A Clean(er) Slate

I just went through that last entry from yesterday and deleted some crap. This blog is not about my personal life, it's about knitting and spinning!
Just bought some fine undyed 1 ply silk and some purple 2 ply silk from eBay.

The undyed stuff is apparently about 3000m long! That's 3 km! I'm planning to divide it into separate skeins and dye them different colours. Never dyed silk before, or used synthetic dyes (other than Kool-Aid!). Have to try not to screw it up. I want to use it to do more plying with dyed handspun wool. It's just so fun and looks beautiful.
For the purple 2 ply I'm thinking of something really luxurious, like a fine lace shawl. I'm getting into Branching Out, I'm not getting lost anymore, and I don't have to concentrate so hard. I am starting to get a wee bit bored, because there's no variation. At least each repeat is 10 rows. I think I've finished 11 or 12 repeats, and I'm nowhere near even halfway through the bamboo yarn. It's so lovely and silky. I found some for sale on eBay for far more than I'm willing to pay. Anyway, I think I could enjoy a larger lace project, and I think a lovely dark purple shawl would be just the thing.
Had a look at Knitty today, and there's a new issue out with some beautiful socks and glove-type things. I am so grateful that there are some beautiful and funky patterns out there for free. There's just no chance at all of finding any good patterns in the shops around here.
I need to bite the bullet and knit up this beautiful green handspun which my grandmother gave me. I want to make something beautiful and worthy of the wool. There's this New Zealand company called Possumdown who make absolutely beautiful knitwear. There was a particular cardie kind of thing with a zipper which I was thinking of trying to copy. I went to find a picture of it on their web page and I found this instead:


Okay, so it's a bad picture, but you get the gist. I've never really been one for asymmetrical collars, but this thing really works. It's a pity it costs NZ$330. Possumdown has this amazing look. I can't begin to describe it. So I thought I might try something like this. I'll probably change my mind soon enough.
That's it for today I reckon.