Em's Knitty Corner

Snowy update!

2010-12-03T12:49:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I had unexpectedly some more free time. Due to the snow most of my plans (including a trip to my FYS) were cancelled so I spent most of the afternoon at home. It also meant I had some time to take some more pictures of my knitting and to upload the pictures I had already taken. So I can finally update here!

This is the landscape I could enjoy yesterday! It's been icy cold most of the week, and Wednesday night it started snowing. It kept snowing all through the night and we got this as a morning sight! It's still way below freezing so I hope it'll stay for a while! I know people don't like me for saying this, but it can stay like this all Winter! :D We have taken all needed measures for our car so we can safely drive it (well, what's safely, right?). I went to buy a pair of true Ugg-boots to keep my feet warm. I'm all set! :D

I also used some time yesterday to get some Christmas decorations up (sorry for the bad pictures but at this side of my house there is never enough light to take a picture without my flash) :

Of course there's still a lot of decoration to put up, might share more pictures later!

As for the knitting, there has been some finishing going on in the past weeks. First there's the 6th (and last) sweater of 2010 :

Pattern : Abalone by Beata Jezek
Yarn : Hedgehog fibres Silk/Merino singles
Needles : 4,5mm

Unfortunately and to my great dissapointment this sweater is to small, and the bottom doesn't look good at all. As I love the yarn I might rip the sweater and reknit it, but I won't be able to do this before the new year. I think my gauge might have been off as well. We'll see.

Pattern : Peaks Island Hood by Ysolda Teague
Yarn : Textiles the la Marque Aspen (Wool/Mohair blend)
Needles: 5,5mm

This one turned out lovely, but my boyfriend decided it made me look like an old lady. So I decided to gift it to my FYS-lady. She had asked me to knit her one (but in black as she ran out of the blue yarn), but I don't have much time for that anyway. Sad parting it'll be ...

Pattern : My own really
Yarn : Textiles de la Marque Louisa 4
Needles : 2,5mm

I am totally in love with these! They turned out almost perfect, only the top at the fingers is a bit loose (would use smaller needles for the ribbing next time). They are nice and warm as the yarn has some angora in it! Can't wait to knit more of these in all different colours. And then I need a basic pair of (black) gloves to wear underneath! These are perfect to pull over a tin shirt when wearing something sleeveless. But they are also nice and comfy under my jacket as the bulk around the wrists giving extra warmth! I might even try to spin myself some yarn for a pair!

Pattern : Calorimetry by Kathryn Schoendorf

As you can see I used various yarns and needle sizes for these (visit my Ravelry page for more info). The blue one is for my sister to wear with her shawl. She wore it to work and her colleague asked one too. So did my mom, so I knitted 4 more for them to choose from. I'm sure the other 2 will get a new owner soon too.

That's it for now. I don't know yet when I'll be back. I have to concentrate on knitting Christmas socks now. It's not easy though as I'm really not in the mood to knit socks. But to keep up with tradition I have to keep on going. Maybe I'll be back with some sneaky knitting soon! :D

Hope you are all enjoying Winter and knitting warm woollies!

Back with knitting soon!

2010-11-08T16:25:00.002+01:00

I am still struggling with my own mental (and physical health). I will be back here with knitting soon, and maybe some other creative stuff. I want to share, but there is so little time and energy left that I rather spend it on knitting or doing art!

Beside my own health the boyfriend has been struggling as well. At the beginning of October he suddenly could hardly breath. He had no clue what was going on, and the doctor thought it was some kind of bronchial pipe infection. The medicine he got helped for a while, but then the issues returned. After weeks of struggling the doctor finally decided to do a thorough examination of his blood. After a few days of waiting we found out the boyfriend has a serious - newly developped - allergy to house mites (sp?) and house dust. The latter is hardly to avoid as we basically live on a building site. So the next step is to find a good specialist to help us and look for a (hopefull) medical solution. In the mean time I have to clean a lot more then before.

We also had some issues with our dogs, nothing healthwise but it did involve a lot of legwork and time.

So there has been knitting, but I can't proof it right now. I'll get back soon though, with some serious knitting to show here!

A sweater and a shawl

2010-10-24T15:04:00.002+02:00

While trying to get my thoughts (and life) back on track, I've been knitting like crazy. Tons of things on the needles. A few things that are finished but aren't photographed yet (and it's raining again, so no more pictures today). But I did use the sun this morning to get pictures of 2 projects!

First of, it's my 5th sweater for the IntSweMoDo2010 challenge. As I mentionned before I will never make it to 12 before the end of the yarn (unless I can skip work till the end of the year), but I'm happy with every sweater I get done!

Pattern : Alexandra Hoodie by Romi Hill (from the Fall 2010 issue of KnitScene)

Yarn : Textiles de la Marque Soie tweedée

Needle size : 4,5mm

Started/Finished : August 13 2010 till October 14 2010

Love how this turned out, love how it looks! Hated knitting the hood, I don't think I'll ever like knitting a hood. Takes forever! I also thought I messed up the seems but turns out a good blocking took care of most issues. It's small, but I don't think I would want it any bigger. I look forward to wearing it this Winter. It's only Autumn and I have been to cold a couple of days already!

The yarn is beautifull! Oh, I forgot the changes I made to this pattern. I didn't do the seed stitch on the shoulders and I only did the brim of the hood in seed stitch. I just didn't want to much of it on the hoodie, and I like it a lot this way!

Let's hope I can show more sweaters soon!

2 years ago I knitted my sister S a scarf and according to my mom she wore the thing till it fell apart. So this year she asked for a new scarf, and according to fashion I decided to knit her a kerchief/shawl rather then a scarf. It was a gamble as I hadn't discussed this with her, but she loved it!

Pattern : Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon Osborn (pdf here)

Yarn : Textiles de la Margue Aspen (mohair/wool blend) in blue

Needles : 5mm

Started/Finished : October 14 tot October 19 2010

This was a quick and nice knit. I love this wool and am already knitting a scarf out of it for me (and I have enough for a sweater). I didn't make any changes to the pattern! Now I know I need to knit a complete one for myself! :D (Previous one I ran out of yarn quite soon, see ...)

Of course now she requested a Calorimetry to go with it. The amounts of requests for handknits has been amazing, I cannot keep up with it. And I've decided I want to knit for myself!

There is no progress on the Christmas socks for my family, not one pair has been knit and I still don't feel like knitting them. But I need to get started, only 2 months left ... .

I'm dealing with a huge headache today, and the boyfriend is out again for most of the day. I'll try some spinning, maybe some knitting.

Striped cardigan

2010-10-13T12:30:00.003+02:00

Some of you might have noticed the growing list of WIPs at the side-bar. I'm way to shattered again, starting a ton of projects at the same time and not really finishing things. That's just so me, and probably the start of Autumn ...

But I was able to move something to the FO-list, and it has buttons and all!

My striped cardigan! Based on the idea of someone else (link on the project page of the cardigan over at Ravelry) so I can't claim it as my own. I did use my own basic pattern, based on various patterns and calculations out there.

The yarn is as always from my favourite yarn store. The beige is 100% alpaca, the brown is a Cashmere blend. It turned out really nice. And I love the buttons!

They are from a stock sale, I think they are quite old. They fit perfectly! Of course a few more buttons might have avoided the pulling of the button band, but I think it's ok. I do think I'll get quite a bit of wear out of this cardigan. I actually like simple shaped stuff the best!

This is the 4th sweater for the IntSweMoDo2010 challange. I won't make it to 12, but I think I knitted more sweaters already then I did in all the years past. So every one I can still get done is one extra to keep me warm this Winter!

If I have the time tonight to sew the pieces I will have another finished cardigan to show here soon!

Patterns!

2010-10-01T10:26:00.002+02:00

Remember the 4oz Challenge on Ravelry I was talking about? I was hoping to spin, knit and write 3 patterns. My fist patterns, and also my own personal challenge for the month, writing a pattern.

The spinning and knitting went quite fast, it was easy and fun. But then the writing of the pattern. It was making me so nervous and I kept putting it off. On Wednesday night I started realizing I probably wouldn't make it. I wanted nice looking patterns that were well written, but I knew it was a huge thing to do. And I only had till September 30 to actually send in the patterns. So I was about to give up.

But last night, after a ton of setbacks, at 2am (over here it was already October, but luckily the US is so far behind and for the challenge it was still officially September!), I finished the second pattern and got them all published on Ravelry!

So here you go :

Autumn in Summer Shawl
Lace pattern in Handspun yarn. The shawl is easily adaptable to make bigger. Knit out of 100% BFL, Spunky Eclectic fiber in colourway Hidden.

Ravelry Link

Criss-Cross Around
Easy circular lacy shawl, also easily adabtable and designed so show off handspun! The lacy-ness is actually not created by the pattern (it has a simple cable), but by the big needles.

Ravelry link

As you can see both patterns are only available as PDFs through Ravelry. At the moment that is the only way I am going to offer them. If you are not on Ravelry and you do not whish to join (it's free, so just try it!) then you can always email me and I'll send you a copy. They are both free. I will of course link to them in the side-bar!

I did not finish the third pattern, which was actually the only pattern that needed a specific yarn. The 2 patterns above are flexible, which I like for patterns for handspun as it's not always easy for spinners to spin that perfect yarn they need! Well, at least not for all spinners and I don't consider myself much more then a beginner yet!

I do have a few more ideas in my head, but first it's Socktober! I'm going to use this month to get a quick start on my Christmas knitting, which won't be easy as my sock-knitting mojo is completely gone. It's not my official challenge of the month, but it will be a challenge to actually knit socks!

Lots of knitting

2010-09-21T09:29:00.003+02:00

... but nothing to show! Yeah, I have been knitting a lot, but I have nothing to proove! I have a few projects nearing completion, and I'm looking forward to new things to start, but so far I've been pretty good about not casting on anything new till some of the old stuff is finished!

Actually, I did finish my second 4oz Challenge project yesterday. It needs a good blocking so no pictures yet, maybe later this week! I do need to get started on those patterns or I won't get them written up by the end of the month!

I hope to finish my striped cardigan this week, I have only about 1/4 of the sleeve left to go and then it's only the button bands. I'm also knitting on the sleeves of my Alexandra Hoodie. that's the last of the knitting I have to do after knitting the hood. Then there'll be a sewing party needed to finish the seems.

Now I have decided I want only 2 active sweaters on the needles. The next one I'm going to cast on - after finishing the striped cardigan - will be the Still Light Tunic by Veera Välimäki. I'm totally in love with this and I have the needles and yarn ready, already swatched so it's only a matter of casting on! I'll also be casting on will be Abalone by Beata Jezek. I custom ordered the yarn for that one and promissed it wouldn't end up in my stash. I bought it a few months ago so it already has been there way to long! I am excited to get this started though as I think I'll get quite a bit of wear out of it. And I am in love with the yarn dyed by Beata (find them at Hedgehog fibres).

There is so much more I want to knit! Yesterday I did spend a whole evening to find the perfect pattern for this yarn :

It's a discontinued yarn (the firm doesn't even excist anymore). I have enough for a cardigan, so that is what I want to knit out of it. I want a simple cardigan as the yarn is already quite busy at itself. So I searched Ravelry for quite some time, and here is what I came up with :

As you can see the one on the left is from Drops, the other one is from Rowan (Rowan Magazine 40). I think they will both showcast the yarn just fine. The issue with the drops cardigan might be that the expected gauge might be a bit to tight for the yarn. We'll see. What do you all think?

I've also totally fallen in love with this cardigan (sorry, I only found a Ravelry link). But it won't combine well with the yarn I have, so I have to search another yarn for the cardigan!

Oh, and it's almost October, and I decided to participate in Socktober. I'm not big into socks, like I mentionned before, but beside the Christmas knitting I also got a request from a colleague for socks for her grandson! So this might be a good reason to knit socks!

2010-09-13T15:53:00.002+02:00

There has been a lot going on in my life, not all very good and though probably not very important it is very bad for me. It might result in a lot more knitting time in the near future. Right now it's already giving me a ton more time to knit and spin, which might be a good thing.

As I wrote before I finished the first project for the 4oz challenge. I wanted to take the pictures for the pattern on Saturday but didn't get around to it. If the weather keeps up I'll take them tomorrow and I'll write the pattern then if I can. Probably won't get it done in an evening though, but I'll get started. Here is a picture of the finished project :

It might not be original but I'm very pleased with how the whole pattern turned out!

Here is a picture of the second pattern on the needles :

I'm still completely in love with the colours of this and I hope to get it finished soon. The writing of the pattern should be easy as it's a really easy pattern. Really what I was going for, an easy and flexible pattern as it's not always easy to spin yarn to certain requirements and I wanted this to be something that even beginning spinners could knit!

I want to knit seconds of all the patterns, and maybe with commercial yarns. But I will try to write the patterns first before the end of September so they count for the challenge!

As for pattern #3, I spun the singles for the yarn, I hope I can ply it later tonight and then I can start knitting. Actually, I'm busy with some exciting projects. The fronts and back of the Alexandra Hoodie are blocking so I should be able to cast on for the hood tonight. And I noticed I only have half a sleeve and the button bands for my striped cardy left. It's actually nice to have a few cardigans so close to completion. There's a ton of things I would love to cast on. On the other hand, I should get started on my Christmas knitting 'cause I'm never going to make it. I just don't really feel like knitting socks this year, but as my family is already counting on them I'm going to try to start soon. Well, as soon as the 4oz Challenge projects are done!

Oh, and I wanted to share this with you :

This is my cat Ozzy. At the beginning of June he didn't come home. He had done that before, stay away for a few days and even once for 2 weeks, but when he hadn't come home 3 weeks later I started giving up. Of course I had completely given up by August, till I came home one evening at the end of August. It was raining like crazy and I got in after riding the horse, it was pretty late already. I heard a cat crying like crazy in the Summer Garden, but one of my other cats tends to do that every now and then. When I went into the bathroom (temporarely, it's actually the stock/laundry room where the cats also sleep) I was in total shock. Standing in front of me was Ozzy, thin and wet but totally my sweet cat. He didn't stop crying and asking for attention!

I'm still not sure if this isn't a dream, though he is there, in perfect health (the "skinny" is actually healthy weight, as he was a bit overweight before). Every night I'm scared he won't come in, so I'm always relieved when he comes wandering in in the evening. He has changed a little, only that he no longer seems to be scared of my 2 dogs. But beside that he's still the loving cat he was before. I guess every now and then a little miracle does happen!

September, back to school!

2010-09-07T09:42:00.003+02:00

September still has this very special meaning to me. I don't have kids but the work I do gets into it's steady shedule again once September is there and I like having a regular shedule. I used to love going back to school. New books, fresh paper, tons of new stuff to learn. Of course the older I got the faster I got bored with school again, but I still miss the learning of new stuff. I love information and learning new things. Some friends start new stuff in September and I've been thinking of a new thing to learn every September.

Well, this by accident comes together with the 4 Ounce Challenge put together by a few of my favourite dyers. The challenge is to design projects which use only 4oz of handspun yarn (or less). Though I've been getting double doses from most fiber clubs for a while now, I remember the dilemma of having only 4oz and not knowing what to do with the fiber. I still have to spin my first proper sock yarn, and apart from that I haven't knitted much with only 4oz of handspun.

So the challenge is really appreciated, I think many spinners with me are looking for more patterns to go with handspun. So I wanted to design a few quite flexible patterns. It's not always easy to spin the exact yarn you want (well, not for me at least) but in the end if you spun a yarn for a project you really do want to use it for the project even if you don't have the expected yardage.

The big challenge (and so my first real "new learning" for September) will be of course writing up the patterns! I am a bit scared of this as I always have high standards for myself and I want the perfect patterns even though I don't have the money to spend on expensive writing programs some use for this. Another problem will be getting some good pictures of the yarns. So all in all it's big thing for me to start with!

The first project is actually finished. I don't want to show the finished project yet, but here is the yarn I spun for it :

It's 100% BFL in the colourway Hidden, dyed by Amy of Spunky Eclectic. It's not as even as I had hoped for and less yardage, but it worked out fine with the pattern I had in mind so it's actually perfectly what I wanted!

(Hunkered, 100% SAF dyed by Adrian of Hello Yarn)

The second yarn is spun as well, and the third is started. I casted on the second project last night and I am quite excited. I hope to have some spinning time tonight (there's a soccer game on television so not much to watch for me). All this stuff needs to be done by the end of September to count for the challenge.

There's more to post, but I'll keep that for a following post. I've been neglecting the blog again, so I need to pick up!

Rainy Sunday knitting!

2010-08-15T20:17:00.003+02:00

The weather is acting more and more like Autumn here and you won't hear me complain! :D Way better knitting time and motivation to get a go at all those sweaters I really want to knit (it's still 20°C so no chance of wearing them yet ...)

As my LYS was having a limited amount of a silk/wool blend in I started another sweater :

Pattern is the Alexandra Hoodie by Romi Hill, published in Knitscene Fall 2010. I already liked the pattern when I first got the magazine but I was planning on digging the stash. This yarn of course is perfect and my LYS lady agreed with me! So I started knitting as I need to know how much yarn I need so that I can buy just what I need. My LYS has a really small amount so she want to be able to sell what I don't need to others (which I totally don't mind!). I plan on making a few modifications, like not so much seed stitch (I like the seed stitch but it eats yarn like crazy!). What you see here was done in one day, last Friday. Due to technical issues I was stuck almost an hour extra on the train to work, giving me the chance to get a ton of this done!

Of course I hadn't planned on starting this pattern now. I wanted to start the tunic/dress I mentionned last time (the Still Light Tunic by Veera Välimäki). I had chosen the yarn (100% alpaca in a purple/grey colour) and ordered the KnitPro needles (I did have the proper size in my Addi collection but the cable wasn't long enough, so I decided to order a 3mm interchangable which I didn't have in my collection). The needles arrived and the swatch was knitted :

My gauge was a tiny bitt off but as this tunic is top down in one peice I could easily modify it. It's on hold now. I plan on starting it as soon as I get the striped cardigan done. On the last sleeve of that one. We'll see how quick it all goes.

I do need to organize my knitting time as I need to finish an order for my LYS lady as well and I have very little time left. I don't like it, but I have promissed.

Today was a productive day (even with the tiny bit of sleeping I got), though not for the knitting. I started a new scarf on the loom and I finished spinning the singles for the 4 Ounce Challenge (more about that later!). Off to do some more knitting before I fall asleep!

Fresh Veggies and New Handspun!

2010-08-05T13:58:00.003+02:00

This morning, when the sun was still shining, I saw my little "garden" through my kitchen window and it looked like this :

(The stuff showing in the reflexion is garlic and some French herbs that are in my kitchen)

I only have 2 terraces and last year I started growing tomatoes on them. The boyfriend made the 2 big boxes (which carry crocusses and then tulips in Spring before I put in the tomato plants). There are 2 new boxes to the left that have nothing in them yet but will get stuff soon. Anyway, on the table is some thyme and rosemary herbs (the one in front is technically a flower plan but there are no flowers and I have the feeling the plant won't survive much longer either). At the right is a little Hot Pepper plant and on the bottom is a Paprika plant (was on the table but I put it down before we left on holidays as it's quite big and if we have a good thunderstorm it'll blow over).

Beneath the tomato plants are 4 boxes, 2 had radishes in them (all gone now, will plant some more I think), parsley and chervil. There are flower plants on there as well. The idea was to have all the flowers on the upstairs terraces and all the fruits and veggies on the downstairs, but I never managed so they are everywhere this year.

Anyway, the haul this morning :

I will of course never harvest what you get from a regular garden, but at the moment I wouldn't have the time to keep up with a regular garden anyway, so I'm pretty happy with this!

Sharing some other stuff, I got to take some more pictures (though it was already cloudy by the time I took these) :

These are the singles I spun on my spindle on holiday. The fiber it's called "The Last Unicorn" from Blaze of Glory Fiber arts, bought last year on out trip through the US. I plied it on my wheel and got about 343meters out of 2oz, which I think is great! Oh, and the fiber is Silk/Merino/Alpaca blend. I think I could call this a laceweight, right?

The next yarn I only wound off the bobbins :

It's the Myrtle fiber I spun for the TdF, actually my only totally finished project! I got a total of 460meters to little less then 8oz, so a good dk weight I think. Plenty for a nice scarf or so. It's dark BFL, a club colour for the Spunky Club.

I had planned to go to my LYS today but couldn't reach my friend (which means the store is closed I guess) so I'm at home and plan to get some fibery stuff done after I cleaned up the kitchen and get the laundry in the dryer!

Feels like Autumn!

2010-08-04T09:32:00.002+02:00

I know it's still mid-Summer and Autumn is still at least 2 months away, but once we are August I start counting down. It's rather easy if you have weather like we are having today. It's cloudy, rainy and only about 19°C. It's perfect weather to stay inside and read, knit, do art, ... . Just lounge with some good music on. But I'm at work right now. It's still silent here so I have a bit more time to relax though I have plenty of work to get done today!

I have some yarn finished, but still need to take the pictures. Yesterday there was still quite a bit of sun in the morning, but by the time I was home it was pitch black and raining outside. It'll be cloudy for 2 more days but if I do get some better light at home I'll take the pictures!

I do have 2 shawls I knitted during my trip to share. Both are actually the same pattern and I totally fell in love with it! If I find the time tomorrow or during the weekend I need to dive the stash to find yarn for at least one more of these! I'm sure I'll get a ton of wear out of them during the coming Fall (I often wear them in the evenings now) and it's a great way to show of some of those fabulous sock yarns I have in my stash!

Pattern : Azzu's shawl by Emma Fassio (Ravelry link, but the designer has the pattern on her blog too!)
Yarn : 100% silk yarn (no brand of course)
Needles : 5mm

I should have used bigger needles on this one to get more drape. But I'm quite happy with how it turned out and it will get worn during Summer! I love the colour. Might make one more of this out of darker blue, but then with bigger needles for sure!

