Finished

The little sparkly bolero thingy that I was knitting for my friend's daughter is finished.

(excuse the dustbin, it was the only thing I could find to raise Dolly Dummy up to the required height!) The bolero thingy is going to be worn over a scarlet strapless dress and has matching beaded bag and shoes so I think she'll look fabulous - hopefully I'll get photos of the whole outfit on the big night.

In other news, I went to a Cake & Knit event at my LYS today. What can I say, my two favourite activities in the same place at the same time. Bliss.
I was quite restrained - some Twilleys "Freedom" wool (to make a bag from this new book which I acquired on Friday) and some Celestial Merino in Seashell colourway (scroll down a bit).
The main problem with where I work is that it is very close to a large branch of Waterstone's and a branch of Borders so it is very difficult to resist the temptation to go in and browse the Knitting & Crochet section on a regular basis. It's a good job I'm not in the office all day every day otherwise my stash of books would be as big as the yarn stash - who am I kidding, I've got enough books to start my own shop already!

Today was Father's Day in the UK; my dad doesn't really go in for "all that commercialism" but I wanted to mark the occasion without going over the top about it. After much pondering I had an idea for the perfect present - useful, a little quirky and handmade by his favourite only daughter. Dad has recently and reluctantly started to use a walking stick owing to an arthritic knee which sometimes gives way without warning, but although the stick is very useful it also gets in the way when he has to do other things like paying for goods or showing his bus pass. The solution to this problem was simple - I crocheted a loop from household string which Dad can attach to the stick and loop over his wrist at the appropriate moment to stop the stick falling on the floor. He seemed quite pleased with it and I await the results of the first test-drive!

(Dad on his 80th birthday).