Knitty knitty bang bang

I have received a new batch of wool from a shop on e-bay. I have six balls of eyelash wool, three white, three red, and six balls of feather wool (really nice and soft), three in blue, three in pink/purple. I'm quite excited about knitting them into scarves or something. I've had a quick go with the pink this morning before work. It's quite hard to work. It recommends 5mm needles (UK size 6), but I tried 5.5mm (UK size 5) and think I may want to use even chunkier needles.

I didn't mention my new collection of knitting needles. I had bought myself a pair of 4.5mm (UK 7) and 6.5mm (UK 3) needles when I fist began so that I could knit my scarf and bag (I used the 6.5mm in both cases). However, in making a tension square (*) for my next project, I discovered that the needles, wool, and my personal tension required adjusting. The easier of these is the needles. This means that I needed a wider range of needles. L's mum kindly gave me some needles which she had duplicates of, and L's grandma also gave me some needles of which she had no further need. Then we went on a trawl around the charity shops in High Wickham and Princes Risborough. I managed to get almost all of the sizes available! The only downside is that I only have a UK size gauge, so I have to work out what size they are in mm if they don't have it marked. I even seem to have gotten some needles which are in American sizes! They are shiny pink though.

So, between my various balls of yarn (I'm not supposed to call it wool unless it came from a sheep.) and my vast array of knitting needles, I should be able to knit lots of exciting things.

I think I am most excited about the scarves that I will be knitting with my new wool. I'm also looking forward to completing the makeup purse I have been working on. I've made the base and the ends so far.

Also, L has found me a pattern for making "monkey" from the ITV digital / PG Tips adverts. I have bought some of the PG Tips which come with the free Munkeh so that I can compare it for colours. He's greener than he looks! That will be quite a challenge to knit. Also, he will have to be stuffed, so I will have to find somewhere that sells toy stuffing.

Another thing I hope to do is to make a needle roll. This will not be knitted. Basically, a needle roll is a good way of storing knitting needles (the straight ones, at least) and some of the bits that go with them. It’s a bit like a painter's brush roll, or some posh make-up brushes come in velvet brush rolls. I'll put pics and a pattern on here when I'm done. (which reminds me, I need a scanner.)

So anyway, lots of craft based aims for me, so many in fact that I have another list of things I want to do. Since this one overlaps with the "make one garment each month" goal, I'll not add it officially to the side bar, but here are the things I want to make over the next few weeks/months:

• Knit pink scarf
• Knit blue scarf
• Knit white scarf
• Knit red scarf
• Make needle roll
• Make knitting bag
• Knit makeup purse
• Knit monkey
• Knit ape rucksack

* A tension square is when you knit a specific number of stitches and rows and measure the size. The aim is to get to the same size as the pattern specifies.