Pattern : Azzu's shawl by Emma Fassio
Yarn : Sheepaints Fairy Feet in Hanami
Needles : 4.5mm

I actually like the yarn quite a bit! It's very drapy and has a lovely sheen to it! I used bigger needles then with my first Azzu shawl (then I used 4mm) as I hope the shawl would be slightly bigger and it is. I used almost all the yarn this time and I'm quite in love! The colours are great.

As I said I love this pattern. You can drape it as a scarf around your neck (like the one above) or over you shoulders, like the silk one. I especially love to wear it like a scarf and that's why I want to knit more of them!

One of the neatest features on Ravelry (in my opinion) is the Friends Activity tab! It's often through this that I discover new designs, new designers and just new friends who knit inspiring things! Recently I came across this lady, Veera Välimäki (Ravelry link). She has a great blog were she not only has some great patterns but also shows of her lovely knitting! Most of what she did lately are her own designs, and I do hope she writes patterns for all of them! She usually knits with quite tiny yarn (or at least right now during Summer) and that's something I love too. I've fallen totally in love with this tunic. It's knit out of sportweight/Fingering weight yarn on 3mm needles. Even though I know it'll probably take me years to finish I do feel like searching the stash for yarn to start this! If I could do magic I would knit it up in a month and would probably get a ton of wear out of it coming Autumn and Winter. I'm so often so cold that I layer, and the more layers that are wool, the better I guess! :D Anyway, I do think I'll look in the stash to see if I have enough of a good yarn to knit this! I would rather not buy any yarn at the moment if not needed, so we'll see.

Back soon with spinning or more knitting!

Raspy!

2010-07-31T09:32:00.003+02:00

Guess you can all figure out how this sweater turned out as I'm already posting about it! *grin* When I returned from the hairdresser the dryer cycle had just ended and when I pulled it out I was super excited. The sweater actually did fit!

Pattern : Raspy by Kim Hargreaves

Yarn : Rowan Denim

Needles : 4mm

Modifications : made the sleeves longer

Started : no idea, years ago!

Finished : July 30, 2010

IntSweMoDo2010 sweater #3

I don't like the shaping of the sleeves, I think I would have done them more straight to the bottom, but over all this is a perfect sweater to throw over around the house and the lounge in (thinking about doing that today as it's cloudy and rather cold outside). I think this sweater will get softer with wearing and washing, so I imagine it'll only get better.

If you look up close you can see that the seaming is far from good. Nothing matched up, not even the sleeves. Might be me of course, either my sewing or the knitting, 'cause especially with the sleeves there shouldn't be a problem in matching them. I don't mind the sewing (I love cross stitch and I love this) but somehow I never manage to get it done nicely. More practice maybe? I don't know, but it only makes me more in favour of seamless knitting. :D I'll do some cross stitch if I want to sew!

I also took pictures of some of the shawls and scarfs I knitted, but I'm going to safe those for a later post. Might be tomorrow. I'm aiming for a post a week in the future, but it might not be only about knitting and spinning. I really want to pick up on some of my older "loves" again as well so there might be some art on here as well. I don't imagine I have many readers, but if anyone doesn't want to see any art (only knitting and spinning) you can comment.

Back at home

2010-07-30T12:07:00.002+02:00

After a 2 weeks holiday on Cabo Verde we returned home to (rainy) Belgium on Wednesday. It's good to be back home. The holiday was relaxing and I found my knitting mojo again, so it was rather great. Of course, now it's almost back to work (normally I'm back to work on Monday but someone is ditching me and so I have to work tomorrow ... happy happy, really not at all, I hate it when people do this!).

Of course now it's all about doing laundry (all done now), ironing and cleaning the house. But, I didn't do anything this morning as I wanted to finish my Raspy, finally! That sweater has been on the needles for years! It's in the washer now, and I'm so nervous it'll turn out horrible and I'll have to turn it into raggs or something! The sewing was horrible and well, I'm just totally scared and nervous! More of that in the next post.

Of course I ended early in my Tour de Fleece reports. I got less done then I had intended, but I'll wrap it up and keep the knitting I did for a next post!

Wheel spinning, I did ply all the Myrtle up :

The plied yarn is still on the bobbins so I have no clue about yardage. It did turn out ok, though it's quite a fussy yarn which is a bit dissapointing.

I planned on spinning 2 yarns on my wheel but didn't get much further with the second one then this :

This is Eric, Southern Cross Fibers polwarth (limited edition). I have 8oz of it and plan a 3 ply yarn. So this is one third predrafted. Let's see when I find the time to start spinning it!

I took my spindles and some fiber on holiday, and for the first time ever I actually got something spun up on my spindles! Not the amount that I had planned, but I did get some spun up :

This was already on my spindle when we left. It's an alpaca/silk/merino blend I bought in the US last year. It's 2oz total (I don't know the other stuff, it's upstairs in the yarn room and I'm to lazy to go over there to look it up! :D). As you can see I had some problems getting the first cop off my spindle. I use ButterflyGirl Design spindles and they are lovely, but the beautifully crafted shafts apperently keep the yarn from sliding off nicely. So the second time I wrapped a piece of paper around it and it came off perfectly! I'm going to ply these on my wheel, and I hope to have enough yardage for a scarf or small shawl, and I'm hoping for laceweight. We'll see.

I just managed to get this on. It's Hello Yarn Frosted Forest (Club yarn from way back!) which is Soy Silk/Wool. This will be a 2ply as well, And I'll try to match up the colours a bit but I'm not going to worry to much about it!

I also had my Turkish spindle with me and I managed to spin up one of the 2 Abby-batts I had with me. Fist, the batt :

These batts are really small, but when you unroll them they are quite a bit of fiber and you can split them in 3 perfect colours. So this is the spun up stuff :

As you can see I had to wind off the green. I dropped my spindle a few times while spinning and it was stuck in place to badly I had to wind off the yarn first, and then I still had a hard time getting it loose again. I plan on spinning singles from the second batt as well and then ply them so I have 3 nice little skeins of yarn.

I didn't start the second batt but started some other fiber on the Turkish spindle :

It's 100% Tussah Silk died by Spunky Eclectic. I have 2oz. I wanted to try a 2ply laceweight and the idea was to spin the singles, ply them and get started on a shawl whil on holiday, but I didn't get that far. I did get one little cop done :

And the second one is well on it's way. I'll ply it on my wheel then, but I might just get all teh singles spun first, we'll see (I might try plying 2 cops to see how it turns out though, I'm so nervous about this!).

Actually, I'm quite happy about the spinning I got done and I'm totally in love with both my Turkish spindle and my other spindles! Now I'm thinking about getting me a regular bottom whorl spindle, but I'll see. August and September are usually quite expensive months for me so I might just have to wait. Maybe a Christmas present for myself!

More soon, with all the shawls/scarfs I knit and hopefully a succesfull Raspy!

TdF - day 3

2010-07-06T16:36:00.002+02:00

Yes, I know, today is day 4 of the TdF, but I get most of my spinning done late in the evening and so I get my progress shots done the next morning. So this is the report of yesterdays spinning.

I got some more spinning done on the Myrtle singles, but the bobbin is looking just the same (more yarn on it, yes, but I don't think it'll even show on a picture!). I think I have about 3oz done now and I plan on getting the rest done hopefully today and tomorrow so I can get some more spinning done on my wheel before leaving.

I did get part 1 out of 6 done of the Abby batt :

I could easily split the batt in 3 parts, one pink, one purple and one green. I have 2 of these batts (I'll try to take a picture tomorrow of the complete one) and I think they are about 1oz each. I could get all the pink of one batt on my tiny Turkish spindle. Hope I can do the same with the 2 other colours. I tried to weigh the small pink cob but I was to lazy to get out my small scale, and my big one sais it's 10gr but I'm no sure that's right! :D We'll see. I'm looking forward to plying this to see what yardage I have.

To make this post a bit more interesting, here is something I recently finished knitting :

Pattern : Azzu's Shawl by Emma Fassio (free pattern - ravelry link)

Yarn : Sheepaints Meribam sock yarn

Needles : 4mm

I am totally in love with this type of shawls and I think it's a super alternative for all the beautifull handdyed sock yarn that I don't want to hide in shoes! Plus these shawls are perfect to wear on a Summer evening. I wanted 20 to take with me on holiday, but I'll be happy with a few! :D I'll probably take some sock yarn and patterns with me to knit over there, this shawl was super fast to knit!

I'm now knitting this pattern in a 100% silk yarn. I hope it'll turn out just as nice!

Off to do some spinning! :D

Tour de Fleece

2010-07-05T10:30:00.002+02:00

This year I'm taking part again in the Tour de Fleece. 2 years ago I loved doing it as I could take my wheel with me to France and I got quite a bit done. Last year we were in the US most of the time and there was no time at all to spin. This year we are leaving on our holiday halfway the TdF but we are going to an All In formula so I can take my spindles and there'll be time to spin! I'm quite excited about the holiday and quite excited about my spindle!

But, before I go further, the idea is to try to post here daily about the TdF and the spinning I get done. I joined the Monkey Farts team over on Ravelry which is basically a joined efford by Boogie from Spunky Eclectic and David from Southern Cross Fibre (I only recently joined his Fiber Club and I'm totally in love!). There's a little bit chaos about posting daily progress, and as I need to get into posting here more often (and to just make it all very simple for my tired brain) I will try to post my progress here daily, and then I can link in all the forums to this post!

So, I have very little goals for this TdF then spin as much as possible. On my wheel while I'm still at home, and then on spindles while on holiday. Of course I started of with quite a busy weekend and the weekend to come will be extremely busy as well (with no spinning time at all) so I need to get some done during this week!

I started spinning Myrtle on my wheel, which is a Spunky Club fiber. It's 100% dark BFL and I have 8oz. I still love spinning BFL and the colours on this dark fiber are great! I'm just spinning as fine as I can while it's still comfortable! It's going to be a 2 ply.

On the spindle I started an Abby Batt (from Abby Franquemont), no idea about fiber content or weight! We'll see what I end up with.

As you can see I'm spinning on my recently bought mini Turkish Spindle. It's truly tiny (only 0,6oz) and I'm totally in love with this little thing! I spun the fiber that came with it but didn't find the time to photograph it (tried last night but it was already to dark outside to capture the brown/red fiber properly). The yarn I spun was so thin! It was a true laceweight 2ply. It was amazing and so easy to spin. So that's why I couldn't wait to get something new on there and spin it as fine as possible. I remembered these batts and just picked them up and started spinning. Oh, and added bonus, I spun on my Turkish spindle in the car!!

So this is the poor spinning of the weekend. Saturday I had actually planned to spin in the morning (it was my birthday so I had planned a morning of spinning and relaxing!) before we left for a weekend with friends. But I was so sick that morning that I could hardly sit up! So almost no spinning. Luckily I got better by the late afternoon so I could still enjoy the drinks and snacks we had planned with our friends. Sunday was spent doing very little in the sun with those friends, and in the evening I cooked and cleaned the house a little. So not much spinning that weekend.

But all the spinning I get done is more then I got done in the past few weeks! :D And there is some knitting to show but I'll try to do that tomorrow. I'll also try to take some better pictures today to show you tomorrow. Have to get a few more hours of work done before going home and spinning! :D

A tiny bit of spinning

2010-06-21T10:27:00.002+02:00

Has it been so long already? Oh my, didn't know I hadn't posted since April, but there is so little to post about. Oh well, a little update is maybe possible.

There has been very little knitting going on because of my extremely busy shedule. I'm running around all the time an when I'm not running around I usually fall asleep within minutes on the couch. The only decent knitting time I had was on the train, so that's kinda sad, right? But there's hope for the future! It should all slow down quite a bit in little over a week. I'm only working 3 mornings in July and I'm not teaching at the riding school, and even though there are still some busy weekends and there is out trip to prepare for, I do hope to have some more time and some more energy!

As I said my knitting time has been limited to my time on the train, and well, it's been very boring. Remember this?

I knitted this cowl for my LYS-lady. She loved it so much she asked me to knit a bunch for her to display at her store. I already knitted 2 purple ones, and a blue one. I now started a pink one, and I need to knit 2 black ones, 2 whites and a brown. And I thin I said I would knit a light blue one as well. And she wants them next week! Yikes. She already has the purple ones. I'm bored of knitting these and I surely don't know if I'll be able to knit 3 more before next week! Ugg. I don't think I will ever be able to knit for money!

I have fallen in love with shawls all over and I have decided - as I'm not really into knitting socks right now - that I want to knit up my nice sock yarn into lightweight small shawls! I can wear them through Summer and then Autumn, so it'll be super nice. I already started one (left it at home though it fits in my purse perfectly, but that way I have no choice but to knit on the cowls when on the train!) and I hope to finish a few more before leaving on holiday!

I have been trying to get into spinning regularly again as I would love to participate in the Tour de Fleece. Of course I can do only part of it on my spinning wheel as we are leaving on our holiday half way through and I can't take a wheel with me. I plan on taking spindles though! :D If I had followed the boyfriends choice of going to France I would have been able to take my wheel, but I'm quite happy with the holiday we booked and I've been loving my spindle a bit more recently.

Anyway, here is one yarn I finished recently :

100% Falkland
Spunky Club fiber October 2006
2ply, 310yards to 4oz

I enjoyed spinning this as I just spun it as it was comfortable, not trying to spin this or this thin. I also tryed spinning long draw, although it was more a supported long draw. But it turned out a nice and lofty yarn with plenty of yardage, and I love the colours way more after the carding! :D

And now, counting down ...

Another sweater!

2010-04-28T16:14:00.002+02:00

Oh my, is it another month already? I'm so busy these days! I think about posting a lot, just don't come around to it. Silly me.

Here we go. I just finished the second "sweater" for IntSweMoDo2010. It's actually a knitted dress, so it makes up for the first sweater I did for this challenge (which I actually only sewed the buttons for this year, so it counts only half!).

Pattern : Luna Dress by Katie Himmelberg (Interweave Knits Fall 2007)
Yarn : one strand of 100% Cashmere and one strand of 100% Wool (with the speckles, from a cone), both from my LYS and no brand! :D
Needles : 7.00mm, 5.5mm, 5.00mm

I started it at the beginning of January 2010 and finished last weekend, so under 4 months for this! :D That's quick for me! Actually, it should have been done sooner. But I couldn't get the sleeves to match. I don't get why the body is knit on the 5mm needles and then the sleeves on the 7mm. So I did the sleeves top down based on the instructions by Barbara Walker. A lot better and very easy to knit this way! Might do a lot more sleeves this way! Of course this dress is to warm to wear now as it's finally warming up over here. I'll wash it and then put it away for Autumn!

I actually pulled my Raspy sweater out of hibernation to finish now, and I'm also knitting a nice striped cardigan (which I think I mentionned last time). I'm making good progress on that one especially knowing that it's next to my bed and I only get a few rows done every day before going to sleep (I have a few other things I have to work on and this way I'm not tempted to knit the cardigan! :D). The list of sweaters and cardigans I want to knit is only growing longer!

Another finished knit is the shawl I started ages ago and I never got around to sewing in the ends and blocking it :

Pattern : Andrea's Shawl by Kirsten Kapur (Ravelry link)
Yarn : 100% Cashmere (same as the dress)
Needles : 4mm

It's actually smaller then I had planned, but still lovely. I started this one before I knitted the one for my mother. I now also need one like my moms, but no rush. First some other knits!

And to end with some spinning I did (which is also a project that was hibernating) :

This yarn is one ply of silk and one ply of merino. The silk was on the bobbin for ages but I had to little yardage to make something of it (well, not all silk was spun, had to finish it). So I decided to spin some merino and ply the 2 together. It actually gave me some decent yardage. Not as evenly spun as I wanted but ok. The silk lost all of the yellow when I washed it so all of the yellows and greens are gone. It's now only pinks and purples and some blue, which I love of course, but that's again just my faves and I was hoping on something a bit out of my normal comfort zone. Oh well, it's a nice yarn!

I'll try to be back soon!

Spring is in the air!

2010-04-02T12:54:00.004+02:00

Well, there's been a lot of crafting around here, and some finishing though not as much as I had hoped! :D Oh well, we keep on going.

First of, I did finish my first sweater for IntSweMoDo2010 challange, even though it was only sewing on the buttons. But the sweater is finished and I already wore it and I love it! :D

Pattern : Riding to Avalon by Connie Chang Chinchio (Ravelry link)
Yarn : Textiles de la Marque Laine et Alpaga
Needles : 3.75mm

The picture isn't to great (the sleeves are the same lenght!) but well, it's a nice sweater. I love the buttons! I also love the pattern. I'm not to happy with the lenght (should have been just a little longer) and the set in sleeves (well, I'm not happy with my sewing skills!). but I think I'll wear it quite a bit. The bottom edge is a bit wonky from the blocking, but I guess it'll get better after another wash. I also think the sleeves might look better after wearing it a few times.

I am knitting on the dress which should be my second sweater. I seem to have no luck with sewing in sleeves, and well, the sleeve cap looked horrid with the dress, so I decided to knit the sleeves from the top, based on the instructions of Barbara Walker. It's quite a bit better and I might do this more in the future!

Now I've fallen totally in love with this sweater (it's a Ravelry link, the knitter doesn't have a blog). So I've gotten the yarn for a stripy cardigan and I'm going to swatch. Now I do plan on knitting this top down raglan style (I don't owe the Zimmermann book for a EPS, and it's not available through Amazon but second hand). And I've got a few more cardigans and sweaters in mind. There is so much I want to knit! :D

Here's another knit I'm really happy with :

Pattern : Andrea's Shawl by Kirsten Kapur (available through Knitpicks or through Ravelry)
Yarn : Misti 100% pur Alpaga des Andes and Noro Kureyon
Needles : 5.5mm needles

I totally love this shawl! Knitted it for my mom for her birthday (and actually finished it in time!). I finished the same shawl in some Cashmere for myself, but I still need to sew in the ends and block it. It's a ton smaller though (knitted the same size but on 4,5mm needles). I want one like this for myself too! I love the striping of the Kureyon shawl and I love the size. My LYS lady already requested one for herself as well, so I guess I'll be knitting a few more! :D It's a quick knit though, to that's ok.

I also finished this scarf/cowl and totally love it.

Pattern : 5th Avenue Infinity Scarf by Margaux Pena

Yarn : 100% Cashmere

Needles : 5.5 mm

I love this scarf and I love to wear it, even though it's a lot bigger then what I had planned. I can wrap it around my neck 3 times! It's lovely and warm and easy to wear and I want 10 more! :D I love my scarfs so much, it makes me hate that Winter is over.

And there's a woven scarf too but I'll keep that one for next time.

I do want to share the spinning I did the last few weeks. I don't have the possibility to visit any yarn shows or so, but I decided to particpate in the Great Stash Spin-up at the Spunky Club group on Ravelry. I don't get much yarn spun up as I'm addicted to spinning my yarn as thin as possible. But I got 2 yarns done :

Flowering weeds (Spunky Club fiber), 70% merino & 30% mohair

3ply, 223yards (204m) to 3oz, about 16wpi before washing

Insect Wings (HelloYarn club fiber), 100%BFL
2ply, 421yards (385m) to 5oz, about 22WPI

I'm a bit dissapointed in the yardage on the last yarn as I had hoped on more. The problem is that my spinning was really inconsistent so it's thin in some places but rather heavy in other. Oh well, I'll keep on trying. This by the way was fractal spun.

There's more to show, but I'll keep that for next time! The weather is turning into Spring and I do like Spring (I really don't like Summer). It has been raining a lot too, but well, I'm living in Belgium! What do I expect? I do hope on some better weather to start riding more again, but for the time being I'm just knitting more!

Hats!

2010-03-05T11:53:00.002+01:00

It's been over a month again. Oh well, I'm trying but it has been an awfully dark month and taking good pictures was almost impossible. I'm not often at home when there is enough light to take pictures, and I just didn't want to post without pictures.

It's been the month of hat knitting. I still have quite a few hats in mind that I would love to knit, but we'll see what I can get done.

I've already showed the hat that actually started the hat knitting urge. I love that hat and wear it daily with the matching scarf.

Pattern : Springtime Bandit (available for free)
Yarn : Bouton D'or Laika (100% wool)
Needles : 7mm

The yarn is quite a bit thicker then what the pattern calls for but I just love the fact that you can easily use a heavy yarn for a lace shawl and still have a beautifull garnment to wear! I am planning on knitting another one of these out of a thinner yarn but I'm totally in love with this shawl! I knitted the hat first and then ran out of yarn for the shawl. Some people suggested ripping the hat but I'm so glad I didn't do that! I used some sock yarn doubled and added a strand of mohair to finish a few lines (but I didn't do the whole pattern). It's quite ok as you don't see the edge when I tuck it in my jacket. It's been my favourite shawl for this Winter!

But, as I promissed, hats! Well, I've been knitting hats like crazy and I've been loving it. So lets show a few.

Pattern : 18 Seconds To Sunrise Hat by Tiffany Gallagher (Free download)
Yarn : Anny Blatt Sport'Anny
Needles : 5.5mm

The yarn I got in a big box with all kind of old yarns at my LYS. Someone didn't want them anymore. Well, finally found a project for some of the yarn! This is a follower of the Thorpe hat I knitted beginning of 2009 (and reknitted end of 2009 because it was to big - I never showed the Thorpe here I guess!). I love these hats with ear flaps to wear to the riding school when I'm either riding myself (I ty the flaps down then as I cannot stand having cold ears!) or teaching. I've worn this hat A LOT over the Winter and apparently actually left it at the riding school one day, not even knowing. As I'm already known for my hats they immidiately knew it was mine and put it aside. Phew!

