Much website coding has been going on at chez knittingand when I suddenly realised that I had forgotten to blog a little project that I made the other day!

I made this little owl from leftover handspun yarn, following the pattern from "Have You Any Wool?" by Jan Messent. He's 9cm or 3.5 inches tall and those little flower buttons I used for the eyes make me really happy :)

I love Jan Messent's books. They're totally the kind of knitting books I wish I had as a kid, with all the wild ideas for knitting sheep and people, covering boxes, making pictures. All that creative discovery that wasn't present in patterns for knitting jumpers back then. Of course, we now have Horst Schulz, Debbie New and Australia has finally discovered Elizabeth Zimmermann so now those types of cool creative discoveries **are** to be found in knitting patterns for jumpers.

I've also started spinning one of the the merino/silks that I blended. I'm spinning a 2 ply laceweight yarn that will be a present for a friend.

This is two out of the eight balls of fibre (about 30gm out of 120gm) and it's taking ages but silk/merino is so lovely to spin laceweight that I don't care. The yardage is probably going to be enough to knit something quite substantial because of the amount of silk that's in it too.

Now I'm off to plan some video on making hairpin lace and then if I have any time left, I'll be scanning some vintage tatting patterns!