Knitting my way back to happy.

Jess with her wee angel Hayden

 It's amazing what having a few extra hours means.  Since the medically enforced slow down I have been more nimble to be able to cope with the curve balls my life tends to throw.  It started with the sad passing of my brother's partner, Jess, losing her beloved son Hayden.  Hayden was born with an extremely rare form of dwarfism & was only expected to survive days, maybe weeks after he was born.  However wee Hayden had other ideas and 6 and a half years later, he smiled, laughed and murmured his way to his own set of pearly wings.  My new situation meant I was able to easily get away to help support Stuart, Jess, Nina and Seth with their loss whilst helping the boys experience what it means to celebrate the passing of a life, especially of someone that they knew.

Renly goes head with Reg the ram & his harem

As well as taking the boys, I also made sure I packed Renly & some restorative knitting.  Having some time on my parents small lifestyle block meant I had time to explore adding a slouch beanie to the Ever After collection.

The world worst selfie, but I'm stoked with the slouch!

I had a few balls of the Heritage Silver Lining in Red, a yarn I am totally addicted to, so cast on just before leaving.  Having knitted a few beanies lately I felt a little more confident in the crown shaping and I think I may have cracked it.  I would like to churn out another just to make sure, but I am thrilled with the prototype and have already worn it.

Just onto the border, a very enjoyable knit

The KAN project is almost complete, the lovely Wrapped in Leaves by Alana Dakos.  Just knitting the leafy border and hope to have it complete very, very soon.  It's such a simple, yet effective pattern, my favorite kind, which is looking very Autumnal in the warm Pumpkin Alpaca that was liberated from the depths of my stash.

The four Art Deco inspired Vintage Random Prints

Confession time.  I did sneak a peak at my Skeinz email.  This revealed that the Vintage Deco inspired random prints I have been waiting for have finally hit the shop.  I just couldn't help myself, I had to pop into work to have a look and also got to squish the two new Heritage Alpaca colours.  It seems so unfair not to be able to share these yarns with everyone on skeinz.com, so I did take the 6 balls home to photograph & upload yesterday.

Its hard looking at these and not casting on.  So I did just that, keeping in the leaf theme and using the Heritage Alpaca in Porcelain with the Vintage Clarice Cliff for the leaves, I cast on an up sized Leftie from Martina Behm.  The colours of the Clarice Cliff have left the leaves looking more like Iris flowers, an effect I am really enjoying.  This will be the perfect project for me to take away on Rainbow R&R in a couple of days.