It’s probably a little too late to wish everyone a happy new year, but I will do so all the same: may it be good to you and your loved ones! Mine has started out in fine style after a delightful Christmas spent at home with family and far too much chocolate. I had some lovely presents (mainly books) but the most enjoyable has been a belated birthday present: a Bosworth mini drop-spindle with a purpleheart whorl.

It spins so well and I find I can get thread-thin yarn almost effortlessly. It came packed in pencil roving (it’s wool, though I’m not sure what kind) and I wasted no time in spinning it up and then plying it (I used the Andean plying bracelet technique) into this, a heavy laceweight:

I’ve already begun knitting it into something, and although this will undoubtedly confirm suspicions that I am a very odd person, it makes me so happy to know that I can take what is essentially fluff and turn it into a finished garment. The next step, of course, would be to buy a raw (unprocessed) fleece which I would wash and sort myself, but as I am still a baby spindler, I think I will leave off on that ’til I have more experience.

I spent the last few days of my holiday designing a new layout for the blog. I liked the previous one well enough, but I was tired of it and wanted something more muted. You can’t get much more muted than grey! I think (hope) I’ve ironed out all the niggles, but if you find any then do let me know. (I was shocked to read in my stats that most of my visitors use IE6 (IE7 or Firefox or Chrome or Opera are all so much better!) and am aware that the sidebar ne marche pas in that browser. I will try and fix it some time, but as I am pretty certain that the fault lies in the browser’s inability to render correct CSS, and not in my coding, that time may not be soon.)