Monday, February 19, 2007

It's been a while

I've been fairly busy, but mostly very tired from fighting of a cold. Still not getting rid of that one. it's getting very annoying. If it's not any better by Thursday I'm off to the doctor. Some colleagues just told me they used to battle colds all Winter long and never went to the doctor as they would just get some medicine and all. Honestly, I'm very tired of this whole cold thing and I don't care, I'm not going to keep this going till the end of the Winter. With the Belgian weather you can never really be sure when it's all going to end. Plus I want more energy again.

Schools are out this week but I am working. I don't have enough holidays to take every schoolbreak off, so I had to work. I'm not working for that long since being ill, so it's not that bad. But still, I'm ready for another break. I'm dealing with confusing feelings about my job right now, but I'll talk about that later.

It's a knitting blog, right? :D Well, I do have a little knitting to report about. First of all there are the socks I finished this month.

First there's the tiny baby socks I knitted for the piano-teacher of my sister :

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They are knitted in Regia 4ply (the dark blue) and Pinguin sock yarn (light blue), they have a short heel and round toes. The thickness of the yarns is slichtly different which I found out when I switched the colours for the second sock. But they are cute and nobody will notice!

I'm happy I managed to finish up another pair of socks I started these ages ago!

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They were originally for my Sockapalooza pal (in the last exchange) but I changed my mind and knitted another pair for my pal. I finished one sock of these and the ribbing of the second one, and that was it. They were in my knitting basket for ages! I decided to gift them to a friend and I wanted them ready by last Sunday (well, yesterday actually). Putting myself to it I finished the second sock in hardly 3 days, mostly train knitting! I still don't get why it took me so long. Anyway, they were finished on Friday, blocked on Saturday and gifted to a very happy recipient on Sunday!

The dark blue is Regia 4ply (same as the baby socks), the puple is a variegated yarn I died myself ages ago (even way before the socks were started!). I figured out the slip stitch pattern after seeing a picture of a vintage magazine (from Beehive). the sock was knitted on 2.5mm addi turbo needles over 64 stitches, short row heels, round (dutch) toes.



Another pair of socks went to the frogging pond :


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This picture was taking just after starting the sock over, just before ripping it! This was the lacy knee sock I was designing but I wasn't happy with the design, so I ripped. I am in love with the yarn though (sock yarn by Hello Yarn) so I will use it again soon!


I also started my socks for project spectrum this month. As you might remember I was going to knit something fairisle (mostly socks) for every 2 months of Project Spectrum. It took me ages to work out this design and I already had to rip back some, but these are going to be knee socks :



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I'll show another picture in a week or so when I have more, 'cause this was just after the ripping (I ripped about 8cm or so!). I'll tell you more about it then. It's totally my own design and I'm so happy about the way it's working out! I'm using white as the "second" colour, the main (background) colour is actually 3 shades of blue and one gray in a 3-3-3-1-3-3 repeat (does that make sence?). All the yarn is pure wool from a cone, handdyed. The darkest blue was bleeding on the white though so I cut the thread, skeined it and cooked it ones more with some vinigar. Hope it won't bleed, 'cause some of the white is now light blue (I'm wondering if it'll just wash out if I don't use hot water).

I'm really enjoying knitting this! I'm also working on my second Anemoi Mitt in Yorkshire Tweed 4ply (rowan) which is almost done. Then I want to start the Rowan Fair Isle sweater again (this one) and I want to start Eunny's Venezia Pullover! But I first need to finish the other stuff. I'm in the ban of fairisle though! We'll see how long it lasts.

There is so much out there I would like to knit! I have the new Rowan magazine and there are quite a few nice summer knits in there. Most are with cotton though which isn't my favourite to knit with, but I can use sweaters all year round. I'm always cold and the Belgian weather isn't to be relied on. I mean, 2006 was hot, but only July was, August was one poor month. So either I replace the cotton with wool or a wool/cotton blend, or one of those new bamboo/seaweed yarns. I don't know yet. I hear a lot of positive of some of the cottons of Rowan.

I am very proud of myself so far for not buying yarn and finishing old projects!! Well, I have this bollero from Vintage Knits that is almost finished, but I needed to knit a long 7 stitch ribbon (of about 2m), K1P1, and I got so bored I stopped knitting it. I think I have about 1/4 left of that to knit, sew in the sleeves and sew on the band, and it's finished. But I am not getting it done! Stupid.

Oh, and I did start another project. I got some Rowan Cork in black on sale, 3 balls to be exact, and I want to knit a scarf out of it. I miss having a black scarf in my "collection" to wear daily. It's often something that goes nicely with my clothes. I am using this free pattern from Hello Yarn, but I'm not sure about it. I wanted to rip the whole thing but I'm going to keep knitting for a while and see where I get. The yarn is really nice but it bleeds a lot! My hands are always black from knitting with it!

I'll leave it for now, but I have more to write about! :D

1 Comments:

Blogger Opal said...

I love the way your fair isle sock is turning out and the Irish Hiking Scarf is always a sure winner!

10:00 AM  

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