought, I don't have to get up and go to work for seven weeks! A lie-in!
Not so.
John the Brit went out at 4am this morning to do a safety audit at a site, and as he left the house Danny the youngest woke up, ran from his bedroom and hopped into bed with a half-comatose Mummy. He spent the next three hours wriggling around and asking for breakfast. Some lie-in that turned out to be *rolls eyes*



Destashing Baby Yarns
I've decided that as my youngest son is nearly four and a half years old and due to start school in September, I really should destash some of my ‘baby' yarns. I've added two packs of Sirdar Snugly Aran yarns to eBay this evening in the vague hope that someone will offer me some hard cash for them. I started off by offering them on the Angel Yarns forum today, but no-one was tempted unfortunately, so I put them onto eBay instead as I don't have long before we're off on our hols and I don't want any outstanding auctions running for fear of being left negative feedback!





I'm feeling a bit sad that I'll never knit baby stuff for the boys again :(
Maybe I'll knit socks for the pair of them instead!




Crochet
I did try to crochet over ten years ago, in fact I went to Crochet classes at my then LYS. Sadly this yarn shop closed down as the owner retired, but it was a lovely shop just to visit. I'm sure the owner thought I was a bit bonkers though as I was on a major stash enhancement programme at the time! Ah well.... I digress......

I did try to crochet. Once. Crochet and I didn't get along all that well. Maybe because I'm left-handed, maybe because I felt awkward, maybe because of the feel of that damned METAL crochet hook in my hand........ I dunno.

Then yesterday morning as I was knitting away on Tide using my Brittany Birch straights, I realised that possibly crochet wouldn't feel so awkward if I used these babies:
Brittany crochet hooks
I may try crochet out again when I've bought myself a couple of Brittany hooks to work with. Who knows, I may get to like it this time round :)

PS - this Blogger business is all tricks isn't it? For the past 2-3 weeks I've been trying my best through trial and error to get things in the right places and suddenly I accidentally press 'compose' and voila! it all appears before my eyes exactly how I want it

Stashalong Swapsies
I received my swap package from Hectorshouse this afternoon, and I was delighted with the yarn that I'd swapped for my Wisteria Breeze DK. This is the yarn that received in return:



It's a lovely pinky terracotta colour, which I rather like at the moment, and I have ten 50g balls. That's enough to knit a short sleeved little jacket with a moss stitch yoke to wear over strappy camisole sun tops in the late Summer and Autumn months when it's still warm. Hectorshouse also very kindly and unexpectedly sent another little gift - a lovely mini make-up case by Clinique with a tube of skin care cream tucked inside. All my make-up bags are either too large or too tatty, and this is perfect for taking a lipstick, eye pencil and contact lens case out and about with me, especially on holiday. I'm not one for shopping for myself, and so these two little gifts were truly a luxury and such a generous gesture - thank you so much HH.

Debbie Bliss's Jacket with Ribbed Collar
On the Angel Yarns forum I recently mentioned that I would like to knit the Jacket with Ribbed Collar on page 9 of the Debbie Bliss book "Simple Living", and another member, Slow As a Snail, said that she had just bought the yarn to knit the exact same cardigan and suggested that we should have our very own knitalong.

I've never taken part in a knitalong before, let alone actually been party to starting one off, mainly because I haven't had enough spare knitting time to join in with one over recent years, or the pattern hasn't been one that I've particularly liked and wanted to knit. At the moment it's not a Knitalong as such, just two people knitting the same cardigan at roughly the same time, although a few other members of the AY forum have expressed an interest in joining in as well



The pattern for this cardigan is stocking stitch with ribbed sleeves and a ribbed band at the front, so it's perfect for me as although I would consider myself to be an experienced knitter, I don't particularly like fussy knits and prefer plain and simple, classic styles. And I want something that I can pick up and put down on holiday, and knit in the car when we're travelling.

Now I do already have some Patons Cotton DK in my yarn stash in a rather striking Rose colour which has long been discontinued (and I even have the correct amount of yarn which is a minor miracle!), and I could knit the cardigan in that; you can see the Cotton DK from my yarn stash in the photo along with the jacket pattern, and it's rather bright isn't it?? It reminds me of the ‘Cheeky' colour on the current shadecard....