Pattern : Thorpe by Kirsten Kapur (free download)
Yarn : Handspun from Thistle Fiber (Hello Yarn Club Fiber)
Needles : 5.5mm

I spun the yarn and knit the hat beginning 2009, but I hardly wore it because it was just to big. So I ripped it and reknit the Medium size at the end of 2009. Love the hat! Wore it a lot. Sorry for the bad picture, but somehow I had messed up the settings on my camera and it took me a while to figure out how to turn them back! :D (By the way, I have a huge head and usually need the biggest size, but my gauge might have been off, hence the hat being to big).

Pattern : Cabled Beret by Debbie Bliss
Yarn : Merinoangora Puffo d'Angora(100% Angora) and

Textiles de la Marque Luisa 4 (Angora/wool), one strand of each
Needles : 3.5mm and 5mm

Another one that's really loved! :D I wanted a white beret and wanted something with Angora so it would be extra warm. I saw this hat on Ravelry and realized I had the pattern at home, so I just started it. I added some extra elastic wire because I always put all my hair in the hat and that weight usually pulls it back. This is one of the warmest hats I have!

Pattern : Everglade by Woolly Wormhead
Yarn : Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK
Needles : 3.75mm

I joined the mystery KAL organized by Woolly Wormhead and knitted this pattern. I'm totally in love and am considering knitting another one (if I find the time!). It's such a comfortable and warm hat!

Pattern : Kat by Kim Hargreaves
Yarn : Rowan Kid Classic
Needles : 3.5 and 4.5mm

I never noticed this hat in the book till I saw it knitted on Ravelry, and I fell in love! I also saw it by someone in this colour and I knew I just had to get the yarn even though I have plenty of suitable yarn in my stash. I've been obsessing over the colour Petrol and it's neighboors over the last Winter season so this was totally the colour I wanted. A quick run to the yarn store as of course I wanted to knit this hat during out trip to France. Well, I knitted the hat in 3 days (it was a very short trip, a gift from my sisters for my birthday ages ago). I love it! It still needs a good blocking and the elastic added but I'll probably do it this weekend (didn't have much time the last weeks).

There were a few hats knitted for various other people as well, but I didn't get them all photographed. Here are a few though :

From left to right : hat for a colleague, hat for my sister (modelled by my mother), hat for a friend

More info on Ravelry!

I'm still not done knitting hats and I don't mind knitting them even now that Spring is around the corner. They are predicting snow again for tonight and I will need hats for quite a while longer as I plan on starting to take my bike to the train station again on Monday! Well, there is always next Winter too, right?

There is still plenty to show so hopefully I'll find the time to post more. I tried the Ravelympics but failed big time. I also joined the IntSweMoDo2010 challange in the hope to get some more sweaters knitted this year. And for those wondering where my socks are, I'm currently really not into knitting socks but I guess the mood will come back again :D.

Felted hats

2010-01-22T12:23:00.002+01:00

First of all, double good news. The dog is taking meds and we are hoping we caught it early. Might of course result in pups at the end of the Summer, we'll see. And the other good news is that by accident I found my hat! :D cleaning up the bathroom I found this plastic bag with the hat in it! I have no clue why I put it in the bag or when I last wore it so it's all a big mystery. But the hat is back and I'm happy! :D

I took a few pictures at my LYS (well, FYS really) yesterday but I forgot to photograph the shawl. So I'll show you the knitted hats I've been experimenting with.

Last year I knitted this hat for my FYS-owner, as a New Years gift. I showed it to her and took it back as I wanted to embroider it. I finally did that not so long ago and I gave her the hat. Many people were so enthousiastic that I decided to try to make a few and sell them. I want to make them all different by decorating them in different ways.

First, the hat I made for my FYS-lady :

(more pictures at Flickr or at Ravelry!)

I love how this hat turned out, both the felting and the embroidery.

So I tried a green hat. It turned out quite ok though I don't remember how much yarn I used for the white hat and I think I need to use 2 strands in the future (the green hat is a bit finer and felted a bit smaller).

The hat is less sturdy then the white one but it looks the same when you wear it. I did some dry felting on the hat to decorate it but it's not as nice as I had hoped. It'll do though.

The third hat turned out way to small (which adds to the idea that I should double the yarn while knitting the hats). It's a baby-sized hat. I had also dyed the yarn myself and somehow the brown turned into a nice purple in the washing machine! :D Not to bad as a result.

I do think it felted nicely apart from the brim which would look nicer in my opinion if it didn't curl so much. I added some crocheted flowers which I think it nice for a little child!

Both the hats are for sale at my FYS. I have a few new ones in mind. Actually, I need to perfect them more. If it works out I might try a few more for next year, as over here Winter is already half way behind us. I do need to use the yarn double stranded and I think I did that with the white hat. I'll need to keep more notes on these. I also want to experiment a bit with different hats, but that won't be easy as I don't want to steal designs from someone (this design was vaguely based on one in a book).

I also want to experiment a bit more with the decorating of the hat. I love the embroidery of course. But I'm a bit stuck for designs. I need to try more of the dry felting, which I think I can improve in as well. I like the crocheted flowers, but I might try to felt some flowers in the future. We'll see.

I am hoping to at least support my fiber addiction in the future with what I'm making. Somehow I realized I want to be able to at least safe a little money, so maybe if I can make enough money from being creative to buy more yarn and fiber, I'll have some extra to safe!

As an opposite, I bought myself a new phone! The iPhone is still way to expensive so I bought a (cheaper) Nokia model with less possibilities but still a nice phone. I need to make myself a case for it so that I can remove the protection and maybe can takes some decent pictures with it!

More soon!

A new year!

2010-01-15T11:00:00.004+01:00

Happy New Year to all of you, even though we're already half way through January. I can't believe it's already January. It's so strange!

I promissed myself I would try to post here at least once a week, or at least twice every month. With the amount of knitting I'm doing right now it shouldn't be a problem. But unfortunately so far I haven't been able to post here. The reason? It hasn't been a good start to the year. :( I started sick with stomach flue the first 3 days of the year, and it took me over a week to fully recover. I'm back at work and I'm still not happy with my job, especially not after another humiliating team meeting last Wednesday. I love working with the kids and if I could find a similar job I would be out of here in no time. But at the moment there isn't anything interesting available and I'm not to that point yet where I would leave here for any job. Then there are issues in my relationship. And then there are some issues with people I thought were my friends but I'm now seriously reconsidering that ... . So far I haven't had much luck with friends and I'm wondering if it's just me, or maybe my definition of friendship. And last there is - added today - a sick dog. And it's serious, not just "sick".

Actually, I'm ready to start crying and not stop. It's just to much. My knitting and fiber stuff is, at the moment, the only thing I have to escape. It still gives me the opportunity to forget everything and I like that!

Now one of the things I need to do to make me more excited to post here is get a better way of taking pictures. I don't post often as I'm not happy at all about the pictures I'm taking. I have a few favourites on Ravelry and they aren't honestly favourites just because of the knitting. Well, the super knitting is of course a plus, but I just adore the lovely pictures they are taking. I want that, but I never succeed. :(

Ok, on to the knitting, if you all are still around after all my complaining. I ended the year quite nicely by finally using my loom for the first time! I bought it back in December 2008 but it took me more then 6 months to put it together and well, 6 more to start my first project on it. I decided I wanted to make a scarf for my mother for Christmas, and I was going to use handspun. As soon as I thought it over I realized there was this hanspun in my stash that would be perfect. My mother likes bold colourse like red and yellow (opposite to me) and I remembered this yarn :

It's the Tulip Colourway from Spunky Eclectic (a club colourway). It's 100% BFL and I spun it hoping for sockweight yarn. It's more like sportweight and it was navajo plied. So I got 2 very different skeins which I probably would never knit into socks. But it was perfect for a scarf! Took me some time to decide between white or black for the warp, but I went with white heavy fingering weight yarn from a cone. And this was the result :

It's woven on a 7.5dpi, which is about all I can say as I'm pretty new to weaving :D. I also don't know the size of the scarf. I asked my mom to measure the scarf but I don't think she has done it yet. I forgot to do it before I gifted it, it was quite a close call to Christmas! :D

Now on the loom (only just warped the loom and wove a few cm, still need to do a lot but as my loom is in a spare bedroom I often just don't get there ...) :

It's all still very new for me so at the moment I'm just hoping on something "wearable". This is going to be a scarf for the boyfriend, yarn I bought ages ago to knit him a scarf but I will probably never get to it so I hope I'll weave it sooner!

I have been knitting a lot of hats lately. I'm truly addicted. I'll try to take a few pictures of the last ones I knitted and then post about them all, but there is one hat I want to show here :

It's the Spring Beret (it's a free Ravelry Download). I knitted it quite some time ago and wore it almost daily till just before Christmas. I loved it. Had to add some elastic thread as my hair was pulling it back but it was perfect. And then I lost it. Haven't seen it since the week before Christmas. I miss it! But I guess, as I haven't found it yet, that I truly lost it and that I won't find it again. :( I have no more yarn like this left, so it's sad. It's especially sad because I knitted a matching shawl out of the same yarn. My mom loves the shawl so I'm now thinking about gifting it to her and knitting myself a new hat and shawl. But this truly was a perfect yarn for this! Especially the shawl (of which I apparently have no picture ...), it was thick, warm and drapy!

Now, for Christmas I knitted socks for my family again. Of course I started to late and didn't get all the socks done. Still need to knit socks for my aunt and grandfather, and for my boyfriend. But well, I did get some socks done and maybe I'll get started sooner next year.

Top to bottom, left to right : grandma, sister #2, mother, sister #1 and uncle. The socks for my aunt are started, still haven't found the yarn I planned on using for my grandfather (cleaning up is never good for me!).

I now really need to start some baby knits. I wasn't planning on knitting for babies anymore as I know from experience most people really don't appreciate my gifts. But my mom asked for a knitted gift for the baby of a friends son, and then a friend of mine, who occasionally knits herself, just gave birth to a baby girl so I'm a bit torn if I should knit her something or not.

I'll leave you for now with a picture of my sweet sick dog (the best and most recent I could find) and a picture of the Winter we've been having (sadly it's getting warmer now and the snow has almost completely melted away ...)

A new start with some old projects!

2009-11-18T15:30:00.001+01:00

It has been ages since I posted here. It's been busy, and I haven't been feeling to great lately, but I'm knitting a lot and I haven't forgotten about the blog. Some of my favourite bloggers have decided to stop blogging and that's sad. But I do understand. I seem to be on Ravelry a lot and use that site to keep up with everything. I still want to blog though, even if it's only for a few readers!

There are of course a lot of projects to blog about, and I might miss out on a few. But that means I have a few things to write about in weeks/months where I don't have anything else to blog about. I do need to find a method to take some good pictures 'cause I really hate how some of this stuff is turning out. I have a set-up in mind that I might try in the near future, let's hope it works! If you want to check out all my knitted stuff, go to my Ravelry page!

Recently I had I photosession with my boyfriend outside, mostly to fill up the blanks on Ravelry. But I got some pictures of a few of my favourite sweaters (well, I don't have many finished sweaters!). The pictures aren't great (I never do well on pictures and my boyfriend is far from a professional photographer) but at least I can show my stuff now!

(I'm sorry for the white belly showing in the pictures! As I said, I don't manage to look to great on pictures ...)

Pattern : Phildar (Ravelry link)
Yarn : superwash tweed from my LYS

I don't remember much more info of this sweater, I think I knitted it mostly as written in the pattern. It's a bit to short but at the time I didn't have more yarn and it's a bottom up sewed pattern so there is no way to lenghten it. Mabye I'll knit a longer one some day! I love wearing it with a sweater under it!

Pattern : Glee by Sarah & Rachel
Yarn : Klaziens Kreatie Shetlands Wolle
Needles : 3.25mm and 3.75mm

It took me about a year to knit and even longer to add the closure at the top, but once it was finished I fell in love! I love this sweater and it's really warm! I could have been a bit smaller but it now allows me to wear a few more layers underneath, so that's ok. Good thing I have a huge list of things I want to knit or I would knit this again in not time! :D

I think I'll keep it at 2 projects for now and might try to write another post over the weekend. Would be nice if I could do that.

For those who keep track of my Ravelry page, I put a lot of projects on 'time out' for the time being. It helps me to concentrate on some other projects and I have to say that I since managed to get some older stuff finished, or at least some decent progress. The actual promiss was that I would only start one new project for every 2 I finished, but it's hard to keep doing that. I have knit a few quick projects since, mostly hats. All for others and nothing for me :(. I did finish a quick shawl for me but it was a bit of a dissapointment as I ran out of yarn way to quick. I still need to block that shawl and I will wear it!

Last night I cast on for this scarf (ravelry link again). I hope it'll finish soon, so that I can work on some other projects, but I am in love with the scarf!

As you might notice there are no socks to show. I've decided this Winter will be all about scarfs, hats, and hopefully sweaters. I am finishing the socks I have on the needles and I will knit socks for Christmas for my family (I haven't started them yet - yikes! - but I have decided they will all get thick socks this year so it'll be quick knitting, I hope!), but I'm not casting on new socks for me right now. My sock drawer is overflowing as it is and though the urge to knit more socks is still there, I really want to knit other stuff! I hope to knit up some sweaters, but we'll see!

I have been spinning a little in between, but not as much as I want too. Well, I don't have enough time as it is, so no surprise. Also, still haven't started weaving and the end of the year it'll be a year since I bought my loom. Isn't that sad? I keep on telling myself I'll start something but well ...

Anyway, some proof of spinning :

Fiber : Maldives, Hello Yarn Fiber Club
100% superfine Merino, about 5oz
Spun as singles for the Spunky Lace Singles KAL/SAL (again Ravelry link).

Started this shortly after :

I wanted a simple ripple pattern to show of the striping, so I used the first part of the Tara Stole by Amy King. I'm about half way through the yarn (the big skein of the 2 only) and I hope to finish it, but it's on hold for now as I'm working on a few other projects.

There is more to show so hopefully more to blog about. I am hoping the weather will turn colder soon. It's been very warm out here for the time of the year. I am still hoping we will get snow though I know that might never happen over here. Oh well, one can only hope!

Hopefully see you soon!

R.I.P. my little friend

2009-06-12T16:21:00.001+02:00

Today I lost one of my closest companions. From the 4 cats I have there was only one that would spend his days in the house with me, lay next to me on the couch and sleep with me on the bed. He could open every pot in the house and would steal what he could, but that was just my little big man. He was close to a dog and loved going out back with me to the horse. He would greet me and talk to me. He didn't mind the dogs though he knew to stay away from them.

Last night something went wrong. I have no clue what, but my boyfriend found our guy laying wet in the mud, with our 2 dogs standing around barking. They for sure attacked him as he was really hurt and you could see the bites everywhere. He was alive but barely. We took him to the vet, wrapped in a towel on my lap. He watched me with his big eyes, totally trusting me. I knew deep inside that he could never make it, but he was a fighter from the day we got him and I was hoping he would make it. He fell asleep after getting a sedative, with his head on my hand.

This morning I called the vet and he was still fighting, but around noon he lost the fight. He was probably bleeding internally. I'm now hating myself for leaving him there. I should have been holding him when he died, but I'm hoping he didn't have any pain and was to far gone to realize he was all alone.

I now realize I lost one of my closest friends. I just cannot imagine not seeing him anymore. Tonight we will pick him up at the vet and put him to rest in my moms garden. He was my little fighter, and I will always remember him.

Rest in peace my little friend, hope you will forgive me.
Love you forever, will never forget you

Angel
2003 - 2009

Moving on from socks

2009-06-05T11:24:00.003+02:00

The last couple of years I've been pretty obsessed with socks. I mean, if you look at what I knitted, it's mostly socks. About 50% maybe? I have no clue, but it'll be close! Here's the last pair I finished and am really proud of :

These socks were in the makings for ages. I knitted them for last years project spectrum, the first theme. I was planning on knitting a black pair for every section of PS and them embroider them appropriately. Never made it though. I finished the knitting a few months ago but then was to scared to start the embroidery. Oh well, they are done now and I love them! The fit of the socks could have been better, but the embroidery is super and I like them a lot.

But, what I was saying. I won't be joining the third round of the 52 Pairs Plunge. I think I got about 30 pairs done in the second round, and I always feel pressured to get the amount done. So, no more of that (I will never get 52 pairs done anyway, not with my current busy life). I will be joining the Knitters Anonymus Sockdown again, but I might skip the last month now. I don't mind joining that one as it basically only requires one sock a month which is doable!

The reason? There are a ton of other things I want to knit and I know knitting those socks is keeping me from it. There were about 3 sweaters I wanted to knit to take with me on my trip to the US, but as there's only one more month left before we leave there is no way I'm going to be able to get them done. And that is really sad. None of these sweaters were complicated or tiny gauges. Oh well.

There are about 100 sweaters I want to knit (and I have the yarn for!), even more shawls, scarfs and other things. Many of these things are portable enough to replace the socks. I do most of my knitting during my work commute, but I don't plan on taking a whole sweater with me (ok, right now there are 2 socks OTN in my handbag and a lace shawl in my computer bag ... Like I ever knit on all of them!).

So it'll be hard, and there'll be a ton of sock yarn hibernating in my stash, but I need to get some time to knit other things! As the Summer is quite close, it also means Autumn is getting closer again and I really will need more warm sweaters to wear to work next Winter. My boss turned off the central heating quite some weeks ago (and I'm cold quite often ...) and he never puts the termostate very high. Plus he wants us to turn the heating off in the evening so it only starts getting warm when I arrive (refuse that though ...). It was super cold last Winter so I want to be warmer next Winter!

So, hopefully there'll be more sweaters here in the future. There are currently quite a few socks on the needles and there is a test knit of socks in the near future, so those'll be posted here too. But I hope I'll be able to keep away from casting on a ton in the near future (except for the socks I promissed my grandma, but those should be quick). Keep your thumbs up!

2009-05-08T12:53:00.002+02:00

As I want to start keeping this up again, I'm starting with 2 old projects. I haven't taken any pictures in ages. I have so little "nice" spots around my house to take pictures that I usually don't do it all. And having no pictures keeps me from posting.

I have been knitting though not as much as I would like. I also have been spinning but not much. And I finally put the loom together I bought before Christmas, but I still have to get started on that one! Guess my life is total chaos again at the moment.

Just before Easter I picked up my eggs again. Last year I made a few knitted Easter eggs and I had some of the foam eggs left. So I knitted coats for the eggs I had! Here they are :

There are individual pictures on my Flickr of all eggs. I think one or 2 eggs are missing from this pictures. The eggs are still out on my table even though it's been a long time since Easter. I just like them so much I don't want to put them away! I'll probably do it over the weekend though. Need to figure out which decorations I'll knit next! I love having something knit out and about in the house (well, aside from all the WIPs everywhere ...).

Pattern : just a crochet pattern from a stitch dictionary

Yarn : Posh Yarn Eva (100% cashmere)

Hook : 2,5mm

Started : May 2008

Finished : March 2009

It was my first real crochet project and I'm very happy with it. I might have better used a bigger hook for the lace feeling, but it's ok. I'll know for the future project! It took me a long time but everything takes me a long time and it's finished now!

I'm ready to start my next crochet project, but I still need to figure out which yarn to use for this. There are plenty of knitting projects on my needles so no urge to start something new!

There are more things to show, and I hope to have some time and good weather this weekend to take a few more pictures, and then post. Maybe tonight, if I'm in the mood. I'm currently in a dip considering the riding and though I usually go every Friday (horse riding class) I might skip it today. It's a horrible day all together. The weather switched from really nice to very overcast (I want to sit in my warm home and do nice things ... I'm always cold these days) and this morning I found out I'm without a provider on my cellphone. I'm switching providers but my FIL forgot to give me the little card from the new provider. So my old service was cancelled and I can't put the new card in. My cell is my life line and I'm feel rather annoyed at the moment!

Oh well, maybe some knitting will calm me!

An update

2009-03-13T14:15:00.002+01:00

It has been months since I last decently updated here! :D Time and energy is lacking me to update, so I'm really sorry. But here is my try on an update.

First, there were the Christmas socks I knitted. I wanted to knit socks for my whole family. I did quite a good job, though I didn't manage to get a pair done for the boyfriend and my uncle. The first has a pair of socks now, the unlce still hasn't. One day though ...

You can go to my Flickr page or Ravelry to read more details about the socks. From left to right, starting at the top : Socks for my youngest sister, socks for my grandma, socks for my other sister, socks for a friend (need to fill up the mosaic! :D), socks for my aunt and the recently finished socks for my boyfriend. Missing are the socks for my mom (see previous post) and the socks for my grandfather (no pitures taken ...).

There was recently another pair of socks knitted for the above mentionned friend, but as I got no thank you or appreciation there might not follow any more socks for this friend. :( I hate it when this happens, when I put a ton of knitting time into something (and love and energy) for the thing to end up in the bottom of a drawer never to be looked at again. :( Oh well ...

There were recently 2 pairs of socks finished for myself, though I only have pictures of one pair :

Pattern : Pomatomus by Cookie A.

Yarn : Spunky Sport by Spunky Eclectic

Needles : 2,75mm circs

Modifications : As I ran out of yarn before finishing the first sock (I had 2 balls of 50gr each) I did the second sock with 2,5 pattern repeats for the leg and a shorter heel flap. Then I redid the first sock. They look great, I only barely made it the second time!

The other pair I finished was the pair of Hederas I started back in September (I think). I have no pictures of them though. I'm stilling trying to keep up with 2 sock challanges. First one is the 52PairPlungeII. I have now 26 pairs done, which is halfway. I probably won't make it to the full 52, but I'm halfway so that's ok. I'm also still in the challange of the Sock Knitters Anonymus. I probably won't finish a February pair (we have till the end of March to finish it), but so far I did quite ok.

