The hunt for needles

I recently bought some chunky merino wool to make the "Lucy" bag from Blackberry Ridge (http://www.blackberry-ridge.com/) but I didn't check the needle size as I have a set of Denise interchangeable needles. When the pattern arrived I realised I would need some 6.5mm double pointed needles as well as a circular of the same size. This part of Sussex is not well stocked with knitting shops and I have found it very difficult to get hold of these needles. I eventually managed to get some today from a place about 20 miles away but I'm not sure I can bring myself to use them - they are a revolting shade of green (my least favourite colour) and have obviously been hanging around in the shop for a few hundred years. Anyway, they will do the job, and on the up side, I also bought some yarn for my 12-year-old stepdaughter who wants to make a monkey and a cone of "unspecified" yarn which looks rather interesting. It's a kind of pale bluey-green and is uneven in texture but I've no idea what it's made of. It feels quite soft and silky and breaks quite easily so I don't think it's man-made. A lacy scarf or shawl seems appropriate, but I'll probably change my mind about six times before actually knitting with it.
I also got some scraps of synthetic fabric which we will use at evening class tomorrow. Lucy and I are doing a course in "Experimental Textiles", taught by the magnificent Kim Thittichai (http://www.kimthittichai.com) and tomorrow night's session is bead-making using synthetic fabrics and a heat gun (note to self: remember fire blanket and bucket of sand!).

The belt/tie for Lucy's cardi is progressing quite slowly as I haven't done any today - I got rather disillusioned with this project when I discovered that one sleeve was almost three inches shorter than the other. I just couldn't figure out what had gone wrong until I counted the number of cast-on stitches at the cuff - one sleeve had 48 sts (the right amount) and the other had 54. Unfortunately, Lucy's arms are the same length and the same circumference so I had to rip out one whole sleeve and start all over again. I'm not a perfectionist by any means but I just couldn't bodge it enough to look reasonable.

On an entirely different note, is it just me, or is anyone else aggrieved that Edith won Comic Relief Does Fame Academy? I did think Edith made a lot of progress but Kim definitely had the best voice. I also thought Adrian Edmondson was brilliant - rubbish singer but soooo funny.