But as today is the 15th of the month, it's my Day Off from Stashalong and I feel that I really should buy some yarn today as I won't have the chance for another thirty one days. I want to buy some Patons 100% Cotton DK to knit the cardigan in instead of the recommended DB Cotton Cashmere; I'm knitting Tide in this same cotton yarn but in the Indigo shade, and it is truly wonderful to knit with. The Brittany Birch needles and the cotton yarn are producing a marvellous even fabric that just glides off the needles. I'll have to buy another pair of 4mm Brittanies though..... *big grin* Now call me a cheapskate, but I'll only need 7 x 100g balls of the Patons Cotton, at £3.10 per ball from Yarnsmith, compared to 14 x 50g balls of DB Cotton Cashmere at £3.95 per ball..... I'll leave you to do the maths on that one.....

I don't know whether to choose one of the darker pinks or mid green from the shadecard though: Foxglove, Azalea or Orchard? I'm drawn towards Azalea, but Foxglove and Orchard both look rather tempting. I only want to buy one lot of yarn on my Day Off from Stashalong though, as this was my downfall in my last Stashalong attempt...... :)

As the time is 10.45pm, I only have just over an hour to decide on a colour and press the BUY button before the clock strikes twelve. BONG!!

The End of an Era.
It's my youngest son Danny's last ever day at preschool tomorrow morning and I'm really sad about it. He starts ‘big' school at the end of August so tomorrow is the last day he'll be coming into work with me - forever. I'll feel like I've lost part of me when he leaves and moves up into Reception class.

I was browsing through some of my ‘baby' and young boy's patterns that go up to a size 24" chest this afternoon, and the largest size will just about fit Danny at the moment. I'll have to knit him some little sweaters and vests pronto so that he can wear them at the weekeends and on school holidays; our local school has a uniform that must be worn, so he'll be wearing his little school sweatshirt from September onwards.

*sigh* It certainly is The End of an Era

Same Garment, Different Yarns
Do you ever knit a garment and then want to recreate it in many different guises in different yarns? I do.

I recently knitted myself a cropped ribby cardigan from an older Wendy aran pattern - it's the cardigan you see me wearing at the top of my blog page - and I've worn it so often over the past few weeks that I want to knit it again and again in many different yarns. It's so easy to wear, and it fits like a dream because it's ribby. I keep thinking
"Oooh! I could knit it in this! Oooh I could knit it in that!"
I've already got the yarn out of stash and stored it in the guest-room-cupboard-box to knit another version in a denim blue, cotton blend yarn.


It's Patons Holiday Aran that I bought from an eBay auction a little while ago, and it wasn't exactly expensive at £9.01 for six 100g balls. Maybe this could be a holiday project? It's very quick and very easy, as long as I don't knit the back of the cardigan in one size and the left front in another size - now that would be a silly Melody thing to do, wouldn't it??


Other News
It's my Mum's birthday today and she is 72. Happy Birthday Mum!!


The family went to visit yesterday and whilst I was there I finished sewing up the cotton blend summer cardigan that I knitted for her birthday. Mum loves short sleeved cardigans and will wear them in the cooler months too, so this will be an all round winner. She said today that the cardigan fits beautifully, and said that ‘all donations are gratefully received' when I asked her if she's like another one but in a different colour!

Please excuse the blurry, dark photos of the finished cardigan for Mum - John the Brit took photos with his phone yesterday as I'd forgotten to take the digital camera to my parents' house to take photos of the finished project. I'm quickly realising that Blogging requires some organisational skills, which I evidently don't have ;-)

Counting my Stash
I've spent a lovely hour or so this morning (whilst I was eating my breakfast toast and butter, and drinking my morning cup of tea) updating my Stash Spreadsheet to reflect what I've recently bought, sold or swapped. I have to keep my Stash on an Inventory Spreadsheet or I would lose track of everything that I had in it. I've kept a Stash Inventory on an Excel spreadsheet for around eight years because at one time my stash was enormous....... okay, it still is enormous, but it's getting a bit more under control now. I have all the yarns I want to keep and knit projects with on one sheet and all the stuff I want to get rid of on another, categorised by spinner, quality, quantity and colour. I have the cost of the yarns too, which is quite a scary number of £££s when it's all added together. I have a grand total of 529 ‘lots' of yarn for projects on my "I want to keep this yarn and knit it someday" sheet, which is rather a lot to say the least. I said in a moment of madness to John the Brit that I'd like to whittle down my existing stash so that it could all be stored in one of the drawers under the bed, two large Ikea storage tubs which are currently in the boys' playroom, and a large box in the wardrobe of the guest room (sounds posh that doesn't it??
Here is a piccie of my stash sort out in January 2006 ----



