If you've been on Facebook or Instagram lately, you may have noticed that the very lovely Karen, our friend at Woolgathering Australia has been very busy organising lately.

In the fullest spirit of celebrating the local yarny community, she has organised two lovely events for us to share & participate in.

The first - the KANGAKIWI KAL runs for all of this February.  You can read more about it in her Ravelry page here, but essentially, its a KAL where you knit a pattern from one of the many clever & talented Australian or New Zealander designers & using a yarn that is also made either or hand-dyed in one of our countries as well.

I have found lately that quite a lot of patterns from local designers  - Whisky Bay Woollens, Truly Myrtle & The LaceEater to name a few, have been appearing in my favourites, in my Rav library, or on my needles.  And if I was a more generous knitter (& let's face it, I'm quite selfish with my knits), I'd been knitting up a whole host of gorgeous & fun patterns from tikkiknits or PekaPekaDesigns for the small folk in my extended family.  Seriously, this is just a tiny portion of the incredible designers publishing in our corner of the globe.

So what better way to celebrate such design cleverness than with a KAL!  And as our Oyster Yarns is locally dyed (very locally, about a metre away from where I'm typing, he he), it's a perfect choice for yarn.

I've been contemplating projects ever since this KAL was announced & I've finally settled on 2 options, both have been sitting in my Must Knit Now mental queue for a while now - Low Tide Socks by Whisky Bay Woollens, & Stardust by Libby Johnson (Truly Myrtle), so the KAL is a great opportunity to tick one off my list.

The yarn I've chosen for the socks is Highly Strung in Rosetta as whenever I think of this cute little lace pattern I think how awesome it will be in pink.  And for the shawl, I'll use Eden's Blend in Semple - as a near black modern lace shawl will become an obvious go-to wardrobe staple for a girl with a lot of bright tops in her cupboard.

Here's a looky at the yarns I've chosen.

Now I just have to decide which pattern.

If you're thinking of joining in the fun, you may like to know I've added a wee Oyster Yarns update to the shop.

Here's a look at a few of the new yarns now in stock:

The other event that Woolgathering will be bringing us this year is WoolGathering 2017 - an awesome sounding Craft Retreat celebrating all things Wool.  It's to be held in May, at the very gorgeous Tarndie homestead & there'll be a rather comprehensive list of fabulous wool based classes to chose from.  I'll be going along & I can't wait.  Do check it out - the website here, or on FB here.  There'll be some seriously good food involved, great company & I'm sure, some fun times to share.  

I'm looking forwards to showing off my new knit socks when I get there.  Or new shawl.....  Or a .....

What will you knit for the KAL?

Kylie