That being said, I'm slowly getting bored of socks. I really want to knit a few sweaters! But of course I know I won't get them finished. I will start another one soon though. Not sure which one. I would have done it over the weekend if I wasn't so busy. Next week then ...

I did finish a sweater/vest but I still have no buttons for it nor do I have pictures. I also finished 2 hats for me, 2 hats for the boyfriend and a scarf for the boyfriend, but no pictures of any of this . I do have pictures of a pair of gloves that were on the needles for almost a year before I finished them :

Knitted out of Cashmere I got through Posh yarns (some Yarn club) but I overdyed the yarn as I didn't like the original colour. The gloves are wonderfull and got quite some wear during the cold Winter!

I think that's about it for the knitting right now. I need to take a ton of pictures. I also have some spinning to show, but I'll keep that for a later post. Now it's back to my (not so fun) work ...

2009-03-03T12:07:00.002+01:00

It's been a long while. There has been knitting, but no posting mostly due to the lack of picture taking. And a very busy time, and me not feeling to great (mentally that is ...).

I decided to try pick up on posting on this blog by posting something completely unrelated to knitting, but a very important part of my life :

Me jumping with my horse Blue (Mister Blue, though this is his fathers name, his name is San Primeur but we never use it). We're jumping a 1m fence in this picture. It was during the last indoor jumping event at the riding school I'm part of. I ended 3rd in the 1m competition. I'm afraid of riding my horse to his full potential. I don't ride very fast - though he can - and I don't jump higher. But I'm enjoying it!

Here's my horse again, but with another rider. He's jumping a 120cm fence in this picture, with lots left! He loves these high fences and enjoys the jumping so much! I would love to see him jump something higher, but it's already a joy to see this. He hit a fence just before this one (riders fault!) and as he hate hitting fences he took an extra high jump on this one.

I haven't been able to take any jumping lessons the last weeks, and it's scaring me. The last manche of the indoor jumpings is coming up (on March 15) and as I'm pretty nervous about all this I think I'm going to be even more nervous if I don't get to take any lessons! We'll see how it goes.

As I said, there should be knitting content soon. We have spring-type weather at the moment but it's cloudy. I might try to take a few pictures this afternoon!

So close ...

2009-01-23T14:29:00.001+01:00

Nothing knitting related. I just can't imagine this happened. Have you seen this on CNN? That's where I live, and I just can't believe it ...

Happy New Year

2009-01-07T16:07:00.002+01:00

Wishing you all the best for the coming year!

It's been a while since I was around here. There has been knitting and spinning going on, but my life has been very chaotic. I've learned long ago that a new year doesn't mean a big change. But I do hope this year will give me some new answers. The last months have been so chaotic and I have no clue where my life is going. Maybe I should make some decissions.

At least there's my knitting and spinning!!

It was an ok year, though looking back at my finished knits it's a lot less then I thought it was. My life is so busy and it all goes so fast ...

These are not all of my knits from the past year. I never took pictures of a few, and I didn't add them all to this mosaïc. But it gives you a good idea of my major knitting!!

I'm quite sure 2009 will again be filled with socks. I love knitting socks and they are quick and portable. I'm still doing the 52 Pair Plunge II so I need to knit more socks! :D Might not get there, but I'm sure I'll get a bit more done then last time.

One of my goals for the coming year is knit a few bigger garments for myself. A sweater or so. I need more handknits (I'm sitting in the freezing cold of my office at the moment - it's been extremely cold here in Belgium with the coldest temperatures in over 25 years - and as the heating is very poor here I'm cold all the time!).

I also want to spin more, knit stuff from my handspun, and maybe even spin enough for a sweater/cardigan, or my latest love, a tee to wear over a long sleeved t-shirt.

I do have a few more finished knits to blog about, including my Christmas socks for my family. And a few more handspun yarns. But most of this isn't photographed yet due to the lack of decent lighting. But I promiss a few more posts soon.

Sock update!

2008-11-17T16:14:00.002+01:00

Well, we're quit a bit past October already. There are quite a few FOs to show, mostly socks. It was Socktober after all! Plus with the SockKnitters Anonymus Sockdown challange I joined late September I'm still knitting mostly socks. But I'm liking it!

First off, remember the pumpkins I knitted? These were meant as home decorations and this is the setup :

I'm truly in love with it! At the same time I knitted a few mushrooms. Felted mushrooms. And they got their own setup too :

I really do like them! You can find the pattern here (or on Ravelry). They were - like the pumpkins - knit out of 100% wool which I dyed (well, only for the tops of the brown/white mushrooms, didn't feel like dyeing red). At least my knitting has multiple purposes! Actually, my sisters - who think my knitting is a waste of time most of the time - liked them and one (the kindergarten teacher) asked to make some for her for her classroom. I don't think the pumpkins would survive toddler hands, not the ones I made. I would have to find a way to make them way sturdier. Maybe by next year ...

Mentionning Ravelry, did you see the process bars on the side? It's apparently a Ravelry feature I didn't know about (I didn't check how long it has been around). It think it's nice to follow the projects! :D I think most of my current projects are on Ravelry.

And then now the Sock parade :

Pattern : BFF socks by Cookie A.

Yarn : Spunky Speckled in Cool Rain (Spunky Club Colour)by Spunky Eclectic

Needles : 3mm addi turbo

These were knitted as part of the September challange at SKA Sockdown. They are think and warm and lovely!

Pattern : SKA Sockdown September Mystery Pattern (Ravelry link) by Jeannie Cartmel

Yarn: Regular sockyarn (wool/nylon blend) handdyed by me in Orange

Needles : 2mm Addi turbo

These are also part of the SKA Sockdown September 2008. They are really lovely, but not my colour. From the start I decided these would be my mothers Christmas gift (but now she told me she wants a pair of sturdy thick socks *sigh*). I might knit the pattern again in another colour for myself, if I get around to it! :D

There was a third pair of SKA Sockdown September 2008 Socks, Hedera socks by Cookie A. But as you can see in the sidebar those aren't finished yet. They will, someday. But now I'm mostly working on October and November challange socks.

Pattern : TLL Mystery Socks for Socktober 2008 by Kirsten Kapur

Yarn : Handdyed Knitpicks Bare (dyed by me)

Needles : 2,5mm circs

I knitted these - as you might remember - both at the same time. I didn't finish them by the end of October. I finished them the week after. I had to spend 2 days in the hospital for some tests and it was no problem finishing them the first day. The yare really nice and this is about the only fingering sock yarn that gives me a good firm fabric on 2,5mm needles! Loved the pattern. Did the toe my own way as I had forgotten to print that clue. But they are great!

And then there's a pair of socks I knitted ages ago but I never got around to photographing them (there are a few other FOs that have been done for ages but haven't been photographed yet!).

Pattern : Socktopia Olympian socks (Ravelry link - free Ravelry download) by Sheryl Giles

Yarn : (need to look this up!)

Needles : 2,25mm circs

I finished this pair far after the Olymic games were finished. I did one regular pair but wanted to do a knee high pair too. I love knee high socks and this pattern was so easy to adapt. It has calf shaping, but it's forgiving as it's ribbing. I like these socks!

I'm knitting more socks (see sidebar! :D), but I also picked up some old projects. I frogged one, but more about that later. But expect way more socks in the near future!

It's all pink!

2008-10-08T14:30:00.002+02:00

Yes, pink! The main colour of the things I'm mainly working on is pink. Well, right now that is. In an hour I might be working on something else, it all depends.

I started these 2 days ago :

These are the Mystery socks for Socktober designed by Through the Loops. I didn't really know what yarn to use as she said semi-solid, solid or light variegated would be best. I'm still not sure about my choice. This yarn is the KnitPicks Bare sockyarn, which I dyed a very long time ago. I'm amazed with how the colours are showing, and I'm amazed at how the socks turn out on 2,5mm needles! Usually I find the fabric on those needles to airy and for socks I want a firm fabric that will hold up long enough. So I hardly ever use 2,5mm on regular sockyarn.

What you see is clue one. Clue #2 was released today. Of course I'm working on 4 pairs of socks at the time at the moment. I had told myself I wouldn't start the second clue before the weekend, but I already started! :D I need to finish some other socks so I can start some new ones for the October Challenge at the SKA group.

I have not been spinning much but on my spindle. I got it a few weeks ago through Spunky Eclectic. I'm fairly happy with it though it's not easy learning (plus the hook came loose a couple of days ago but I used some superstrong superglue to fix that!).

If I was going to spin on a spindle I wanted one that could spin fine yarns and I'm quite happy with this one! I pack it in my stuff for work and spin a few meters every day between stuff. This is just a test fiber, I need to dive the stash to see what I'll spin next!

Coming December Amy is changing the prices of her fiber club. It will still be quite cheap, though all clubs are expensive for me as I live oversea in most cases and pay huge shipping rates. The dilemma is what to do then. Will I continue to take the sock yarn and one set of fiber every month? I love the sockyarn but it's always variegated and I'm more into knitting solids and semi-solids, or even tonal yarns. Not much into the truly variegated stuff anymore, as it usually clashes with the pattern I want to use. If I drop the sockyarn, I might go for a double dose of fiber as it'll allow me to spin for bigger projects then socks. But I think I'll regret not having the sock yarn. On the other hand, the sockyarn and a double dose of fiber is possible, but probably to expensive to do this monthly. But in January the club closes again and then it won't be easy to change your subscription ( spot has to open before you can get it/change your subscription).

I signed up for the new round of Hello Yarn as well. Man, I seriously need to spin more! :D

As for knitting, the socks are work/commute knitting. At home I'm still knitting pumpkins. I gave myself till this weekend to knit them and then it's done! I need to get some other knitting done and I'm sure I'll have plenty of pumpkins to display! :D I'll post some pictures for the new ones as soon as I can take them!

Autumn is here!

2008-10-03T17:02:00.003+02:00

And I mean inside my house! :D (Outside as well, by the way. It's been very cold and rainy!)

I've been finishing these, and knitting more. I think I'll do another weekend of knitting this kind of stuff and then I'll move on. I love this but there is plenty of other stuff to knit.

Pattern : Miniature felted pumpkin

Yarn : 100% wool handdyed by me, 100% superwash merino in green for the stems

Needles : 6,5mm for the body, 4mm for the stem

2 of these were actually knit and felted (fulled) last year, but I never turned them into pumpkins. The other 2 were done this year and I just finished them all. I like them a lot. I just need to find a way to shape them better when drying. Maybe putting a balloon in them might help. But alas, I hardly ever see perfectly shaped pumpkins, so I like them!

Unfortunately one of the white ones has already been mauled by my pup. She managed to remove the stem before I noticed she had the pumpkin. Need to replace that one. Hopefully she'll stay away from them when they are on my big table.

Pattern : Pumpkins (small one)

Yarn : 100% wool, dyed by me

Needles : 6,5mm for everything

I love how this one came out! To bad it's so much work. So last night I knitted one in the round and I'm going to try felting it. See how it turns out. Knitting one in the round only took me a couple of hours (with tons of interuptions).

And as for the sock knitting, I finished up this one today :

BFF socks, one down, one to go!

I might just leave these at work as I have been having very cold feet all day and I can put these on when it's getting to cold for me! :D

Socktober Start

2008-10-01T11:40:00.002+02:00

I wanted to start here with a picture, but with the busy life I've been having, the gloomy weather and the shorter days there was no opportunity to take the picture. But the good news : Kitty is back at home! I desperately wanted to take a picture of him (and all my other kitties), but he's been back to his usual self going out in the morning and returning around 10pm when it's feeding- and bedtime. So basically I can only take good pictures in the morning but I'm always in a rush to go out ...

He showed back up Monday around noon. He had been gone for more then 2 weeks then. He isn't extremely skinny or bad looking, so I have no idea where he spent the time away. He was extremely cuddly which was so neat.

So thanks for those who thought of him!

But, other news now. The last 2 days I was extremely excited to think that Socktober was starting! I had dedicated September to other knits as socks seems to be my main addiction, but after finding the Sockdown challange at the Sock Knitters Anonymus group over at Ravelry I couldn't keep myself from casting on more socks! The cast ons for the September challange were supposed to be done before the end of September. We have time till the end of October to knit the socks so I figured I could still join and make this a true challange. Knowing that I'm still in the 52 Pair Plunge II as well, more socks are welcome!

This month the themes were Cookie A. or orange, and there's a Mystery Sock to be knit in Orange yarn. Cookie A. wasn't a problem for me, I love her designs (biggest problem was which ones to choose!). I am however not a fan of orange and have no such sock yarn in my stash. The Mystery sock was/is designed by a genious sock knitter so I decided I wanted to knit that one too. So here is what I casted on the last 2 days :

Pattern : BFF by Cookie A.

Yarn : Spunky Speckled sock yarn in Cool Rain, one of the Spunky Club Sock yarns

Needles : 3mm KP circs (I think, I just grabbed them without measuring)

Started : September 29, 2008

Pattern : Hedera by Cookie A.

Yarn : Handdyed Sock Yarn by Hello Yarn (100% superwash Merino) in Blue Mountain

Needles : 2,25mm KP circ

Started : September 30, 2008

I'm not to happy about the yarn but I refuse to restart these. The yarn was pooling horrible again (tried it before with the same result) so I'm now knitting from each end of the ball, changing threads every row. Hope it'll be ok.

Pattern : SKA Orange Mystery by Jeannie Cartmel (Ravelry link)

Yarn : Handdyed by me, 100%superwash sock yarn

Needles : 2mm Addi turbo circ

Started : September 30, 2008

I died this yarn quickly on Monday evening so I could start the socks. They are certainly orange as the boyfriend asked me if I was dyeing yarn for a scarf for a Dutch Soccer fan! :D I'm not a big fan of orange but I need a pair of Christmas socks for my mother and this might be the perfect pair!

The new challange is already starting today so there'll be more socks in my future. I also hope to find time to knit Christmas socks for my family. The BFF pattern was perfect for a male family member but well, I'm knitting them for me. But these are going really fast so time enough to maybe cast on another pair.

I'm so happy to be knitting socks again!

Kitty

2008-09-22T10:30:00.003+02:00

It's not my habit, though I did it before. But I want to ask you all for positive thoughts. One of my kitties has been gone for over a week now. It's not his habit to be away for more then 2 nights, and I'm very scared he won't be coming home anymore. Realistically I know he has been gone for very long now and probably will not return. I'm hoping he found a new home, but it's very possible he is no longer around. I'm also hoping he will still return.

So please, if you have some good thoughts or prayers to safe ... I know it's silly to ask this for a cat and there are better causes, but I hope you understand I care a lot for my creatures and miss this little guy so much!

That being said, I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I went to I knit this month and spent some on yarn, and I recently bought quite a bit at my LYS. There's this big show/craft fair coming up this week which I usually attend. I'm doubting now, as I basically have NO cash to spare. But I can't help but wanting to go, for the athmosphere. Again, even if I decide to spend no money I know I'll buy stuff. Pff, hard time ...

Ps.: I realize now how little pictures I actually have of my kitties ... And now it might be to late ... :(

Some yarn

2008-09-19T10:34:00.002+02:00

There's been little to post about over here. I haven't taken any pictures in a while, so still no socks to show. I also haven't finished much as I've been trying to work on some WIPs before casting on anything new. Problem is I keep switching from one project to another and thus there are no FOs to show over here! But a few projects are making some progress so that's better then nothing.

This has been a bit inspired by the Destash forum on Ravelry (here), as they are knitting down WIPs I think. I'm not sure though, I have a hard time keeping track of the monthly challanges. I think it was also knitting for men, but that's on a low burner right now.

I am at the moment not really working on any socks. This means I'm falling behind on my 52PPII, which I don't like. But, Socktober is coming around (and wether or not they are actually organizing this, I will have a Socktober) so I plan on knitting plenty of socks in that month. Plus I decided that I will make a tradition of knitting everyone a pair of socks for Christmas. Those will probably be fairly easy socks, especially for the men in my family. I know my grandmother will appreciate it too as she used to have a provider of thick ankle socks in my great aunt, but since she died there has been no replacement for the worn out anklets. My grandfather has often cold feet. My mom and sister like to wear there socks in the house during Winter for extra warmth (my mom being on a tight budget likes to save on heat, to the sadness of my sisters!). So I'm fairly sure my socks will be appreciated. Plus I think I'll need some warm socks myself as I seem to get colder every year!

So the plans for the socks are made. There is plenty of other stuff I want to cast on for and a lot of woolen stuff will be needed. We just relocated at work and the new workplace has - till undecided - no heating. Add single windows and cold weather (and no sun in my office) and I'm fairly cold all the time. I crave warm woolen sweaters. I wish I could knit faster!

Anyway, what am I posting about then? Well, I have been doing some spinning a few weeks back. I have the wheel set up but it has been a couple of weeks again since it saw some use. :( I'm just busy.

Here are some spun up things :

Dandy Lion (Spunky Fiber March 2007), 100% Superwash Merino
4oz, approx. 516m of 2ply, thus light fingering

I started spinning this early July I think. I just finished it and was amazed at the yardage I got. I'm still thinking I mismeasured. Might be possible, but it's fairly thing. I'm also quite surprised at how it turned out. I wasn't to happy about the colours in the roving, to bright for my taste. But as always the colours change when you spin the fiber and it might be something I would actually use! But probably just socks, or I might gift this away!

Deep Water (dyed by Hello Yarn, without a name though), 100% BFL

4oz., approx 451m of 2ply, thus fingering weight

I think I wanted to spin a bit to quick on this one and I messed up a little. It's not as fine and as smooth as my regular BFL spins, but I think it'll make a fine sock yarn. I split the roving in half lenghtwise and tried to make this a self striping yarn. We'll see how it turns out when knit up. This might be the next thing I cast on! (I recently had to cast on a pair of Movie socks - to be knit in the cinema - but this yarn wasn't finished yet otherwise it would have been on the needles already).

I am planning on getting some spinning done soon though I don't know yet when I'll find the time as I'm having a very busy weekend ahead.

Oh, and saying I haven't been casting on would be a lie as I did start some autumn/halloween knitting, as in some small and bigger pumpkins and I might try some other felted decorations to add to my home! (low maintainance is needed in my home!). More on those soon!

I Knit 2008

2008-09-08T12:21:00.003+02:00

Excuse me for the long blog silence. It's been chaotic over at my life. Very choatic, very busy, very confusing. Knitting is going on, though not as much as I would like. Winter is around the corner (ok, Autumn) and I'm getting in my element as this is totally my season.

There will be no follow up post on the Ravelympics. Why you ask? Well, I hardly knit a stitch during the Olympics, let alone meat any of the goals I put up for myself! I did knit a pair of socks for the Socktopia Olympics, and started with a pair of knee highs adapted from that pattern which I finished this weekend. Now pictures of these 2 pairs will be shown in the near future as the last pair is not yet photographed.

But, I do have something nice to post about! By accident I came across the I Knit event website. That was little over 2 weeks ago. I was amazed that I had again managed to miss something as big like this. As soon as I read it all I decided I wanted to go. Checking prices for trains and all I decided it was an option. So after some discussion with various people and hearing a lot of pros and cons, I booked my train ticket.

My mission then was to get a ticket which included the Yarn Harlot. Those tickets were long sold out. :( But in the end I managed to buy one from someone who couldn't make it. Happy me!

So Saturday I was extremely nervous and was ready to cancel the whole trip. But I took the train, arrived in London 2 hours early and spent some time exploring London. Didn't see that much.

Then I decided to start going to the event. Start going, as in trying to find it! It took me more then 30 minutes and after asking someone I finally made it, about an hour after the opening. And I was amazed. Lots of friendly people, lots of yarn and fiber. I loved it. Walked around, exploring the boots. Waited to long to buy some stuff so I didn't get some things, but I did get plenty of other stuff!

Then in between all the shopping I saw this nice lady :

It was so great to hear her speak, and being able to knit during the whole thing without being looked at like I was totally nuts. I met her afterwards and she signed my book but I was to shy to ask her for a picture or anything special. Maybe another time ...

There was this one amazing boot (sp?) at the event where I saw these :

These were shawls/stoles knit and crocheted at an amazingly fine gauge! I think they were made with some kind of sewing thread or very fine laceweight. Me being obsessed with fine gauge I loved these and will keep them as a goal I want to reach some day! Of course, the first thing I thought was "well, ok for the crochet, but I don't see myself sewing them all together!" :D

And then, the haul! I had told myself - even though I'm trying to stash bust this year - that I was allowed to buy what I wanted as this was a one time opportunity to feel and touch certain yarns. Well, I did manage to spend quite a bit of money!

Sock Yarn - the goal was to buy mostly nearly solids and I think I managed quite ok. Also bought 3 skeins of sock yarn to dye myself (to try the yarn for maybe dyeing to sell)

Oh, one of these skeins is Wollmeise which I bought together with a Yarnissima pattern!

Yarn - mostly what I could call luxury. 3 of these are Manos (one silk blend), the other 2 are Cashmere and Camel!

Fiber - As I'm on a spinning kick I wanted more fiber. I was extremely please to see the batts on the stand. I wanted to take them all home but managed to leave with only 4 batts.

I also bought 400 grams of a merino/silk blend to dye myself.

Yes, quite a bit of money was spend, but in the end the stash isn't that much bigger. It was a great even and though I missed a few things (I had told myself I could buy Noro sock and Silk Garden Lite, and Cascade 220 for felting) I was quite happy with the overal.

In the end I had to run to catch my train and was quite happy to be on my way home again. I am always so nervous at these events! And I was exhausted, but that's ok!

Next event is a local craft fair I always enjoy going to at the end of September. There aren't many yarn stands so it'll be mostly other stuff!

