I've been AWOL, I know. Sorry, but I had excuses, really I did! :)
Emily has been at a dance comp for the past two days, and apart from the fact that they take up hours and hours of time, they also tend to suck the life out of you, so that by the time you get home, you just want to sleep.
Tuesday morning we headed out, the comp was around 45 minutes drive from home. This is the fog we were driving through at 8.30am.

Like pea soup. And it was freezing out. Well, freezing by Sydney standards, anyway. Tuesday we were there from 8.30am until 4pm. Wednesday we were there from 2pm until around 8.30pm. Those plastic school chairs are not comfortable when you're in them for hours! However, I got plenty of knitting done!

I started the sleeves, because you sometimes just need something small, because we're up and down a lot, changing costumes and such. But I finished those, and got the cardi body up to the armholes.
And Emily did amazingly well.

She competed in 12 sections, and received 4 first places, 4 second places, 2 thirds, one Highly Commended and one merit. The adjudicator wrote many nice things on her reports, including "You are an extraordinary performer with great potential", "You have great showmanship", "You provided the audience with an entertaining piece" and with one dance, she won by 3.5 clear points and he said "Breathtaking".
pretty good huh? I'm glad all that time and money hasn't gone down the drain. ;)
In addition, the eisteddfod has a scholarship section on the final day, which can only be entered by selection by an adjudicator. There were two adjudicators, at different tmes, and both selected her to enter the scholarship. Way to go, Em!!

Yesterday we went to The Wool Inn at Penrith (Hi Anita!), where I got the Cleckheaton book I was after. Oh, and a few stray balls of yarn jumped in the bag, too ;)

Sorry for the crappy picture. Theres 2 extra balls of Jo Sharp DK tweed for the bolero (just in case), and a ball of Zara for a hat for Em, and a ball of Zarina, to play with.
And guess what else was there?

This is the first time I've seen it in person. I've seen it on blogs, and on Amazon and the like, and I wanted it, but I also wanted to see it. I loved it. I bought it. Now I'm having issues. i was going to do the bolero next, but now I'm torn. I want to knit the gloves in this book. Em wants me to knit her a tam. I haven't cast on any socks for a while. Aaargh! Decisions, decisions. What a life ;)