Spin, spin, knit, knit

Been a busy time with spinning for Tour de Fleece which is now over, since my last post I've done the following:

2 bobbins of what I think is Romney, quite strong but nice to spin.

The finished yarn, thinking this will end up as a bag; should wear well.

The Merino singles, still not fulled yet, but looking good all the same.   I think this will be a shawl

Singles and then plied Merino Superwash that I splatterdyed.  Love this, it's got enough colour to be interesting, but isn't too strong.  Would be lovely for a baby, but will probably be for me!

This was the final spin for TdF, 200g of Merino in a colourway called Pukeko.  I've spun up both bobbins, finished the second last night and will be plying it this week.  Not sure what it'll be yet; will find out once it's finished I think.
I'm thinking I might spin something from one of my raw fleeces next; maybe go for a 3-ply yarn.

I finished my socks on Friday night, really pleased with the feel of the yarn and the pattern as well, not sure how well it's going to wear; it's fluffing a lot from the first wear.  Nice and warm though!

My Twisted Bonsai socks in Aslan Trends Royal Alpaca; colour Hunter.

I also received a wee package I won from Woolly Wormhead's blog

an Entrelac book I'd thought about getting, but hadn't yet.  Some wonderful accessories for knitting and some yarn that I'm not sure what I'll do with yet, I think it'll join the stash for a bit until it decides what it wants to be.

I'm temporarily down to 3 projects on the needles now; my Central Park Hoodie, my Merino/Silk handspun socks and my second mitten (for the pattern I'm designing).   I've decided I need to switch the CPH onto a circular needle as I'm finding the wood needles a bit sticky for the cables and things are moving too slowly.   The socks are my go-to pattern if I'm out.   Really should cast on the second mitten though as I know it won't take long once I'm started.   However in about 15 days it'll be time for the next Camp Loopy project (assuming the yarn is here) so I'm putting it off.

Sewing hasn't been happening, but will have to.  I need a skirt and said skirt is cut out with the embellishment pinned on.  The boys need new school trousers and as I already have the fabric and don't want to pay $30 each for the bought ones I have to get them made too.  School's back tomorrow though so I should have a little more time.

Been a good holidays for the boys; they did spend a bit more time than planned on electronic entertainment, but they also got to do some cool stuff with the Autism Society (swimming, mini-golf and 10-pin bowling).  They got snow days

Ray cat loved the snow.  Ian did too, you can see a typical Ian snowball there.    A snowman was built, I have a photo, but haven't uploaded it yet.   It was the coldest day in almost 100 years in Christchurch and in places the snow was up to 30cm deep (about a foot).
And yesterday we went to the Botanic Gardens to do the gnome hunt.  Despite it being really cold we all had a great time and found all the gnome clues which led to the Gnome Grotto.  I counted 85 gnomes in there; Thomas found 72 and George 64.  Ian didn't count them at all, but he still enjoyed himself.  We rounded it off with a KFC lunch to warm ourselves up.