I have set myself a few goals for the immidiate future. First I want to finish a few sweaters I've been having on the needles for ages! I want to be able to cast on for a few new sweaters as I have a ton of big quantity yarns in my stash meant for sweaters. I could use some motivation though as I seem to have an issue completing sweaters!

I'm in a finished mood in general so I might finish a few more things. That's a good thing! I als want to get started on my Christmas gifts for this year (I think I'll keep the tradition of knitting everyone socks for Christmas!). And I want to other creative things beside knitting! Again, days twice as long would be very welcome! :D

Back with some FOs soon!

Knitting olympics, or Ravelympics

2008-08-11T14:03:00.002+02:00

Well, that's what I want to talk about, but as I do this post will greatly lack pictures so I decided to start with an FO so you have something to look at.

This yarn was finished quite some time ago, but I never got around to photographing it.

Yarn : 100% South African Fine, from Spunky Eclectic

Colourway : Think Spring (Club Colour February 2008)

2ply, 360m to 4oz (fingering weight)

I liked spinning this yarn but I especially liked how it fluffed up after the washing! Though I wasn't sure about the colours I love how they muted while spinning. All in all a good yarn!

On the wheel right now (well, on the Louët S45, on the Victoria it's still the blend I started in France) is this :

(The pink shining through is the basket, there is no pink in the fiber)

This is superwash Merino, again from the Spunky Eclectic fiber club. It's been on the wheel since the start of July. I had hoped to finish it before leaving for France but I never did. I spun a little this week but only a few yards. I hope to finish it soon. Plus I hope this turns out more muted then the fiber was!

Reason I want to finish this yarn is that I want to start spinning my Ravelympics Fiber. Ravelympics is actually just the Summer Knitting Olympics, but then on Ravelry. I wasn't sure about participating and now that I did I think I gave myself to many goals. But I'll try to get there.

The fiber is one of the first goals. I want to spin up some fiber in a sock weight and then actually knit socks out of it. Well, hopefully that is. If the fiber turns out to great I might knit it up into something different. Though my main goal for spinning is sock knitting, lately I've noticed that I don't want to knit the nice yarns I spun into socks but rather something that's more in view, and something that gets less wear. Though I still adore socks. Anyway, I have 2 possible fibers selected, both BFL as that's my fave at the moment! :D

Then I joined the Wip Wrestlers, as I'm into finishing right now. The idea would be to finish up 2 WIPs :

On the left is my Icarus shawl, which has a tiny more progress then shown, but not much. It was casted on not to long ago. On the right is Raspy, just casted on for the sleeves (front and back done). This has been on the needles forever and I really want to finish it!

I hope to at least finish Raspy, the shawl might be a bit much, but we'll see!

One more thing I wanted to do during the Ravelympics was knit a pair of knee high striped socks in a DK weight yarn. Well, DK or Worsted, I have a hard time keeping those apart. I have had those in mind forever so I want to get them started. Plus I need to keep up with the 52 Pair Plunge!

What I had totally forgotten about was that I signed up for the Olympic sock challenge of Socktopia. So that one is on the needles right now, hope to finish it soon!

The negative side is of course that I won't have much knitting time the coming weeks. This week I'm still at work but starting next week I'm giving riding camp at the riding school. And I know from experience I'm not much at home then!

Ok, off to do some work now ...

Embroidery

2008-08-06T09:14:00.002+02:00

Remember my plan, back at the beginning of the year, to knit a pair of wristwarmers for each theme of project spectrum, and embroider them? I added knitting matching gloves and maybe a pair of embroidered knee high socks.

Well, I finally finished that first pair of knee highs, and we are now at the last them of Project Spectrum (Water). It has taken me ages to knit them. I have no pictures to show, at the moment it's just a pair of black stockings. Not my favourites either. I had issues with the toes, I changed needles after the heel and that's quite obvious and there are too many stitches around the ankle. so in all, no my best knitted socks. But they are done, and as they are black and need embroidery, the faults will not be to obvious.

So, embroidery. I know cross stitch and I can do some basic handsewing, but I never did embroidery. I bought a French booklet while on holiday about embroidery and the different stitches. I watched some videos on YouTube. But apart from that I have no experience. And I do know it's harder on knitted fabric.

Knowing my own high standards, I decided to embroider something as a test. I needed a phone cover for my new cell phone, as it's already damaged due to being put about everywhere. I usually buy plastic covers for the cell phones I owe, but it wouldn't be ideal with this one. So knitting to the rescue.

I started it yesterday and finished it in no time (yes, I still have nothing to do at work, I'm luckily allowed to take tomorrow off, as I had no therapy planned at all and I'm sick of inventing therapeutic material!). It's a simple black pouch knitted out of Regia 4ply on 2mm needles. Cast on 44 stitches, 10 rows of 2x2 ribbing and further in stocking stitch. At the end I decreased (sp?) 4 stitches twice, as my phone has a round shape at the bottom. The pouch is a bit longer then I initially intended but it's ok as this way my phone is less likely going to fall out. Oh, and I did kitchener stitch on the bottom.

That being done I took my DMC thread and started some free form. I don't have any kind of chalk to draw on the fabric, so it's just testing. Here is the result :

I wanted to do the swirls as I have an addiction to them, plus I think they are perfect to present the Water them of PS3. The yarn is variegated DMC, makes it easier! :D

It wasn't easy as I couldn't really put my hand in the pouch, and there's no easy way to seperate the fabric. Plus I wanted it really fine and - if possible - detailed. So I had high hopes again.

As you can see in the close-up there are quite a few mistakes and it's not so great. But it's ok for my first time. I think I'll do the stockings next. I have quite a few ideas for other embroidered stuff, but I need to knit them up first. And well, there'll be more stockings in the future, there is plenty of time to improve!

On track

2008-07-31T14:36:00.002+02:00

I'm at work, counting down till I can go home. I have one more therapy session and then I'm off. It has been extremely boring here at work, with very little hours of therapy every day and nothing else to do. Next week I have no therapy planned at all on Thursday. I asked my boss if I could take that day off, as I don't see the use of coming into work to do nothing. He suggested to bring along my knitting and a book. I told him I already did that! But I would prefer to sit at home to knit.

It's also extremely hot over here. Humid too, there'll be some great thunderstorms tonight (yay!). But then it'll be cloudy and cold over the weekend. :(

Anyway, I'm right on track with my sock knitting. In France I finished pairs 9, 10 and 11 for the 52 Pair Plunge II. Let's see :

Pattern : Swirl socks

Yarn : Hello Yarn Fat Sock (100% superwash merino), Electra

Needles : 2,75 for the foot, 3mm for the leg

Modifications : They were toe-up, so I kept knitting till I ran out of yarn, adding shaping as I went up. They are almost knee high!

I loved knitting these and I already have a next pair in the plans! I can't wait for the weather to be cold enough to wear these.

Pattern : Flutter-by Socks (available as a free Ravelry download here)

Yarn : Spunky Eclectic Club sock yarn (100% superwash merino)

Needles : 2mm

These are a bit tight, but I hope that'll change a bit after the first washing. I didn't like the pattern as much as I thought I would and so I decided not to continue it on the foot. It does however suit the yarn nicely!

Pattern : Carolina socks (only available as a free Ravelry download at the moment)

Yarn : Regia 4ply Africa colour

Needles : 2,5mm for the leg, 2,25mm for the foot

Very nice and quick socks!! I like ripple patterns a lot, they are quick and perfect to give some interest to selfstriping sock yarn!

Those done, I'm now knitting a pair of Tiit socks, from Nancy Bush. They'll take me quite some time, and I want to knit on some other patterns. But I'm on track, if I finish up one more pair of socks I'm good till the end of August! But I'm into sock knitting, so I'm sure more socks will follow! :D

Tour De Fleece wrap up

2008-07-29T09:44:00.002+02:00

I never had the time to post here to let you all know I would be on a holiday for 2 weeks. It was crazy busy with work and packing before leaving on a 2 weeks trip to the South of France. But I'm back now, with a few posts to make! :D It was a good holiday fiber-wise.

Because the Tour De Fleece ended last Sunday I'm going to start off with an update on it. I didn't get much spinning done before leaving on holiday (to busy), but I did get quite a bit done while in France. It was great to sit in our little garden in the shadow, to spin. I miss such a garden at home.

Anyway, I took a bunch of fiber and got about half of it spun up, which is quite a good thing if you ask me! Here you go :

From left to right, top to bottom :
- Good morning (Spunky Eclectic fiber club), 100% Shetland, about 340m (I think) to 4oz
- Art yarn (my own handdyed), wool with sparkly thread, about 70m (don’t know the weight but less then 2oz)
- Walkabout (Spunky Eclectic fiber club), 100% wool, about 340m to 4oz
- Maple (Hello Yarn), 100% BFL, about 480m to 4oz

My goals were simple : to spin a decent fingering weight yarn (or even a laceweight) and to spin some art yarn. Guess I made them both! I spun 2 sock yarns, maybe somewhat heavy fingering weight. And one heavy laceweight! I'm so excited about the BFL. It'll sure become something else then socks. I really don't want to hide this yarn in my shoes! :D Basically I'm totally in love with BFL as up till now I've gotten my best results with this yarn!

Then the art yarn. I ordered Intertwined by Pluckyfluff just before I left and I loved going through it, getting inspired. Unfortunately I'm very limited in spinning art yarns with the wheels I owe right now, so the goal is to save up money for a better wheel (I'm in love with the Majacraft Rose wheel!). But I did manage to spin one art yarn. From some handdyed pink wool which I spun as a thick 'n thin single, and then plied it around a metalic silver thread. I'm so in love with this yarn! Not yet sure what to do with it though, we'll see.

I have one more bobbin of singles spun, from this :

I carded these batts just before leaving, inspired by all the batts I saw spun up at the Tour De Fleece group (Ravelry link). So I carded 2 shades of merino wool (purple and black), grey alpaca and then some flitter and fake cashmere. I had a little under 150gr. I already spun up one bobbin, need to spin the other one and then ply.

Of course the big question is when I'll get around to this. Seems like my spinning time will be again limited. :( We'll see.

Things aren't going so well for me though and I have to say I've reached one of my lowest points at the moment. My personal situation is still not clear, my work is bothering me and to top it all off I am loosing my drivers licence for a month. I knew this was coming, but I thought I would have more of a warning. So the visit of the cop yesterday and the message that I have to hand in my licence on Friday and won't be able to drive a car in a month hit me very hard. It's stupid to be so down about this all, it's nothing and people are dealing with far worse things then this. But it's just all a bit to much for me at the moment. And honestly? At this point I just miss a friend to talk to, someone I can call and just cry a bit ...

But, I'll try to keep it all away from my blog. And Lisa, I will be writing you soon!

And the knitting continues ...

2008-07-08T15:09:00.002+02:00

Even with the chaos in my life - and my mind - I seem to keep on knitting. For those keeping track, no improvement. Or at least not much. Well, most of it is my fault, I'm totally stuck. I'm torn between thoughts. And unfortunately I'm having issues with some "friends" as well which is not doing me much good either. Pff, life can be difficult at times, though I probably have little to complain about!

Anyway, I'm knitting. Mostly socks, still. I'm really on a roll here and I don't want to quit now! :D Shawls are tempting me, but nothing else. So socks it is. I have quite a few more pairs to add.

First off, a pair of adult socks :

Pattern : Sea Monkeys, or No Purl Monkeys, based on the famous Monkey pattern by Cookie A.

Yarn : Regia Silk 4ply in a blue/grey colour

Needles : 2,5mm for the leg, 2,25mm for the foot

Started : June 19, 2008

Finished : June 30, 2008

These also fit into Project Spectrum, as the theme is Air and grey is one of the colours. I should have gone down a needle size both on the leg and the foot, but they are ok. Very soft! :D

I finished a pair of striped anklets, but I don't have pictures of those yet. I'll add them as soon as I have taken the pictures.

I have been obsessed a little by baby socks. They are quick, use up scraps of sock yarn and they count for the 52PP! Now there is no baby in the near future to recieve these so they are stored in a box for now.

On the left baby monkeys, and on the right fake argyle socks. The last are of my own design! :D (Ravelry links)

And the projects on the needles right now?

Crocheted flower scarf in cashmere

Flutter-by socks

Icarus shawl

Of course there are a ton more projects on the needles, but these are the ones I'm carrying with me today to work. Plus of course the scrap yarn for the baby socks. Work has been more then slow, and I'm totally bored. Thank god for my computer and my knitting! :D

As for spinning, I decided the join one more KAL, even though I was a bit late :

My goals are quite simple. Spin fine yarn, in the hope to get a decent fingering weight yarn, if possible a 3ply. Try spinning an art yarn. This all will have to happen on my Victoria wheel because that's the one I'm taking with me when I leave for France on Friday. And of course spin from stash.

I was going to take the wheel with me anyway, so I figured I could join! The days I'm at home I'll be seeing the Tour anyway as Bf follows it, plus we might go watch live one or two days as it's passing really close to us.

So, After my holiday I'll be showing of some spinning! I hope to post one more time before I leave. Otherwise it'll be when I get back (unless I get Internet access somewhere in France!).

Knitting socks, and more socks!

2008-06-20T10:23:00.003+02:00

Last year I joined the 52 Pair Plunge, but I got discouraged half way through and didn't pay much attention to it. Thanks to some last minute Christmas knitting I managed to get about halfway. I had put myself some limitation that made it hard for me to get to the total amount.

This time I decided to join again, but be less strickt. I'm allowing myself to knit a few pairs of baby socks, and I know there'll be quite a few sport weight socks, maybe even thicker. I might not get to 52 pairs, but I hope to knit more then the last round.

Anyway, as I'm in the mood to knit socks these days I decided to get a bit ahead if possible. So here are the socks I already knit :

1. Grandpa's birthday socks,

2. Grandmas socks,

3. Southwestern socks,

4. Baby monkeys

More information about each pair at Flickr. As you can see, 2 DK weight pairs, one sports weight pair and a baby pair. I still think I'm not cheating! :D

I have some regular socks on the needles, like the Herring socks (Ravelry link). They were started at the end of the previous theme of Project spectrum, but I never made it far. Though I'm usually a big fan of colourwork I somehow do not enjoy knitting these socks. I think it might be the yarn which feels quite weird. But I have to get used to it as there's plenty more in my stash! :D

I'm also resisting the temptation to start more socks. I might start a pair of No Purl Monkeys (again Ravelry link), and I'm working on some more baby socks in the Monkey pattern, just as a way of experimenting.

So yes, it's mostly socks around here! Though I also would love to start a few new projects that are no socks, or even finish up some WIPs (again, no socks). But as the mood for sock knitting is here I'm just going to keep going for a while, till I'm bored! :D

Long time ...

2008-06-17T10:32:00.002+02:00

It's been what? Six weeks? Maybe more? Yes, a while. I've been around the Internet, I've been knitting and I've been busy, but I didn't feel like posting.

First of all, thank you for the support as for my previous post. I'm still very confused and am not very further then I was a few weeks ago. Some days are good, some are really bad. It's hard to get a clear picture, to make decissions about my future. I will have to, but it's still to chaotic. At the moment I'm in a bad period where I want to cry more then laugh. Adding that Summer is starting and it's just not my favourite period. I hate the irregularity of Summer, when the holidays start for the kids. I hate the long evenings and the weather that doesn't make up it's mind. It creates more chaos then usual for me and I just don't like it. But I'm still around, no worries!

Little over 2 weeks ago I broke my big toe of my right foot in a little accident with some horses. As a result I was home from work for - originally - 4 weeks. Now, about a week after the accident I was full speed again and couldn't sit still, so yesterday - 2 weeks after the accident - I started working again and I'm doing well. I have a high pain barrier and feel little. You should have expected me to get a lot of stuff done these past 2 weeks, but hmm, didn't happen! :D That's just me.

But wait, you came here for the fiber content, right? Or at least something creative? Let's see, where to start.

First there's the cashmere scarf I finished a few weeks back. I'm on a scarf binge, want to have tons on the needles. But after finishing this one I didn't cast one on as I'm determined to get a few other projects done!

It's the Leaf Lace Pattern (Ravelry link) and I knitted it out of some Posh cashmere in the colourway Evergreen, which I found was perfect for the then ongoing theme of Project Spectrum, Earth. Green normally isn't my colour, but I was amazed with the amount of green yarn and fiber I still had in my stash. Most of it I got through fiber club memberships. I won't buy green that easily unless it's moss green.

In the same period I decided I wanted to spin up some earth themed fiber. I had quite a bit around to spin up but this is all I got done :

This is fiber from the Hello Yarn fiber club. It was from January 2008, which is quite recent (have a lot of "older" fiber in my stash!). It's a merino/mohair blend, 4oz spun at about fingering weight yarn, about 460 yards. It might become socks ...

I spun up some more fiber but I haven't taken pictures yet. Maybe later today, the weather is quite good!

As for spinning, I'm on a roll now and like spinning a lot. But time is the big issue here. Now we are on another theme of PS3, Air. I love the theme, but it's hard to find appropriate colours in my fiber stash. I don't like yellow and luckily there isn't much of that colour in the stash. And grey and white, well, I do have some of that (plenty even) but I'm not in the mood to spin solids. So we'll see what I find! Air does come in more colours if you ask me! :D Luckily PS3 isn't really limiting the colours.

I have been liking PS3 quite a bit as it's been forcing me to use some colours I usually would ignore! Well, force, it's not that bad, but still. It does make you explore other colours and that's really good for me!

I joined the 52 Pair Plunge again! :D I think I got about halfway the last round, so I'm hoping for a bit more this time around. I already have a few socks knitted, but I'll keep them for a next post so I'll be around again sooner!

Hope you are all enjoying Summer, or Winter if you are at the other side of the world, and happy knitting!

Spinning and Lace

2008-04-27T18:17:00.003+02:00

It has been a long time. I'm dealing with quite a few emotional things, related to my relationship and life in general. I will need to make some decissions in the future and I'm scared and insecure. I do know I want to be happy and I'm not that happy at the moment. But I will get there. I just need time.

I have been knitting and spinning. I just started spinning again and I'm loving it. By doing it more I'm getting better results and that makes me quite happy. So lets show of the spinning first :

Tulips colourway from Way Back, from the Spunky Club. There was no note in the yarn, but I think it was BFL. It was 4oz. Of course I also lost the note on which I wrote the yardage. This was still on the wheel (started for Project Spectrum Fire) and I decided to try Navajo Plying it. Turned out quite ok. I think it's sport weight. And not overplied, like my first try at Navajo Plying. It actually looks quite ok! :D

The 2 skeins are very different. I have no clue yet what I'll knit with this. Not socks. Maybe a scarf of some type. We'll see. At the moment I'm just spinning, with no idea for knitting!

In honor of Project Spectrum Earth, and because I feel like spinning again, I dug through the fiber stash and selected all the green/brown colourways. This was the first one I spun up :

It's the Cricket Colourway from Hello Yarn Fiber Club, from May 2007. It's 100%BFL, 5oz spun as a 2ply. It's 542m, so that's a fine fingering weight! I'm quite happy with it! I do know that the more I spin the better the end result gets. So I should spin more. Oh, and I love BFL! :D

I also have been knitting, but I don't seem to finish that much. I have been knitting on various things, but I seem to be into scarfs and lace again these days. So I managed to finish up this :

It's the Feather Lace Scarf in a blue mohair from my LYS, knit on 4mm needles. It was started long time ago, and finished on April 25, 2008. I used about 50gr of yarn, don't know the yardage.

It blocked out to be 25cm wide and 220cm long, which is quite a nice scarf! The pattern was very simple (a 4 row repeat) and though I lost interest in it for a while it did go pretty fast. I'm just going to keep this one!

I don't know if there's anyone reading my blog who's into crochet, but I was wondering if anyone knew this pattern, or can figure it out. (it's a Ravelry link). I've been trying to contact the knitter, but got no reply. I would love to knit it. I know some crochet, but not enough to figure this one out (and I have been trying!). I can't figure out how to conect the flowers without breaking the yarn.

A busy Easter holiday

2008-03-31T12:57:00.004+02:00

I have had such a busy week, I don't know where time went! I had very little time - or energy - to knit, so I can't show any FOs. :( The first part of Project Spectrum is on his last day and I still have a ton of projects to finish. I'm of course eager to start the new colours and new projects, but I will try to finish some Fire projects first.

The Easter weekend we went to Germany with the dogs, and this is how we spent our time :

Ok, maybe not really, maybe it was more like this :

We went walking both days, morning and evening. It was tiring, but I felt quite ok. My hips hurt like hell by the end of the second day as I'm not used to walking, and surely not in the mountains. Well, hills, sorry. But it does give you quite some energy and the fresh air did us all some good!

The dogs were off the leash most of the time, hence the first picture. Letting Esna off is no problem at all, but Aife was a bit of a guess. The first evening - we arrived late Friday night as the weather of course had to turn horrible that evening, for the first time we had snow this Winter and it had to be the evening we were leaving for Germany! - we lost her in the dark woods. Stupid thing to let her off the leash, it's all so new and exciting for her! She returned after about 10 minutes, but I should have known it was a forebode!

On Sunday we were walking up a mountain through some cut woods, going towards a small open space in between the trees. The dogs were quite a bit ahead of us but that was usually the case when there was open space in front. All at once I saw something running (I first thought it was a rabbit, but it was quite big for a rabbit!) and of course our dogs went chasing it. Esna stopped quite soon, but Aife dissapeared in the woods, chasing a deer!!! I panicked. And well, for good reasons. We kept shouting for 20 minutes before she finally returned. By then I was in tears and totally upset, thinking I had lost her. At dog school they learn us that when you keep talking/shouting to a dog they have no reason to return to see you as they can hear you. But I was to scared to stop shouting, thinking she would wander off and we would loose her. I think the shouting was the reason she was away for so long, but at least she returned! Later on the walk another deer crossed out path right in front of us, and she was going to chase her again. But I yelled "Stop" so hard and quick she just stopped. Me thinks she's learning she can't go off like that. It's all so new to her.

