A New Month

I've always enjoyed bloggers' advent calendars, and felt that this year I should do one too. My aim is to keep it up, and post a little something every day through until Christmas. I'm finding that the more I blog, the more I want to blog, so I'm hoping that this will give me the little boost I think this blog needs. It might also give me the opportunity to catch up with the crafting I've been doing! I know I've missed out on Wovember, but thought this picture captured much of my connection with wool - in its natural state, I've been surrounded by it all my life, and only relatively recently have I developed that connection further. I'm currently looking into local sheepbreeds to me (in Worcestershire), and wondering which of the British Wools I've seen are actually spun here. I know that Laxton's Mill in Guiseley (about 20 miles from where this sheep portrait was taken) are spinning yarns (inc. wools) for a number of companies, but I've yet to find out exactly which ones. I'd love to see really clear labelling from yarn companies, saying not only 'Made in X', but where the fibre was 'grown', and where it was processed and spun. Is it a British sheep breed, 'grown' in Britain, and processed here? Or is it British sheepswool, shipped across the world for processing, and sent back for sales? There are clearly wider issues regarding the ways 'Wool' is branded, and used in marketing more generally, but as a knitter, it's the provenance of my wool (and yarn) that preoccupies me.

While we're looking back a little, here's the project from the end of last month's Almanac-along (in the interests of transparency, I should mention that the grafting was done this morning):

It's the Moccasin Sock, knit on 2.5mm needles, in Regia-4ply-sock in one of the Kaffe Fassett colourways. The construction on this sock is EZ-interesting, in that you knit all the ribbing flat (the leg, and the top of the foot) first, knit the st-st toe-top, and then pick up stitches all the way around the foot to knit down (with a short-row section for heel shaping), decreasing round the toe and heel ends, and finishing the whole thing off with a good bit of grafting down the length of the sole, and seaming up the back of the leg. It looks like a very odd sock off:

but is surprisingly comfortable on.

As to the future:

That, my dear readers, is Mr P's Christmas Cobblestone. Cast on this morning, and to be knit as my 'Last Minute Hurry Up Sweater' in time for the Big Day. Another high aim... let's see how it goes :)