FO Friday - Spring Shawl

It's Friday, the sun is shining (well it might do later, if it feels like it) and I have a new FO:

My new Hitchhiker shawl in some fabulous yarn from The Love of Yarn. I got my sticky little paws on this yarn courtesy of the Trial Club for The Golden Skein and have been wondering how best to use it in a project.

The colours are a vibrant mixture of yellows, golds, greens, blues and greys. Now yellow isn't really my thing and I can count on one hand the number of projects I have made which contain yellow - a check of my 280-odd Ravelry projects confirms this anti-yellow bias - but I Love, Love, Love this shawl.

The colours work really well together and although I did get some pooling (although the changing stitch count helped to minimise it) I think it looks fabulous in the finished item and is really very wearable. It isn't quite as long as my other Hitchhiker (I think I got 34 'teeth') but the ends are long enough to wrap comfortably and I'm very happy with it.

Note to self: next time put makeup on before taking FO photo.

The Spring KAL is continuing over on the group , with some fabulous finished items on show. Do pop over and check out what others are doing and feel the Sping Love.

A sewn FO

Not a knitted FO this week but a sewn one.

Trust me, those aren't words that I thought I would be typing anytime soon. I am a huge fan of the Great British Sewing Bee but I have always regarding sewing as very much a spectator sport. Memories of enforced sewing lessons at school, having to french seam a blouse and pressing pleats was enough to give me the shivers.

But a chance encounter on Twitter from Jacqui Harding aka Curvyjax pointed the way to this: a tutorial for sewing a skirt in 30 minutes.

I had to admit that I was intruiged and couldn't help popping in to my local yarn and haberdashery shop to browse fabric.

Of course, predictably I couldn't resist this cute mushroom print cotton fabric.

So I came home, dusted off the sewing machine and made a skirt.

It is far from perfect and the waistband goes a little 'off-piste' shall we say. But it's fun and I'm wearing it today and feeling fab.

Now that I have dug the ironing board out of the pantry I may even indulge in some more sewing - who knows?

FO Friday - new socks

Apart from new shoes, is there anything that makes you happier on a lovely spring day than new socks.

Fabulous colours, simple vanilla socks with a Fish Lips Kiss Heel and wonderful Knitting Goddess club yarn - happy day