All in all it was a nice time for us all, though we were all exhausted by the time we returned on Monday morning.

There was some knitting in Germany, but not much. Most was done in the car, but evidence of that later! I spent the last week teaching a horse riding camp at the riding school and I was exhausted every day. And here is some proof one should not knit when so exhausted, not even something as simple as a sock!

See the problem? I know it's a lousy picture and a black sock, but just look at the heel and the toe. See it now? One would think this is my first sock. Well, it's not, and it's not my first toe-up either. But I did manage to knit the heel the wrong way! And I didn't even notice when putting the sock on a couple of times to fit it! I only noticed yesterday when trying to flatten it!

These socks are supposed to become the embroidered knee highs for the PS3 Fire. I knitted the foot on 2mm and then changed to 2,5mm for the leg (I like the fabric of 2mm for the foot - better wear - but I want the leg to go faster so I'm using 2,5mm for those). I'm doing them toe up for no good reason, I should have done them the regular way, top down, as I can shape my leg just as well that way. But hey, live and learn. The idea was to generate a general way of knitting so I can create more of these, first for PS, then for other socks. I was going to take good notes so I could reproduce easily.

Anyway, I don't like the toes of toe-up socks, I prefer a round toe. So this morning I arrived at work and had some spare time, so this is what I did :

I picked up the stitches right under the toe. I wasn't planning on ripping the whole sock, so this seemed the best solution. I unravelled the sock from the top, but after a while, and breaking the yarn twice, I decided to just cut the whole toe off and throw the yarn away. It's not like I don't have enough sock yarn.

Sock ready to get a new toe, a regular round toe top down! :D And tada :

A perfect round toe! Me likes this way better!

Now the sock is far from perfect, but these are experimental in many ways so it's ok. The problem is that the sock is way to wide around the ankle. I should have knit a bit more before changing needles. 68 stitches on 2mm needles is perfect for my foot (I think I could even do with 64 depending on how stressed I am) but it's to wide on 2,5mm needles for my ankle. I'll see if the embroidery pulls it in. Need to knit the second sock similer (though I might do it top down, nobody will notice that), but from then on I'm knitting top down.

I should find a good recipy to knit my socks toe up because I often want to knit till I run out of yarn. I've tried doing the round toe toe-up and it's possible, even very similar to the top-down version. But you have to figure out your numbers better before knitting, as it's not like you can increase till you are at the right number. Maybe I should take some time to sit down and knit a pair of socks with a notebook. But preferable with more energy!

So, soon there should be a pair of socks to show (this is only the first sock, but it should go faster from here). I still need to embroider the fingerless mitts and I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish the gloves any time soon. I want to do it to complete my project. I have some DK weight wool dyed up in fire colours so I might use that instead of sock weight yarn (the original idea) as I don't see myself knitting up a pair of gloves in sockweight yarn, plus all the stuff I want to do for the next round of PS3!

Now I really need to get some work done!

Fire socks

2008-03-21T09:44:00.002+01:00

And the knitting slowly continues. Through all the hardship. I'm having a very rough (sp?) time at the moment at home with some very hard decissions to make in the near future. I don't want to bother you with it all, but it might influence my blogging quite a bit. Not that I'm such a big blogger anyway. But still, it might be a bit difficult for me to sit down and write here. I'm still at Ravelry, trying to keep my project page updated, for those also on there!

But, the knitting. Last weekend I washed all my handknit socks and had to put them all in the drawer next to my bed. I came to the conclusion they no longer all fit in there! :D Means I have quite a bit of socks! Also means I have a small drawer, really. But I will have to look for a bigger drawer/closet to store the handknit socks!

So the pair added are my Fire socks. I was a bit obsessed with finishing a few socks in self striping yarn and because I didn't want to do plain knitted ones (they bore me a bit) I decided to go for ripples. And though I'm not about repeating to many patterns I already did (there are to many nice patterns out there I want to knit) I decided to do another pair of Jaywalkers.

Pattern : Jaywalkers

Yarn : Regia 4-Ply, Kaffe Fassett, Landscape Fire (a bit less then 2 skeins)

Needles : 2,5mm for the upper part of the leg, 2,25mm for the lower part and the foot

Started : February 15, 2008
Finished : March 19, 2008

I knitted these 2 at the same time using the Magic loop method. Somehow I don't really like this method. I don't often suffer from second sock syndrome, for me the second sock is usually faster and easier to knit. I used this method before and I just didn't like it. But it's easier to knit 2 socks exactly the same, like changing needles at the same time. I often don't take enough notes and end up not being able to reproduce a copy of my first sock. So even though I'm not a fan of this method I might do it again in the future!

So what's on the needles now? Well, a few sweaters, socks, scarfs. A baby knit that should have been finished ages ago but as I hate the yarn (some cotton/acrylic blend) I hate knitting it. Some active, some hibernating. The urge to cast on new stuff is not as big as usual and I'm pretty committed to the projects I start now. So that's ok. It's harder to dig up the older projects though!

Well, we are leaving on a little holiday over the weekend. Just 2 days, leaving tonight and returning on Monday morning. To Germany, small mountains and hopefully some snow (will be the only snow I'll have seen this Winter, if there is any, how pathetic is that?). With the dogs, so I'm planning lots of walking and hiking, and nothing much more. Knitting a bit too, of course, but with the current circumstances at home I'm even afraid to take yarn with me. :( Oh well. We'll see.

Have a happy Easter all!

I'm still here!

2008-03-10T21:42:00.003+01:00

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted! Oops! But I have been knitting, so let's just jump to that! :D (I have been ill again as well, seems like I'm not getting rid of it this Winter, pff!)

First off, I knitted 2 scarfs in very short periods of time. One I don't have pictures of. My sister asked for a scarf for a friend about a week in advance. Didn't need to be anything special as she apparently only gets stupid stuff from the friend. So I took some white superwash wool and knitted a quick small scarf. Didn't like it that much in the end, but it's gifted and well, wasn't to badly recieved!

Then, the second one I knit up was in PS3 colours, lots of red! :D

Pattern : My So Called Scarf
Yarn : Thick 'n Thin wool from a cone, 200gr
Needles : 8mm I think
Started/Finished : March 2nd till March 9th

Quick, nice knit and the scarf is a lot longer then I had planned! But I just kept knitting till I ran out of yarn. I still need to measure it, but it's long!! :D

Slightly shows the texture, but I need better pictures. I do like how it turned out (most of these are knit out of a very regular yarn).

Then I also spend a lot of time knitting some easter decorations! And i loved it! Here ya go :

I'm now officially labelled totally crazy by my family. But I like these!

Pattern : Knitted Easter Eggs by Little Cotton Rabbits

Yarn : various sock yarns, left overs!

Needles : 2.5mm

I used polystyrene eggs as the "filling". I might knit a few more as I dyed up some yellow and green yarn to get some more done. My socks yarns are very limited in colours, or at least the solids are ! Again I need some better pictures but I didn't want to go any longer without blogging so I took them rather quicky in the morning light.

Last week I went to a handwork fair and brought home some yarn that's a bit out of my comfort zone. I wanted a warm brown, but didn't find it (mind you, there were only 2 interesting yarn booths at the fair!). With PS3 in mind I decided to go for some dark red/orange yarn. I think I'll like it! Well, I do, but I'm curious how it'll knit up!

It's Highland Tweed from Klaziens Kreatie (Dutch store). I'm swatching and I think it'll become the Bluebell sweater from Fitted Knits by Stephanie Japel (Ravelry link). Rather difficult decission as I like many sweaters from this book, but I need to start somewhere!

There's more to write about, but it's late and I want to knit a little more before I go to bed! Happy knitting!

Ps.: Someone reminded me my blogs anniversary is coming up. Didn't even notice it last year, so I'll try to remember this year!

In love!

2008-02-24T22:02:00.003+01:00

I'm totally in love with my newest FO! It was on my to-do list for the longest time, but never got around to it. I even dyed the yarn for it ages ago. But, my bike ride to the train station last week made me motivated again to pick it up! I always have cold ears when I ride my bike and somehow I never manage to knit my hats long enough. Due to the cold ears I get a major headache and honestly, that's not a nice way to start the day. So here you go :

Pattern : Calorimetry

Yarn: Annell St Vith, handdyed by me

Needles : 4mm

Started : Februari 22, 2008

Finished : Februari 24, 2008

When I first dyed the yarn the idea was to hold it together with a black yarn to get a thicker yarn. So I started on 5mm needles, adding black sock yarn. I soon saw it was going to be huge. So on Friday evening I ripped, and started over. With the handdyed yarn only, and on 4mm needles. Really scared I wouldn't make it with the yardage. I hardly knit on it on Saturday, so most of the knitting was done today. I cast off with my regular method, but didn't like it at all. So, ripped back and did a sewn bind of. Perfect! Only had about a meter to spare!

I found a vintage button, sewed it on and went out into the sunshine to take some pictures. I love it! I love the colour, I love how the fabric turned out on 4mm needles, I love the fit! I'm also planning a few more of these ! :D I'm so sure I'll use it a lot. And well, I might knit a few as gifts. They are so easy and fun!

And unfortunately, that's all I have to show. It's going to be a rather dissapointing month. I didn't make my goals for the Stash Knit down 2008 and there's no time left to get there. But hey, I just keep knitting!

PS. : My hair was cut and coloured last Thursday and it looks so neat with the band!

Valentine Red

2008-02-14T17:08:00.002+01:00

I'm not doing much about the Valentine thing. I used to do it when we first started dating, but now not anymore. Doesn't matter all that much. But I accidentally have some red to post here! More in the thought of Project Spectrum, but hey!

One of the things Project Spectrum stimulates for me is looking for the colours around me. February and March are Fire themed and thus I'm looking constantly for red, orange and pink. I'm not big into red and not at all into orange. I do like deep reds and pink (not bright), but again, little of that colour around me. Plus it's grey and dark here, especially today. But here ya go :

Cooked Cranberries

Red Tulips

At the end of January I had no socks on the needles (except for some hibernating ones) and I needed an easy pair to take with my on the train. I wanted to use up some of my self striping yarn and I wanted a ripple pattern. I took me ages to decide, and lots of time on Ravelry, and in the end went with the Broadripple socks from Knitty. They went quite fast and I finished them yesterday, and totally by coincidence they also match the PS3 colours!

Pattern : Broadripple

Yarn : Regia Canada Colours

Needles : 2mm KnitPicks circular

Started/Finished : January 29th till February 14th 2008

Modifications : I did an afterthought heel which I modified a bit to look more like a regular short row heel then a toe! And I did my regular Dutch toe. That's it! :D Oh, and I did the small gauge size, which means you cast on 70 stitches.

Then there's some yarn in the perfect PS3 colours just waiting to be knit into a scarf. When I have the time for it ...

And last I leave you with my dears. Last week and weekend was great and I took the dogs for a walk on Friday as I was home from work. I tried taking some pictures of them together but I couldn't, so I have one of each! Aife will be turning one on March 1st. She's huge, way bigger then her mom. She's also a sweety, though still very full of energy! Esna on the other hand is starting to be a very cuddly dog who prefers a quiet night on the couch above running outside and digging for rats!

Project Spectrum

2008-02-04T12:41:00.000+01:00

I participated last year in project Spectrum, or at least I wanted to participate but didn't get as much done as I wanted. So trying again this year, with big plans. We'll see how far I get.

Lolly has come with the brilliant idea to make Project Spectrum all about the elements this year.

I joined the ATC swap she is hosting. I haven't done much paper/collage stuff the last few months (years?) but I miss it and keep planning to get started again. I'm sure I'll make it one day. So more about that when I get my ass in gear! :D

Then I was thinking what I would do about the knitting this year. Last year I tried designing a pair of socks - fair isle - for every batch of colours. Though I got them all planned I only managed to knit one pair of socks, or well, finish (though I'm doubting now, I should have done something with purple as well and I don't remember?). I hope to still finish the other socks one day, but I don't know when. There are faults in every one of them and I don't know if I really want to finish them.

Anyway, this year. I was thinking it over, maybe fair isle design this year would be nice as well. But then I got this idea that's a bit different. I'm planning on giving it a try! :D

The plan is to knit a pair of knee highs for every element. I will most likely knit them black, though they might be white as well. For sure the first pair will be black. Then I will embroider according to the elements on them, a bit in the idea of the famous vogue socks (in my someday queue to make, but as I say, someday!). The problem? I don't know how to do embroidered socks, or anything at all! So it's quite a challenge here!

As my thoughts went to not knowing how to embroider the idea grew to try embroidery on something else first. I have been wanting to do it for ages (on felted hats and bags) but never got around to it. So, something small that wouldn't take to much time to knit. Well, fingerless mitts! I girl can never have enough of those, right? Quick knit, small thing and a try-out for embroidering.

Then my thoughts went on, and well, what about a pair of embroidered socks and mitts every element? And maybe a pair of gloves to wair with the fingerless mitts? I will have a lot of bike time in my future and even during Summer the mornings can be quite cold out here!

So that's the plan. A pair of stockings in black or white with embroidery. A pair of mitts (black) with embroidery. A pair of gloves (in the colours of the element, preferable variegated).

Now first I thought about dyeing the yarn for the gloves, but over the weekend I started putting some yarn in Ravelry. The outcome was very scary. I started with the sock yarn, and got about 1/3 in there. It's a total of more then 56000 yards! That's quite a bit if you ask me. And knowing my sock yarn is about 1/4th of my total yarn stash, and then there's still the fiber stash, I'm quite depressed right now (don't worry, this passes quite soon! :D).

Anyway, there is some sock yarn in my stash that'll do for the gloves, or even heavier yarn (DK weight or so). So no new yarn to dye or buy. And there's plenty of black and white sock yarn. Only the embroidery thread I'll have to buy.

Whish me luck! :D

Taking pictures

2008-02-01T17:09:00.000+01:00

I think I mentionned here before that I'm not good at taking pictures. My knowledge of the art of photography is nihil and I just don't have the time to take classes or anything. My camera is very basic but I do believe - like many people told me - that even with a cheap camera you can take nice pictures. I would love to take more time to try better picture taking, but there's already so much I want to do.

I've been reading Scouts blog from time to time, and I like browsing her Flickr page. She's great with fiber, but I love her pictures a lot! And the stories behind them. Makes me jealous of her environment, though I would never want to live in the climate she's in.

On her Flickr page I came across a picture of her "100 strangers" project. The Flickr page of this project is great. Just to browse all the people on the page. I love watching strangers, observing them. But I would never ask them if I could take a picture of them. Don't have the guts. I'm a loner by heart.

The only one picture I once took of strangers (might be more, but this one was intented and is about the only one I remember) was back in Turkey :

Not the best picture, but I like it for all it represents. Maybe I'll try to take more pictures of strangers. And maybe I will get a better camera. Who knows.

Finishing up

2008-01-28T10:39:00.000+01:00

At Stash Down 2008 we could determine our own goals for February. Though there are plenty of things I would like to accomplish (does this month has extra hours, please?) I decided to go with finishing up WIPs. Or UFOs. I'm not one who easily names a project an UFO. I officially have only 2, and I'm unsure wether I'll finish them.

Anyway, finishing up. Here are 2 projects I recently finished, one had been on the needles quite a while!

Pattern : For better or worsted socks
Yarn : Jawoll colour action, and some Annell for the contrast
Needles : 2,5mm addi turbo
Started : June or July 2007
Finished : January 2008

Modifications : this pattern is originally written for worsted weight yarn, but as you can see I knitted them out of fingering. I just did more repeats! I used the reinforcement thread from the Jawoll together with the Annell green yarn for the heels and toes!

Boyfriend likes them. He seems to like my handknitted socks as he often asks for them and seems to wear them a lot! :D Doesn't ask me to knit them though.

Following FO hasn't been on the needles that long, but I'm still happy it's finished.

Pattern : Mermaid gloves, based on the famous Pomatomus socks
Yarn : Spunky Club yarn Nightshade (Tough Sock yarn)
Needles : 2mm addi turbo
Started : November 2007
Finished : January 2008

I used the idea for these but no pattern, I made it all up. I used 2mm needles and the original stitch count (72). I love knitting on finer needles! These were quick and easy, but I remember putting them aside to knit the Christmas socks. I made them extra long to decently cover my wrists. I'm really happy with them! Oh, and I have plenty of yarn left, might be able to knit a pair of socks from it (or something alike!).

So this is it for now. This morning I put some yarn in my bag to cast on for another project. The reason is that I don't have many projects that are really portable. I have a pair of gloves (on the thumb of the first one) but I realized when finishing up the mermaid gloves that knitting gloves on a train is not that handy. Especially the fingers that is. The socks I have on the needles right now are all to big to be really portable (knee-highs with colourwork, so heavy socks) so I think I'll be casting on for an easy pair of socks today!

But I have to say my urge to finish FOs is quite strong! :D

Some spinning

2008-01-20T15:35:00.000+01:00

I'm actually happy I have a riding lesson sheduled this afternoon and have to go out of the house. Though I normally prefer being inside and knit on a Sunday, right now I don't want to be here. The boyfriend got home with a little to much alcohol in his blood and he's extremely annoying again. I can't stand him when he's like this, and everything about him annoys me on days like this. It sounds horrible and it probably is. It's only when he's drunk. But again, he shouldn't be like this, right? Good thing I do love this guy.

Ok, some spinning! I did spin a little during the holidays, but since my wheel has been very silent again. I just don't get around to it anymore. Weeks are busy and so are weekends. And when I'm at home I'm often to tired to get anything done. :(

First off, something that has been on-going for months. I don't even remember when I started spinning this, ages ago. It's a handblend from me. I dyed merino and mohair, 100gr of each, and then carded it together. It was my first real card-job and I could do better in the future, but it was ok (I have one of those hand-handled carders, not an electric one, and it's hard going that way!). It sat on the spools for quite a while. Well, about 50gr of it. And then I picked it up again. Due to the long absence of spinning it's far from regular. But it's ok.

It totals about 660m to 200gr, so that's sport weight. It varies though, and some spots are more laceweight.

I'm not sure yet what I'm going to knit with it. Maybe a lacy type shawl. We'll see.

This one I'm actually very happy about! It's the November Fiber of the Spunky Club. It's 100% Falkland wool called Pie for everyone.

2ply, fingering weight, 416meters to 100gr (well actually 4oz so a bit more then 100gr). Yay!!! First time I got it this fine really! Hope to keep going this way! :D

Of course there might be more thicker yarn in the future. I'm not sure yet. I love spinning this fine but I think I'll need some instant gratification every now and then.

Now hopefully I'll be able to knit some of this up! :D

Knit-a-longs and such!

2008-01-16T20:24:00.000+01:00

Well, I joined quite a few KAL last year and I don't know I did that great. But when I read on Sweetpea's blog about the Stash Knit Down 2008 (Ravelry group) I was in! :D

I have a huge stash and it's not getting much smaller. Sometimes, when I go through it, I do think I have to much yarn. but other times I don't care that much. I always think that if poor times come along at least I'll be able to knit. And so many people have other addictions. I mean, my boyfriend luckily doesn't comment on my knitting, but if he ever should I should only remind him of the amounts of money he pays for bikes he hardly rides. He once bought a hometrainer and he sometimes rides it, but of course it has all kinds of faults why he can't ride it. Well, silly excuses.

So, we all have our downfalls and I never have been a saver. So me joining something like this isn't about not buying yarn. I don't want to commit to not buy yarn, as the risk is I'll be only buying more yarn. Or I fail soon in the game as I just want to sooth myself with a nice skein of yarn. And I cannot imagine resisting to the yarn my LYS lady has for me. Most of what she has in are one of a time possibilities and I don't want to have to say no.

What I do want to do is knit more of the yarn I have. There's so much wonderfull yarn in there and I want to be able to wear it. Plus as I'm always cold, I can't have enough warm wool to isolate my body! :D

The first goal of the group is knitting a mile in January. Hard thing for me. I knit constantly but due to the huge amount of stuff on the needles I never finish much up. that can be an added goal. Reduce the WIPs and work more on one project, so that I finish more. It's boring to work on one project but on the other hand it's also more motivating when you finish something.

So I'm knitting things on my needles, trying to finish them and counting the yardage to my goal. I'm working on my Mermaid gloves (based on the famous Pomatomus socks). Finished one yesterday, only one more to go. They'll be very snug! I already have plans to knit a pair out of heavy wool. I'm now making them fingerless gloves, but those out of heavy wool might be fingerless mitts. I wear them over gloves when I'm biking and it's really cold (not that we'll have more "really cold" this year, we didn't even have snow! But we're already moving towards spring weather .... I truly hate this Belgian weather more then you can imagine!).

I also finally started a sweater for the boyfriend (or did I mention that already?). I'm knitting Jared's Cobblestone from Interweave Knits Fall 2007 (now also available in the Knitting Daily store!). He has been whining for a sweater lately. I hope I can finish it in a decent time but I haven't knitted on it for a while. We'll see. The yarn is ok.

Saturday I started the Modern Quilt Wrap from Folk Style (don't have the book yet though it's on my wishlist!). I'm using some of the mohair I can get at my LYS and I'm actually quite happy with the pattern so far! I'm trying to avoid seeming and weaving in ends and it's going quite well!

There are of course more projects on the needles. Well, there are quite a few FOs, but I'm counting only those that are actively on the needles right now. A pair of nice cashmere gloves, and a hat that's to be felted. And a scarf in black yarn as I need a few nice black scarves. Tons of UFOs. But the three I mentionned here are the ones that I will try to add to this months challenge!