Some of these ‘lots' of yarn are one ball in some instances, a bag of yarn for multiple projects in others, or maybe a cone of 4 ply for whizzing up on the knitting machine, so it's hard to quantify exactly how many actual projects I have stored away for a rainy day. And this, dear readers, is exactly why I decided to join the Summer Stashalong until September 30th. I rather liked Cheryl's idea for a Stash Giveaway that I read about on her blog, and I have recently given a couple of large sacksful of yarn away to other people who knit for charity of some description. Around two years ago, Jon of Colorado Knits gave me a much needed kick up the proverbial bum to sell some of stash on eBay, and I've managed to swap stash for cash this way ever since.

I've recently sold some of my yarns on the Angel Yarns forum, which I mentioned in an earlier posting, and the idea was to sell some yarns and then use the money that I generated to buy a Kim Hargreaves knitting kit for myself. Although I converted enough stash into cash to be able to buy a kit, I haven't bought one as yet...... trouble is that once I start destashing, I find it difficult to spend that money again on yarns!!

My sock yarn stash hasn't ever been inventoried though - is that a word?? - I just keep it in three large boxes in the guest wardrobe and in the boys' playroom:







I just know that I have a fair old bit of sock yarn going on in those boxes.....

An edited note: I've been struggling with blogger today as it wouldn't let me add any pictures at all to this posting; but I managed to find a sneaky way of doing it and eventually beat Blogger into submission with a bit of lateral thinking *wink*

BBQ Rained Off
It was my oldest son's school social BBQ this evening, but it rained so hard this afternoon, and has done for the past few days, that the PFA, who had organised the event, cancelled it. And I can't blame them. Unfortunately for us, I had absolutely no food whatsoever to give to the family as I

a) hadn't taken any food out of the freezer, or
b) shopped for any

and then my oldest son's friend says
"Matthew says I can come round to your house tonight! Can I?"

So what do you do in situations like this? Easy. You invite your oldest son's friend to play after school as organised by aforementioned son, and invite friend's sister round to play as well as she looks sad and she wants to play with youngest son, and then take the four children mob handed to McDonald's when they get hungry. And MickeyD's have those ‘The Dog' toys as the Happy Meal giveaway toy. Resounding Result.

The News I'd Been Waiting For
arrived yesterday afternoon via text message. The message was from my assessor saying that I had passed my NVQ level 3 in Early Years Care and Education after £700 worth of course fees and two years worth of hard work. Relief is a wonderful feeling.

It's a good thing really, ‘cos I completely cleared the dining room table on Monday afternoon which has been my work station since Christmas :-) All I have to do now is collect my folders from college and that is, sadly, that; I'll certainly miss going into college every week and seeing the people on my course.

Knitterly Stuff
I suppose I'd better make a start on the little cardigan I want to knit for one of my school playground friends whose baby is due in about two and a half weeks time.
I have a little garter stitch cardigan pattern in mind that I knitted up a few months ago for a friend at playgroup, so hopefully it won't take long to knit up. I have another little present for the baby too, so if things don't go quite according to timescale, I have a contingency plan up my sleeve. I'm planning on using some cream Sirdar Baby Care DK yarn from my stash for stashbusting purposes.

Oh, and this arrived today from Get Knitted - I've had a quick look through this afternoon and I already want to knit the ribbed jacket shown in the second picture:


I've been mentally trawling through my stash to find acceptable substitutes!! I love both the colour and the style - definitely a Melody knit for the future that one.

"Tuesday's Blogging" for Want of a Better Title
I've had both boys off from school with Slapped Cheek Syndrome these past few days, so not a lot has been done in the Melody Yarns household - I've been able to attack a bit of the ironing pile this morning but it took over an hour to iron the boys' tops, and I've done loads more washing to boot :-( There's always a full basket of washing to be done, but I really don't know why or where it comes from as there are only two adults and two children living in the house.
I should add that Danny is fully recovered and Matthew over the worst part of the illness, so I should be back at work on Thursday. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes for their recovery.

Stashalong Confessions
I've been amazingly restrained on Stashalong this time - okay, so it's only four days in - but four days is four days right? I've been motivated to decrease my stash this time rather than increase it, so I've sold some more yarns to members of the Angel Yarns forum, and stuff that hasn't been sold has already gone on to an eBay auction . I have swapped some Sirdar Breeze in a lovely lilac pastel colour for some Hayfield Cotton Rich DK in a more neutral biscuity colour, so at least I have swapped my pastels that I wouldn't knit for a colour of Cotton Rich that I will knit up. I swapped with Hectorshouse - a very lovely lady! Depending on the shade of biscuit it will be either for me or Mum I guess.

