I've never knitted with a sock blank before and this year I was determined to give it a go. I wasn't sure how I would feel about knitting with kinky yarn and to be honest as soon as I started knitting with it I knew that I couldn't knit a whole shawl with it. I think it might work better for socks where you knit at a tighter tension but trying to knit a garter stitch shawl on 4mm needles left me with a very wobbly and unpleasant fabric indeed.

I knit the start of another Fuss Free Festival Shawl - maybe just a few inches and then blocked it still on the needles. I just wanted to see what a difference blocking made to the fabric. It helped but didn't entirely get rid of the wibbliness so I decided to wind the yarn into a skein and soak it to get rid of the kinks.

I was planning to take photographs of the process but in the interests of honesty and authenticity I have to report that it didn't go well. There may have been a cat intervention at a crucial point. Winding yarn with such kinky energy into a skein takes some concentration and effort and things ended in a heck of a tangle.

There was swearing involved and let's just say that you wouldn't have wanted to see pictures of the ensuing chaos. But with a bit of patience I got the yarn soaked, dried and then to beat the tangles I handwound it into a ball.

Now that the faffing is done I can relax and enjoy the knitting. The gradual shift in grey tones is very pleasing but part of my just wants to knit faster to get to the colours!