Spinning soon with some pictures! (weather hasn't been very picture-friendly lately).

A new year!

2008-01-05T18:22:00.000+01:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope you all had a good time during the holidays. I decided to take a little brake from blogging, and well, maybe almost everything! I emptied my head and just did very little, which was just what I needed! :D I'm not looking forward to work on Monday after 2 weeks off, but I think I have the energy again to make it. I do hope I'll manage to keep more to myself and get less involved in all the drama among the colleagues and all, but we'll see.

Anyway, there has been knitting! I managed to finish up all but one pair of Christmas socks. I didn't make it on the socks for my mom. She was more dissapointed then I thought she would be. But I handed her the socks today and it's ok. I just didn't make it. I also only have 3 pictures and am missing a picture of the 4th pair, the pair of my grandmother. Those were finished only minutes before the gifting and though I mentionned having to take a picture of them I never did. I might try to do that tomorrow when I go to visit her, if I manage to remember.

So first of all, the pair for my uncle :

Yarn : a local sock yarn from my LYS (need to check the label), 2 strands held together (one solid, one variegated)

Needles : 3mm for the ribbing, 3.5mm for the sock

Pattern : my basic top down with long heel and dutch toe.

These turned out so great! I need to get some more of this yarn for a pair for the boyfriend, they seem very solid and good socks! And they didn't take very long either.

Aunts socks :

Yarn : 100% merino yarn (pink) and 100% superwash wool (white)

Needles : 3.5mm addi turbo

Pattern : fair isle pattern on the leg is from a pattern book I have, beside that it's a regular top down without ribbing, long heel and dutch toe

The smallest feet I had to knit for! And they fit perfectly. I only regret using the pink yarn as it's most likely not machine washable!

Moms socks :

Yarn : Merino 100 (some Italian yarn)

Needles : 3.25mm circs

Pattern : Pearls from Socken-Kreativ-Liste (german yahoo group)

First real beaded knit (except maybe for a lace shawl) and happy about them. rest of the sock is my standard sock recepy. Only made it less repeats as the original pattern was written for fingering weight yarn!

The 4th pair of socks was for my grandmother, a pair of anklets knitted on 3.5mm needles holding 2 threads together, both Annell Super Extra yarn (2 left over balls, as I returned all the rest I had to my LYS).

So that makes my total for the 54PairPlunge at 22. Still way behind and I won't catch up. I'll be happy if I make half of it!

Just before New Year I also decided I wanted a new sweater, and I knitted this one in 3 days :

(sorry for the missing top of the head, but apart from that this is the best picture the boyfriend took! In the end it's the sweater that counts, right?)

Pattern : V-neck sweater from Phildar Autumn/Winter 2007

Yarn : one strand of 100% superwash merino and one strand of 100% mohair held together, both brown

Needles : 8mm knitpicks options

Modifications : I knitted the lower body in the round (instead of the 2 blocks the pattern tells you to knit and just sew them together afterwards). The top were just 2 retangles put together. I think it looks pretty need!

The back is hold "together" with a strand of yarn like a shoelace! I should have done it higher up cause the sides keep slipping from my arms, but I don't mind much.

The yarn is superwarm and nice. I like it a lot! It was a quick and easy knit and I know this style is very popular and the sweaters like this in the store are quite expensive. It should have been a bit better knitted, the ribbing is not as good as I wanted it too, but it was a fast knit and nobody seems to notice this isn't storebought, so it's not that bad.

So the pair of socks for my mom was my first FO for 2008! I hope to have quite a bit more. I casted on a sweater for my boyfriend after lots of whining from him. It's cobblestone from Interweave. Hope it'll be a quick and easy knit, though it'll involve some math as my row gauge is off (stitch gauge is ok so I didn't want to switch needles, then that would have been off and that would have been more math again!).

I have some spinning to show but that'll be for a next post. No resolutions for 2008, can't keep them anyway. But I have some loose goals I want to reach. We'll see. Shortterm though.

Happy knitting all!

Winter Wonderland!

2007-12-21T15:40:00.000+01:00

It feels so much like Winter and Christmas over here! We even had some light snow this morning! To bad it's not going to last much longer. But I have been enjoying it a lot!

Yesterday we had some flutter snow in the morning. Later I went out to take some pictures of a recent FO. And they turned out beautiful!

Pattern : Weddingshawl from Handwerken Zonder Grenzen (Dutch magazine)

Yarn : 100% mohair from my LYS

Needles : 4,5mm addi turbo

I don't remember when I started this, I knitted on and off for a while. My LYS lady kept asking when I would finish it as several of her costumers were knitting the same pattern or at least thinking about knitting it and wanted to see my shawl. So I finally finished it. Now my LYS has been closed due to a sick owner, so it'll stay with me a little longer!

I made no modifications to the pattern except for making it longer. I knit till I didn't want to knit it anymore! :D

Here's a close-up of the pattern :

The dogs also had a great time exploring the ice! Snow and ice are totally new for the pup. Mom is used to it by now!!

And today they discovered they can actually walk over the ice! Not the best thing, as the water was the natural "gate" around our property! :(

And the socks keep coming!

2007-12-16T16:37:00.000+01:00

It's been what, ages? Ok, weeks for sure. I have been knitting, the posting urge just wasn't there. And with the weather we've been having it was hard to take a decent picture. But just written words would have been a nice thing.

I have been thinking about the "minimum one post a week" resolution for next year, but I'm not good at resolutions and all. Oh well, only one more week of work and then I have 2 weeks off. More time to knit and to take pictures during day time, so I'm not going to be silent then. I hope! :D

Anyway, I have been rushing to knit up socks for my family for Christmas. We give small gifts for Christmas, and I decided to knit socks. Hmm. Yes, socks for everyone there. That would be 8 pairs in total. I'm half way, and I have little more then a week to go. Don't know but this might be impossible.

Well, I have been knitting thick socks. I guess it doesn't matter with the weather we've been having. And well, it's quicker.

So 2 more pairs got finished the last couple of weeks, and one is half way done. I got outside in the sunshine today (it's freezing but with a clear blue sky, my fave weather!).

First, for my sister S, the oldest of the 2 (the previous pink socks were for E, the youngest) :

Yarn : Online supersocks 6fach - Winter Color
Needles : 3.5mm for the leg, 3mm for the foot (addi turbo and knitpicks circular)
Pattern : regular top down with long heel and dutch toe, and ribbing on the leg

They do look neat, don't they? To bad they aren't for me! :D But I have more of this yarn!

Second, pair of socks for grandpa. I have more planned for him but I won't make it for Christmas. They will be gifted afterwards.

Yarn : Regia 8ply (grey), 100% superwash merino (green)
Needles : 4mm addi turbo
Pattern : toe up with short row heel, ribbing all over

My grandfather has the biggest feet of my family to knit for! But he has small feet, so I added ribbing. I ordered only 2 balls of the grey yarn and by the time I realized there was no more in the store. So I added the green striping to the legs and knitted till I ran out of grey. I think they look quite ok!

So back to the knitting, there is way to much left to do! (oh, and these were pair 17 and 18 for the 52 pair plunge; I'll never make it!)

And then there were more socks!

2007-11-29T13:08:00.000+01:00

This week has been quite about socks! I got a total of 3 pairs finished! My addiction for socks isn't getting any better! I just love knitting socks, they are so nice. Of course there are plenty of others things I like to knit, but socks are just so portable and so easy to knit.

So, on Monday I finished 2 pairs of socks. Both had been started before, so they weren't really quick knits. Though one pair might have been quicker if I had actually knit on them. But well, here they are.

First up is a pair of commissioned socks. For a guy, following a pattern his daughter used to use. I did tell my LYS lady this is the one and only pair I'll be knitting this way. The pattern is time consuming and at the price she pays me I cannot knit socks. I know it's not really possible to get a decent amount payed for knitting socks, as it seems rediculous to pay a bit amount of money for something so small as socks. But it's still quite a bit of work.

Yarn : Annell sock yarn (75%wool, 25%nylon)
Needles : 2,5mm inox circ
Pattern : broken rib I think (it's K2, P3 in one round, K2,P1,K1,P1 in the following round), long heel, dutch toe

These socks are huge. Each sock took almost a full 50gr ball. But they are done. Phew. On to some knitting for myself now.

Next up are some very plain socks for myself!

Yarn : Regia Canadian Colour (4ply)
Needles : 2mm addi turbo
Pattern : spiraling rib and then plain with short heel and dutch toe
Started : July 2007
Finished : November 26 2007

These were my "movie socks", so plain knitting. I just decided to finally finish them and start a new pair of movie socks! :D

Then, on Tuesday I started a pair of anklets for my sister. These are to replace a pair my mother felted in the wash. I had the yarn forever, but now they are done and Christmas present-ready!

Yarn : Hello Yarn handdyed 100% superwash merino yarn (dyed at my request)
Needles : 3mm knitpicks circ
Pattern : standard long heel dutch toe
Started : November 27 2007
Finished : November 28 2007

Quite a quick knit, right? I could have knitted them in one day if I had had more time on Tuesday (I started making a list of all my knitting books, but more on that later). But 2 days is quite quickly! Ok, these are only anklets and they were knit on 3mm needles but I'm happy they are done.

Phew! I love knitting socks :D. I even got more sock yarn this week, but that's for a next post! More knitting to do now!

Stash sale!

2007-11-16T13:33:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I re-organized and cleaned out my stash room. The amount of yarn there was overwhelming, more then I had thought (though very little of it was a "surprise". Especially the sweater amounts I remembered all!).

Anyway, for several reasons I'm cleaning out a first part of my stash. I will be giving away some yarns, and selling others. Hopefully I'll be able to use the money first for a few books, then for a rigid heddle loom for weaving, and then hopefully for a Majacraft Rose spinning wheel. I promissed myself I will not buy these things from "new" money, only from things I sell. So please help me out.

Please, please consider buying some of this yarn!

I'm posting mosaics of the yarns. Underneath are links to the pictures on Flickr where you can find more information about the yarn. If interested comment here. I'll be selling on a first come, first serve rate. I plan on putting things up on Ravelry over the weekend and then on a Destash site. Email me when interested in yarn!

First the sock yarns for sale :

1. Annell Sock yarn, 2. Schoeller+Stahl Sock yarn, 3. Schoeller+Stahl Sock Yarn, ~~4. Regia Sock yarn, 5. Regia sock yarn, 6. Regia Sock Yarn, 7. Regia Sock Yarn, 8. Regia sock yarn,~~ 9. Online cotton sock yarn, 10. Online cotton sock yarn, 11. Online sock yarn, 12. Online Sock yarn, 13. Opal cotton sock yarn, 14. Opal Cotton Sock Yarn, 15. Opal Cotton sock yarn, 16. Opal sock yarn, 17. Opal Sock yarn, 18. Opal sock yarn

Prices :

- Annel yarn $10 for the 3 skeins plus shipping

- ~~Regia yarn $3,5 per 50gr (so the 100gr skein is $7)~~ SOLD

- Fortissima and Online $8 per 100gr

- Opal $10 per 100gr

Special packs :

- All Fortissima and Online yarns (total 600gr) for $40

- All Opal yarns (total 600gr) for $50

Add shipping to all please! (see later for approx. shipping charges)

Cotton yarns :

1. Cotton, 2. Multi cotton, 3. Multi cotton, 4. Cotton, 5. Cotton yarn, 6. Cotton, 7. Cotton, 8. Cotton/acryl

I'm selling all this yarn for $15 and shipping. Some balls are started, some are not touched. All good cotton! I just don't like knitting with cotton.

Couture yarns :

1. Couture yarn, 2. Special couture yarn, 3. Bouclé wool - blues, 4. Thick 'n Thin yarn, 5. Bouclé wool - oranges, 6. Bouclé wool - pinks, 7. Wool Bouclé, 8. Bouclé wool, 9. Bouclé wool

These are all designer yarns of high quality, but they have no label. I got them from cones straight from the factory, taken away before everything was sold in Paris!

Selling all but #4 at $10 per 100gr, which is more then half of the original price. Except for the occasional nylon thread all these yarns are 100% wool. All stored in plastic bins. The grey is a thick and thin yarn that is probably superwash as it doesn't felt. A big ball of 400gr for $20. All is without shipping. We can agree on a price if you buy more. The cone is sold as it is, no winding off of the yarn, I'll give you a discount on that one!

Various yarns :

SOLD 100% silk, really nice quality! Superbulky, 100gr balls with about 70m each. Knits up really nice! Earthtones! $8 per ball, and I have A LOT of this! If you buy a bag of 10 balls it's only $60. Please consider this, it's really nice yarn!

Big ball of a mohair/acrylic blend. I lost the lable, it's 150gr and I remember it being enough to knit a sweater. I started knitting with it but then ripped. $10 for the huge ball!

Adriafil Merino, 100% Merino, Needles 4,5mm, 2 x 50gr ~ 120m

In a bright pink, baby wool. Both for $8.

Yarns for free!!

These are for free, I only ask you to cover the shipping.

Please visit Flickr for more info on the individual yarns! I'm shipping this as one batch!

Sock yarn, my pup got a hold of this and I had to reskein it. There is nothing lost. Please note you might have to wash the yarn before knitting with it. It's superwash sock yarn in very bright colours, I think it was from Online.

Golden thread, I can't read the lable, I think it's some kind of acryl? Nice for some accents. 3 little skeins.

Cotton yarn with nubs, in a nice blue. About 130gr. Good quality.

Shipping

Inside Europe (priority shipping, economy will be lower, ask me for prices):

Up to 350gr : $8
Up to 1kg : $13,5
Up to 2kg : $26,5
Higher up : ask for price!

Worldwide :

Up to 350gr : $8
Up to 1kg : $22
Up to 2kg : $43
Higher up : ask for price!

All these are estimates (I will charge you this, then go to the PO and either return you the difference or ask you for the rest). All these prices are priority. It'll take up to 3 weeks for a package to travel to the US with economy mail, but it will be cheaper. Ask me for those prices.

Payment

Inside Europe I can accept Paypal and bank transfer. Outside Europe I can only accept Paypal!

Thank you!

A few swatches!

2007-11-14T14:35:00.000+01:00

Amazing, how quick time goes. It's been 12 days since my last post! So long for my good intentions to post more often!

Of course the knitting is going on, but as I have so many projects on the needles that it's hard to finish something. I still need to add hooks and eyes to my Glee sweater and then I need to find someone to take pictures of me, so no post about that yet.

As I said, I do have plenty on the needles, but little really inspires me. I'm stuck on my Lorelei sweater since I just don't have the guts to do the steeks. The idea would be to knit the upper body in the round, then use steeks and pick up stitches to knit the sleeves top down (with sleeve-cap) per instructions of Barbara Walker. I would allow me to hide the left over yarn from the steeks like described here. But more about that later, when I find the energy to pick the sweater back up.

I still have Raspy on the needles as well. I was going to knit it during the Summer as it's cotton, but the Summer came and went and no knitting on Raspy! Pff. Another sweater I still have on the needles, well, jacket, is the Nantucket Jacket. And a ton of socks, and at least 4 lace shawls/Stoles. And fingerless gloves.

But, there has been swatching going on! I haven't casted on yet, but I figured swatching was ok. :D

Lets see :

This is brown 100% superwash wool (don't remember the name on the lable but I think it's quite old and might be discontinued). Knitted on 4,5mm needles for a tunic for my sister. I still need to measure the gauge, don't know if it's accurate, but it's a very stretchy knit and the tunic is loose so it'll be quite ok.

I've fallen in love with the Tree Jacket from Zephyr Style. I wanted to do it with some stash yarn as I have plenty (hum :D) and I wanted black as that's so easy to combine. So I searched. To my great surprise I have very little black in my stash. But I found some supersoft mystery-wool (I swear I usually put labels with the wool as a lot of stuff I get from my LYS is without a label, but I must have forgotten). I swatched, and as you can see at the bottom the fabric was to light for my taste. Though I plan on layering with this sweater I still wanted a good winter fabric. So I added a strand of lambswool/angore (laceweight). That's the second stripe from the bottom. The fabric is way better.But then I tried adding a strand of black mohair. I love that fabric (3rd from the bottom) as it's much warmer. It has an extra sheen to it. And because it's not pure mohair it's not really scratchy. I then tried the mohair with a strand of sock yarn to safe the black mystery yarn for another project, but that stripe - though still a nice fabric - is less soft. So I will probably go with the mystery yarn and the mohair. What do you think? Of course you can't see the sheen on the picture, though you can see a bit of the hairiness at the side of the swatch.

So, looking forward to that knit! I imagine it being quite fast. But I think I'll need to finish the Nantucked Jacket to free up the needles (I swatched with a short Inox circ but as this jacket is knitted in the round I'll need a longer circ).

The last swatch I did was with this 100% wool yarn I got at my LYS (again, no label). The idea was to knit a cardigan from the top down, as long as the wool let me make it. It would be nice to wear as an extra layer, maybe even to go to special events. If it's not raining it might replace a coat. But then I saw this cardigan on the net, and then on Ravelry, a free design by DROPs. I love it. And I think it would look nice in this fabric though I'm doubting a bit as the yarn is tweedy. But I've seen quite a bit tweedy ones on Raverly, so I know it'll look ok. The shape is a bit doubtfull (the clock-shape thing), and I might prefer to knit it top down, though I'm not sure yet. We'll see. I first tried with 8mm needles as the pattern suggested (there are no needle suggestions with the yarn, alas the no-label thing) but the fabric was to loose. Then I tried with 7mm (top) and I got gauge and the fabric was way better.

So this one is on the list too! Call me crazy, ok?

Anyway, I need to swatch for the sweater for the boyfriend. I ordered a set of KnitPicks options through Get Knitted in the UK and it arrived on Monday, so now I can swatch (and I can start the Tree Jacket without finishing the Nantucket Jacket first! :D). But I'm still holding on to not casting on. I really need to try to finish up some other things first.

Of to knit a little!

Socktober wrap-up

2007-11-02T09:17:00.000+01:00

Socktober is over and I'm a bit sad about that. I liked the month as it totally motivated me to get into knitting socks again!

And to my total surprise I finished a total of 3 pairs of socks this month! Not all of them were newly started, but even the ressurection of some very old UFOs was a great added bonus! I had hoped to get 4 pairs done, but I got stalled on the 4th pair in my efford to finish up a sweater (which I did! But no pictures, so more over the weekend).

Let me first show you the 3 pairs of socks I did get finished over October :

1. Red & Black socks (mostly finished during October, only the ribbing of one sock was knitted before) - a few people asked me to write up the pattern for these socks. I plan on doing so, but I want to do it right so give me some time!

2. Whitby socks for the boyfriend

3. Kool-Aid self striping socks

A bit more on the last pair of socks :

Pattern : regular top down

Yarn : socks yarn (70%wool, 30%nylon) handdyed with kool-aid to self-stipe, and some solid for the toes and heels as I had dyed up only 50gr of yarn

Needles : 2,5mm

Started: I think somewhere in 2005! Finished October 2007.

I basically only had to knit the second sock of this pair, but I had once put them aside and never looked back at them. It was only when putting up all my projects on Ravelry that I remembered about them. I did remember where I had put them so I pulled them out and finished. I would never again knit a pair of socks like this on 2,5mm needles, they feel to light knit for my taste. But I finished them!

I apparently ony dyed 50gr of yarn like this. Enough for these socks with even some left over! I'm quite happy with these in the end!

Next pair I'm working on is a pair for the boyfriend that has been on the needles for a couple of months now. Plus I started a pair of socks for my grandfather on 4mm needles and they look huge! But I think they'll be ok, nice warm socks for winter!

I have been feeling like finishing up stuff! I sometimes feel like just finishing things. I have been swatching as well, but no actual cast on so far. The thing is I really, really need an extra set of 4,5mm needles. I'm thinking about ordering a KnitPicks option set. It would solve some problems!

That being said, I'm still working on the yarn sale! I hope to get it done soon so I can hopefully have some extra money!

And added, for those interested in the thing with the test-knitted socks : I heard back from the person in question. She was very friendly and said she was embarrassed she hadn't thanked me for the socks, which apparently where knit ok. She is going to look for the socks but she's not sure she can get them for me. No mention of the other stuff. Again, no big deal, but sad afterall. I don't plan on testknitting for her anymore.

Off to get a bit of work done (I hate having to work today!)

An email

2007-10-30T22:18:00.000+01:00

Man, has it really been 10 days since my last post? I didn't even notice! shows how busy I am! I do have an FO to show, but not now. I'm to tired.

I think I mentionned my quite negative experience test-knitting for the first time. It left me hurt a bit. Thanks to sweet BlueADT I got my hands on a copy of the magazine with my test-knit in it. Today I took the big step and emailed the person in charge of this all, and this is what I sent :

Hello ***,

It took me a long time to decide wether to email you or not, but after finally getting my hands on a copy of the YF magazine I decided to go ahead and see if I got an answer.

Earlier this year - I think back in February - I testknitted a pair of knee-high socks for the magazine (the second issue). I was never sure if I did a good job, but they are in the magazine so I guess it wasn't that bad.

When testknitting them I was promissed the socks back, a copy of both magazines up till then and some yarn. I never got any. And it's not even about the stuff. It's the principle. I never heard anything positive from you about the socks, nor did you let me know about the publishing. I just wanted to see the magazine, see something I made in print would be so neat.

It's not important, and it's not about the material stuff. Thing is I got a big blow in the face about my knitting skills and started to doubt myself big time. I'm scared now of volunteering to test-knit something for the simple reason my knitting might not be good enough.

I of course did not keep the emails you sent me with the agreement, so I can't hold you on that. I just think it's important if you want to run all this - a business, a magazine - that you should be more correct and more on top of things.