Swapping yarns during Stashalong is a good idea I think - like stash enhancement but without the outlay, and you get rid of stash that you wouldn't maybe use even though it's perfectly good quality yarn. I've also managed to sell some of my excess Sirdar Town and Country sock yarn that I bought to knit socks for my Dad, so the sock yarn stash is decreasing too. Again, any that hasn't been sold through the Angel Yarns forum will have been listed on eBay by now ;-)

I had a knitting parcel delivered this morning though - my Brittany Birch straights and the ball of Ladybird Opal sock yarn that I'd been craving for weeks and weeks. I bought it on Saturday morning after all, I'll just extend my Stashalong until midday on 30th September if necessary to compensate for buying it on the first morning of the new Summer Stashalong...... *wink* My Debbie Bliss book is unfortunately out of stock at Get Knitted at the moment, but they've promised to send it along as soon as it's back in stock.




Works in Progress
I cast on the stitches for the back of ‘Tide' from the Louisa Harding Beachcomber book, but couldn't decide whether to knit the small size or the medium size; the small size was a bit too small, the medium size too large. I'd done a tension square on 4.5mm needles, but only achieved 21sts with my 100% Cotton DK and the pattern wanted 20sts per 10cm.Of course I'm not using the yarn stipulated in the pattern book - it would cost about £70 to knit a cover-up that is made from nearly 100% nylon, and I didn't want that.

Instead of using 4.5mm needles that I intended to use, I decided to use 4mm needles instead. I'm knitting the medium size as my tension will be 22sts instead of the 20sts per 10cm, so by knitting a larger size than I need with a corresponding tighter tension, the cover-up will be a better size for me when it's finished. I've also decided to knit the longer version of the cardi, but with the short sleeves. So mods all round with this project. I might need an extra ball of cotton though, so I'll ring the yarn shop today to see if they can put a ball of yarn aside for me, just in case.

Anyway, here's what I've done so far - the lacy scalloped pattern at the bottom of the cardi is really, really easy to knit and a doddle to remember:




Cheers to Denver Jon for rightly reminding me about my lovely bag kit that he bought for me last birthday; I haven't started it yet as I've kept to more simple things during my enforced rationing away from the needles, but it will be an excellent project to take to Wales with me as something that I can pick up and put down easily. I bought some bamboo bag handles from Get Knitted ages ago for this bag project, as I thought that I would prefer a bag with grab handles as opposed to a long strap, and I hunted down some lovely black silky fabric for a lining for it too, so you see I am all ready and raring to go with it, I just haven't started it as yet.

And as it's the 4th July today - a very Happy Holiday to Denver Jon and everyone on the other side of the Pond!!

Strike While the Iron's Hot
Since I've been working away furiously with college assignments, not much has been done around the Melody household with regards to housework.

I give you, the ironing pile:





I took this piccie last night as a reminder of what the ironing pile looked like before I tackled it this afternoon. Unfortunately it was too hot to iron upstairs, so I did some laundry and hung it outside to dry on the clothes line and sat in the garden knitting away on my ‘Grace' jacket. I've therefore added to the already monster pile of ironing before I've begun. It's a bit like my Stashalong efforts really LOL!! :-)

Ah yes... Stashalong. I did so darn badly with Stashalong between April 1st and June 30th that I thought I should have a go at the Summer Stashalong organised by the members of the Angel Yarns forum. In the days leading up to the start - which is today by the way - I haven't been tempted to buy anything, which for me is a minor miracle in itself. But I have been trying to find a ball of the elusive ‘Ladybird' colourway of the Opal Rainforest sock yarn collection for the past few weeks to no avail, and thought it was all sold never to be seen again.

I clicked onto the Get Knitted website this morning to buy the Debbie Bliss "Cashmerino book 2" and a pair of 5mm Brittany Birch straight needles (it's not yarn you see, so it doesn't count in Stashalong)..... and I saw this:

Opal Ladybird

if you scroll down a couple of items you'll see why I was a very unhappy Melody this morning Just my luck that I see the Ladybird colourway after the official start of Stashalong, isn't it?? There must be a conspiracy going on....