thank you so much

Here is my prize for the pre-Christmas sock competition. I'm a bit slow in showing the pictures as I had to wait till it was collected from my son's PO box in suburb where they used to live. However, they were over that way yesterday and brought this home.

This is what came from Helen at Knitting Inspirations. There is some absolutely gorgeous yarn and accessories over there, so take a look. Link is also in this blog's sidebar.

The yarn feels wonderful and I am going to save it till I find the very pattern to do justice to it. The colours are lovely as well, and can you see how the accessories all are colour coordinated with the yarn. It was difficult to get the colours right in the photo, so this is an approximation. The second picture is more accurate in colour. The top one is too mauve. These are soft, dusky pinks. My first thought was the pink of the Major Mitchell cockatoos which I have always loved. Then last night we had a superb sunset. There were quite a few clouds and they were all in these colours with a tinge of gold on the edges. So Australian and just beautiful.

There is a packet with some needle holders, a sweet little Lantern Moon keyring in similar colours to the yarn, little markers, also in pinks with tiny flowers and some 2.5 mm dpns in bamboo, again a favourite. I used to use longer dpns but since I started to use this length about a year ago, the longer ones feel like crowbars.

I'm thrilled with everything and Helen has printed off a copy of the group's logo to make a notelet.

Why so many socks? As many of us have said, knitting releases stress and tension and is meditative. The last few months of last year were particularly icky and unpleasant. So I knitted. Since moving here, knitting has slowed down. The whole atmosphere here is lovely and I feel the stress going slowly. Of course there have been some unpleasant bits, but generally it is a place for healing. Since Christmas, this has been reflected in my knitting. Two separate socks have been done and I'm part way through the second sock of one of those pairs. Quite a difference.

So thank you once again.