A Holiday

Today it is Mid Autumn Festival despite the fact that it's 29 degrees outside. Due to the holiday I have a day off of school! Hooray! 

It's come at a wonderful time as I have been anxiously awaiting two rather fabulous parcels. They took 3 weeks to get from the USA to me so by this point I was getting a little impatient. They arrived yesterday which was a great relief as I think if they'd arrived today and I hadn't been able to get them it would have tipped me over the edge and I'd have turned into a raving lunatic! 

Before I tell you about the packages though I have a confession to make. I'm a virgin. Yes, that is what I said. A self striping sock yarn virgin! The horror! I felt the urge to remedy this situation a few weeks ago though and then yesterday I received a lovely skein of self striping sock yarn, from a new to me indie dyer - FishKnits. The colour way is Spilled Milk number 6, Fat Tuesday, as the striping pattern was a (brilliant, I'm sure) mistake. The yarn has teal blue, deep purple, deep turquoise and true red. It will stripe but not as originally intended. I cannot wait to cast on and see how it knits up!  

Also in the post I received two new Cherry wood spindles. One is a beautiful glindle from Bristlecone and the other is a phang made by his wife. Both are stunning and have gorgeous pyrography on them.

The glindle has 5 bats in flight which symbolise the 5 virtues of  longevity, wealth, health, love of virtue and a peaceful death. The focal is a Chinese lantern and is a beautiful creamy lemon yellow with 'ghostish whisps'. The true beauty of the focal is so difficult to capture.

The phang has fabulous tiger stripes and a tiger tail along with the Chinese character for Tiger on the front. It's beautifully shaped and spins very well. Alongside these two spindles I received a scoop made from Avocado wood. I adore it's rustic exterior against the smooth centre dip. It will definitely be my go to spinning bowl. 

As for projects I am still knitting the shawl but have now cast on my new socks. I won't show them to you today as I haven't even finished the toes yet! I'm off to do that now so have a great day!