Check out my balls!

When I first started learning to spin, I kept all my 'left over' singles to practice my Navajo plying.  I'd just add whatever I was currently spinning to an ever growing bobbin of left over singles and then when the bobbin was full I'd go on an N-plying jaunt.  I ended up with skein of yarn that was, well, unattractive to say the least.  But it WAS good practice for my N-plying, which I'm now not too crap at. I took all these skeins of leftovers plus some other leftover yarn bits and wound them all into magic yarn balls.

A magic yarn ball, as many will already know, is a ball of yarn made up of scraps and left overs all joined together.  I use the 'Russian join' technique so that I wont have to sew any ends in when I'm knitting.  Yes.  I'm lazy. ;o)

So now I have a little collection of magic balls and a number of smallish leftover balls of hand-spun from various projects.  All of this yarn is pretty equal to a commercial 4ply, which as we all know, is perfect for socks.  But I'm not overly keen on hand knitted socks.  Sure, I've made them  (just to see if I could) but they're just not really my thing. 

So I've been sitting on these balls for a while thinking about what I should do with them.  Today I decided that they're going to become a blanket made up of mitred squares.  It should be big.  I should be very colourful.  And it should be massively ugly. I cant wait. :oD I'm starting it as soon as I finish this post, but in the mean time...here's some pics of my balls. :oP

Anyhoo...onto other things.  I recently finished making an Irish crochet bag that I mentioned in a previous post.  It was for a lady in Tasmania.  It took me three months to get it done and I was waiting to finish it so I could start a lace shrug for another lady in Victoria.  But more about that later.  Here's a pic of the finished bag.

I made it as part of a swap.  The lady I've made it for is sending me a bag also but she is not quite finished making it yet so I'm holding this (at her request) till she is done.