Ok - I spent a good amount of time at my knitting group last night, carefully scaling up my gauge, working out increases and decreases, and have now cast on this in this yarn:

Its the green and yellow silk I dyed at my class, and the pattern should get a pretty big amount of it used. It's a really simple looking pattern for a racer back vest I found on ravelry, from the knitty.com website. So its a free pattern, using yarn I already own. Nothing had to be purchased, not even a button.

So it sort of makes up for my late night buying of this wonderful, apparently invaluable book. It was so much cheaper than the copy in Waterstones, which almost snuck itself into my bag (I would have paid first - I'm not a shoplifter, nor do I condone it!) Sometimes it's difficult that my knitting group meets in the cafe of a bookshop.

So it all sort of balances, the good of using stuff I own to knit with, with the bad of a new book, no matter how useful and vital it is to pretty much every kitchen in Italy (according to the blurb on the website) And I am pretty confident I'll use it, not just sit and read recipes, which can be addictive, and is altogether less fattening.

Im off to the V and A tomorrow, for the preview of Baroque!! Taking my mum, and then trying to lure her away from buying more tops in Zara. It may be tricky...