I do think I published her name before, but well, for now I won't. I just want to keep this as a record. I do hope I formulated it the right way. It's really not about the material things. It truly is about my feelings. I've always been very insecure and this didn't do me much good. :(

Let's see how she responds ...

Finished Objects - proof of knitting! :D

2007-10-19T09:41:00.001+02:00

Yes well, it might not seem like it but I have been knitting quite a bit recently. I'm doing well with the sock thing, as I wanted to use Socktober to get some socks knitted (Christmas gifts I guess). Of course it could go faster.

I need some happy thoughts though. My work is getting to me. I'm at the edge of my sanity here and every time I have to get up to get to work I don't want to. Yesterday was a perfectly fine day and I felt really well. But it was Thursday, I don't work on Thursdays. Today on the other hand I was almost crying when I had to get out of bed this morning and the tears are still close at hand. I'm just so mentally exhausted about all the drama here, the heavy workload and more. I need time off. More then a bit. But there's no time off in the near future. The best I can do is convince my boss I need the 2 weeks around Christmas and New Year off or I won't make it very long into the new year without a decent sick leave.

Anyway, as I said, less knitting then I would want, but I am a bit productive in other areas, like cleaning up my house and organizing things. I organized big part of my yarn room last Friday and plan on putting in a few more hours tonight. I want to make a list of all the books I owe (so I don't buy books twice) and gather them all from the various spots in the house. I might even inventorise (sp?) my knitting needles. Who knows.

But you came here for knitting, right? Well, in order of finishing :

Baby booties ...

... pre-felting ...

... post felting.

Pattern : Old world booties by Gryphon Perkins, free pattern at InterweaveKnits

Yarn : Unlabeled 100% wool in a wonderfull moss green (it's a bit tweed-like)

Needles : 2,75mm Knitpicks circs

Started : end of September 2007

Finished : October 7 2007

I love these so much! I had a hard time handing them over to my friend, but she was so enthousiastic about them I know her little girl will wear them! :D Though it was hard to knit them on the small needles it was all worth it, and I plan more of these in my future! They took about 1 1/2 50gr ball, and I have plenty more of that yarn! :D

Felted Red Bag!

Pre- and post felting

Pattern : based on a Noni Bag pattern and Noni flowers
Yarn : 100% wool handdyed red (heavy worsted weight), 100% wool natural (fingering weight)
Needles : 9mm for the bag, 3.75mm for the flowers
Started : end of September 2007
Finished : October 18 2007

This was for a friend and she's going to attach some black plastic handles herself. I didn't have the time to do it before seeing her yesterday, but she doesn't mind.

This was another great felting project. I'm not a big fan of felting as I had a few projects turn out horrible. But these last 2 projects were really great!

And last, socks for the boyfriend!

Pattern : Whitby by Nancy Bush from Knitting on the Road
Yarn : Regia 6ply tweed in light blue (2 balls) and white (a bit of a ball)
Needles : 3mm inox circ
Started : October 9 2007
Finished : October 19 2007

Modifications : the original version didn't even go past the ball of the foot of my boyfriend, so I had to add 8 stitches (to the back of the sock, in the ribbing). I followed the pattern for the rest of the sock.

Of course, me being me, I didn't believe it when the website said I needed 3 balls of this yarn for a pair of socks. I might have made it for myself, as I have smaller legs and feet, but the boyfriend has a size 42 and quite have ankles and legs. So I had to use the white for the toes. Boyfriend wasn't to enthousiastic about that at first, but who cares? It'll be in his shoes so who'll see? Well, his soccer mates probably. But they don't have handknit socks, do they?

My boyfriend of course had to put them on a couple of times ot make sure they fit. He has such strange feet I can't take the risk of not fitting them on. But they are a Christmas present so they are put away till then.

So now I need to get started on some socks for my grandfather and uncle and ... . I have a lot of Christmas knitting to go!

I will be getting rid of quite some stash. I took the pictures, will put it all online tomorrow or on Sunday at the latest! Come back because some of the yarn will go for free! :D

Winter Knits - Part 2

2007-10-16T14:17:00.001+02:00

So here's part 2, the gloves and mittens. I figured it was to much to do this all in one post as it would be huge, so I prefer posting a few days in a row! I might consider a third part with scarfs if I get around to it! I surely love this mosaïc thing! :D

The gloves and mittens are of course for riding the bike. The fingerless gloves/mittens will be for work purposes and computer time as well. My work place is badly heated and there is no proper isolation in this place so Winters are very cold (you can feel the wind running through the room!). Plus if it's really cold I often wear a pair of fingerless gloves first and then a pair of mittens! :D

1. Wine and Roses Mitts by JoLene Treace from Interweave Knits Winter 2006 - these have been on my wish list for a while now!
2. Composed Mitts by Michele Rose Orne from Interweave Knits Fall 2007 - all those colours!
3. Tiger Paws for typists by Ingrid Summers - I don't have the pattern but I'll use this as "inspiration"!
4. Tiffany by Sari - I love the detail on the cuff!
5. Latvian-inspired mittens by Jennifer Little - I blame Nancy Bush for my obsession
6. Herringbone Gloves by Tata & Tatao - these have been on my wish list since I saw them at Saartjes blog, I really want to knit them this Winter!
7. Smocked Gauntlets by Heather J. Spellman - quick, easy, and I think warm
8. Norwegian Gloves by Nancy Bush - No comments needed ! :D (and it's a free pattern!)
9. Roberta Gloves by Dawn Prickett - more as for the inspiration
10. Transition Gloves by Kerin Dimeler - I will probably knit them both in the same colours though
11. Fingerless gloves by Petra - Looong gloves for warm arms!
12. Keefely Mittens by JoLene Treace - I have the book and love the pattern, now the time to knit them!
13. Mermaid Gloves by Craftoholic - I love the Pomatomus socks, so why not gloves? Maybe regular gloves, or fingerless gloves (but no mitts I think)
14. Liidia's Gloves by Nancy Bush - I honestly want to knit every pair of mittens/gloves and socks out of her books!
15. Latvians for the Finn by Julie Ridl - Again, latvian ...
16. Snowflake Fingerless Gloves by Chris O'Brien - these would be great for working in the computer
17. Women's Lace Gloves No. 62 - Nice Vintage pattern, these would look great, maybe in black Regia Silk?
18. Sanquhar Gloves by Tata & Tatao - Without the lettering though ...
19. Whitewater Wristwarmers by Jennifer Meyer - Again, elegance and usefullness
20. 98-8 Wrist Warmers by DROPS design - quick and warm

The herringbone gloves are about first on the list. They have been forever, but I didn't get around knitting them. There is one more pattern that didn't make it to the list that I would like to make with some cashmere, but more about that if I get around to it. Anyway, the Nancy Bush patterns are always my favourites.

Next up : some FOs and yarn sale!

Winter knitting - part 1

2007-10-15T10:26:00.000+02:00

Two weeks ago I started searching on Ravelry for Winter knits. The reason? There were words out that we might have a new car by the end of November. And as for getting that new car, I would no longer be allowed to drive to the station with it (ok, sounds a bit horrible but I do understand that parking a car at a station where thousands of students pass every day and were there is no supervision whatsoever is not the smartest thing). And end of Novermber = cold mornings.

Now the car we might not get as my FIL is not agreeing with the dealer (he wants a better price I think, I for one am so tired of the constant discussions about prices and good deals). But I still plan on going to the station by bike more often. I love the Winter to ride on my bike (I hate doing it during Summer, I'm a bit strange I guess). It's good for my health, good for nature and a lot faster then the car most of the times. The only negative issue is, well there are 2 : first of all I hate having the bring my laptop with my bike as I have a shoulder bag and it's heavy, and second I used to go to the store right after work with the car which was really easy, but now I'll have to bike home first and then return with the car.

But, with the plans on more Winter rides I started putting a lot of hats and gloves in my queue and faves on Ravelry. Those on there might check it out. For those who aren't on Ravelry I'll show you my favourites!

First are the hats (credits for the pictures to the designers, I stole them :D)

From left to right, top to bottom (not in order of preference) :
1. Zizzou from Knitting Neels - a nice simple hat!
2. Syncopated Caps by Kate Gilbert (in Interweave Knits Summer 2007) - love this design!
3. Oslo Cairo by Urraca - Pattern is in Spanish but I should be able to manage
4. Diamonds and Blocks by Kimberly Lewis - Nice hat, might be the last one I knit
5. Inga Hat by Sheila Macdonald - Love this one!
6. Nautilus hat by Marnie MacLean - Have had my eyes on this for a while, still doubting between using cotton (summer hat) or wool.
7. Winter Sunrise hat by Elinor Brown - again, looks great!
8. Doubleknitski by Alison Hansel - nice and thick! Plus great hat for first time DK!
9. Anemoi Hat by Ann - great to combine with my mitten! :D
10. Leef's Ear Flap Hat by Leef Bloomenstiel - hats never cover my ears, but they should as I always get splitting headaches from riding my bike
11. Nordic Sweetheart Hat by Anne Featonby - I had the yarn for this but I never got around knitting, need new yarn for it!
12. Red Light Special by Jared Flood aka the famous BrooklynTweed - this will be the first one I knit, when I find the yarn for it (I plan on diving into my stash).

Of course there are preferences. I think I'll first knit the Red Light Special by Jared, though yarn is the issue here. I'm very motivated to knit from my stash, but I'm not sure if I have anything suitable, not even to dye myself. I've recently noticed a great lacking of sportweight yarns in my stash.

I also love the Inga hat! And I think I have the yarn for this one.

Now as for all hats, I'll need to make them about 5cm longer each. From experience I know that all hats are to short for my taste. You see, they have to cover my ears completely! I have a big head and a lot of hair, so as a result no hats fit over my ears. Especially when I ride my bike this is essential. I might need at least one hat with earflaps!

More Winter Knits inspiration to come!

Ps.: Thank you so much for all the compliments on my socks! I really appreciate it!

Sock-A-Month

2007-10-11T17:00:00.000+02:00

This is just a quick note to thank those 2 people who let me know about the SAM-KAL.

To prove I really have been off the earth the last couple of weeks, I didn't even notice SAM3 ended and a new one was started. So meaning very well I posted my last 2 pairs of socks at the SAM3 blog.

Apparently the last month for SAM3 was July! The new KAL started in August but I never signed up and since the sign-ups closed I cannot sign up. I'll just have to skip this round.

Thanks for the compliments on the socks though!

Socks!!

2007-10-10T12:02:00.000+02:00

I have been knitting, though not as much as I would want to. But I seem to have a quiet period ahead. Not really wanted to though. My horse had a weird couch last week and it didn't get any better, so after advise from my riding instructor he's on stable-rest for this week in the hopes it'll solve the problem. I don't want to call the vet for a simple cold (he has no fever by the way, so it's possible it's just a plain cold), though my medical book on horses sais a couch almost never dissapears without medical intervention.

Anyway, even if I go riding over the weekend it'll be slow. We'll see. Lot's of knitting time, though I need to clean a big deal as well. Unfortunately my cat got home last night ill and she wasn't looking any better this morning I'll take her to the vet tonight. That'll cut into my knitting time.

I have been concentrating on socks as it's Socktober, but I have to knit some other things as well. :S We'll see.

Anyway, the socks. At the last day of September I finished my Spiral socks :

(Sorry for the lousy pictures but it has been overcast since Monday so this is the best I could get)

Pattern : Cornucopia Socks by Caroline Dlugy-Hegwer from SockPixie
Yarn : Cherry Tree Hill Sock yarn in Wildberries
Needles : 2mm addi turbo
Started : August 2007
Finished : September 30 2007

Modifications : the pattern sais to keep the eyelets going in the round on the foot after the heel, but I didn't like the idea of so much structure on the bottom of my feet, so I only did the eyelets on the top of the foot. They look great!

I was excited about this pattern, but I got bored quite quickly. I have to say I was a bit dissapointed about the yarn as well. It feels a bit strange and I had to get used to it. I'm sure this will be great socks to wear though!

Next up, my first Socktober pair :

Pattern : my own
Yarn : Textiles de la Marque - Laine Chaussette, one ball black and one ball I handdyed red
Needles : 2mm addi turbo
Started : July 2007
Finished : October 2007

I had a ton of ideas for these socks, ment for Project Spectrum. But I had to little yarn to do the actual fair isle patterns I had in mind. So I kept looking and got this idea while in Portugal. I started the sock on the plane back home but didn't get past the ribbing of the first sock. I picked them back up on October 1st 2007, doubting the pattern again. but I went along and got it done! They took me a week to knit and I'm actually happy with them, though I have more sock yarn left over then I planned. I was really scared of running out of yarn! :D

(close up of the toe)

I would like doing this pattern again but then knee highs with the change of colour half way up the leg. Maybe in sport weight yarn. I don't know. Not any time soon though as I have plenty of socks in mind.

I wanted to start a ton of socks for myself, but I dug up 2 pairs that are just past the ribbing of the second sock. I did give in to the urge to start a new sock by starting a pair in 6ply tweed for the boyfriend. I'm doing the Whitby socks by Nancy Bush, with with 8 stitches added (boyfriend has huge ankles and they didn't go past them in the original size!). These are actually a Christmas gift but he already had to try them on twice so he'll just get them when they are finished. It doesn't really matter that much.

So many ideas, so little time to knit! :D

Next up : plans for more Winter knits!

The dilemma

2007-10-05T10:22:00.001+02:00

Well, the month started quite well for me. I did manage to finish the spiral socks last Sunday. I'm happy I did because I was totally bored with the pattern. I picked up my black and red socks which I started on the plane home from Portugal in July. I never got further then the ribbing on the first sock. By Monday evening I had finished most of the leg, and by Tuesday evening the sock was done. I started the new sock on Wednesday but didn't have much time to knit, nor did I have time yesterday (I spent the whole evening braking my head over the dilemma! :D). I'm now almost at the heel. I hope to do the heel before I go to the theater tonight, so that I might be able to knit on the foot (plain stockinette) while watching the show.

Anyway, I had a good start on the socks and knitted a lot on them because I'm stuck with another project. Remember Lorelei? I did mention her before. It's one of those projects I love so much, but then I don't love them at all at times.

My big "hate" for this project is the yarn. I really regret buying the actual yarn from the pattern, which is a combination of Rowan Felted Tweed (which I do like) and Rowan Wool Cotton (don't like it, at least not for colourwork!). I should have looked for a 100% (non-superwash) wool.

So I don't like knitting with the wool, but it also put me for the following dilemma. As I mentionned before I decided to knit the body in the round. I don't like purling as for colourwork (I did try as I knit part of the body as the written instructions before putting it aside last year), and the colour repeats were almost always uneven so you had a ton of yarn ends to weave in. So I knit the body in the round.

This is were I am now :

I should be starting the armholes. Now at first my intention was to start knitting flat from here. But then I started thinking. My gauge will change if I start working flat from now. My stitches are already very wonky (I blame the cotton) so I don't think I would have liked the result. The other option was steeking. But it would involve a sewing machine as for the cotton and superwash wool. Big scare. I did steeks before, but I used a crocheted reïnforcement then.

I mentionned my issue at the LYS yesterday (they don't know steeking, I explained) and someone suggested turning this into a raglan. I'm a bit doubtfull as that'll change the design and I like it as it is, even if the patterning doesn't match on the sleeves and body. Then I mentionned my problem on Ravelry (on the Rowan group) and there someone suggested don't set-in sleeves like you would them top down, but then bottum up.

The last idea did appeal to me. So I was sitting on the couch last night with my notebook and the Barbara Walker bible "Knitting from the top". I read through the instructions for top down set-in sleeves and started to think if I could do it bottum up.

This is where my thoughts brought me. I can cast off the needed stitches at both armholes and then the next round cast on the needed stitches for the sleeves (invisible cast on of course)minus the the stitches you would cast of when starting the sleeve cap (when knitting the sleeve regularly). Then I would continue knitting in the round, decreasing stitches in the body and the sleeves as per the instructions. Now then I got into 2 problems.

First, when you read the instructions from Barbara Walker you will see that you first knit part of the body, then pick up stitches for the sleeves, knit about 1/3 of the sleevecap and then join with the body stitches and continue in the round. To do that bottom up is not really possible as far as I know. You could just stop knitting for the sleevecap and then knit the left stitches together with the stitches from the body, but then you can no longer knit in the round as you would need 22 rows to join the stitches properly.

The second issue is the shaping of the neck, which starts about 20 rows before the shoulder shaping (for the front). I would have to switch to flat knitting for those last 20 rowns no matter what if I want to do the neck as indicated (even Barbara Walker will knit the first part of a sweater flat shape a neck - how does she deal with changing gauge? - maybe I wouldn't worry so much it wasn't fair isle).

I hope you can follow me! :D So basically, as far as I can figure out, doing a set in sleeve from the bottom up without seems is not possible.

So that leaves me the steeking. I ditched the idea of knitting flat, though I'm not sure if my gauge would change all that much. But I will not do it in this project. I'm going to knit up a swatch (not to big, I don't know how much yarn I need to finish up the sweater) and try the steeking with my sewing machine (*ahum*). Then I will decide how to proceed with the sweater.

That all said, I won't be knitting on the sweater over the weekend. I'm having an incredible busy weekend ahead and I won't have time to knit. Let me show you :

- Tonight we are going to a theater show (we being my sisters and me). It starts at 8pm in Antwerp, and I'm home at 6.30pm, so we'll leave immidiately.
- Saturday I have an appointment at the hairdresser at 8.30am. I just can't stand my hair any longer. After that I'm off to the riding school to ride myself and then therapy. At 2pm my sister is coming over and we are going to a fair in Brussels together (more her field of interest, nothing crafty there!). When returning home I'll have very litte time to get ready to go out for dinner that nigh. I don't want to go as it's first of all at a place I don't like going (my fathers former sokker team) and secondly with the workmates of my boyfriend and some of his soccer friends, all people I don't fancy spending to much time with. Anyway, no free time on Saturday.
- Sunday it's an open day at the riding school. I promissed to help and I need to ride as well (there's riding the whole day to show the goings of the riding school - from previous years I know a lot of people like to come). I don't know when I need to be there but I think it starts at 10am (and I don't think I'll get up before 9.30!) and it ends at 5pm. No idea how much time I'll have at home!

So I think there won't be much knitting going on over the weekend. Nor blog posts. There will be more next week though, as I have an FO to show and I have plenty of ideas for blog posts!

Because of the lack of pictures in this post :

A few days ago I tried to photograph the big Blue :D. He hates it apparently as I got more pictures of his back (bihend, bu*, whatever) then anything else! And of course, as for the good pictures, I have the bad backgrounds. Oh well, it's better then nothing ,right? :D

Ps.: This guy is my big love! :D

Knitting on the train

2007-09-28T09:48:00.000+02:00

Every day I sit on the train and knit socks. Every day (better, every train ride, which is twice a day) there is someone staring at me, probably thinking I'm crazy.

I don't care for the staring. I'm used to my knitting being something special, as knitting isn't that big over here, surely not knitting in public. It's always nice to see someone knit on the train. Doesn't happen very often though.

Anyway, every now and then someone will have the courage to say something about the knitting. Usually very positive. I like that more then the staring. Most staring is the "you are nuts" kinda staring. I guess knitting is strange, especially when someone in her 20's is doing it.

Remember that fair I went to last week? Twice I was totally ignored at a yarn stand as I think the vendors didn't think I was important and the old ladies there were way more important (I think I bought way more then they did, but who cares). Then once at this stand a lady was informing about KidSilkHaze for a shawl out of a magazine (which I think I already knitted). The vendor of course didn't have the yarn nor did they have something similar. I started talking to the lady and told her where to get the yarn. She was very rude and didn't seem the least interested in listening to me. :( It was very upsetting for me, as I just wanted to help and suggested her a few stores where the yarn was available. Oh well.

Anyway, I mostly knit socks on the train, though I might take some easy lace with me as well. I have been dedicated to my spiral socks though, which bore me to no end. I'm totally tired of them and don't want to knit them anymore. But I need to finish them so I'm putting my foot down and knitting. Here is the state of the second sock :

(picture taken here at work with the webcam of my laptop, hence the bad quality. Notice the wood in the back? It's one of the windows of my workroom, and it's one of the better parts to look at! :S Horrible ha?)

I'm half way down the foot of the second sock and I might be able to finish it up this weekend. Though I usually keep my train knitting for the train only. But maybe I can finish at least one pair of socks this month!

So I don't need to tell you how far behind I am with my sock knitting! I don't think I'll make the 52 pair plunge (I don't know how many pairs I should have knit by now but I'm pretty sure I didn't knit half of them so far) and I think I already missed August for the Sock-a-Month-KAL. I might miss September as well. Now this weekend will be dedicated to non-sock-knitting (except maybe for the spiral sock) as I want to start Socktober to the best! I want to finish the felted booties this weekend (very fuzzy to knit, I hope they felt ok) and the felted bag (I started it last weekend but figured soon that I would ran out of yarn , so I dyed some more which will hopefully be close in colour, and I'll add it to the last part of the bag). And some more knitting in Lorelei. I'm starting the annoying part now, where I split for the arms and thus have to start knitting & purling again (no more knitting in the round - I would use steeks but part of the yarn is cotton-blend and I don't trust my sewing skills to steek that way). That takes me ages, especially those 4 rows with 3 colours in them!

By the way, my colleague asked me on Wednesday if I hadn't knit enough socks yet! :D Enough socks? Never!

Anyway, lots of knitting planned, let's hope I can get it done. I was planning a lot of knitting yesterday as I didn't make it to my LYS, but I have horrible back pains and I hope it'll get better soon!

Ok, I need to get a bit of work done now! :D

Proove of knitting

2007-09-23T17:54:00.000+02:00

I have been knitting quite a bit on Lorelei, but it's hard to see progress on that one. But there has been a bit other knitting as well.

Pea Pod sweater and Candy Cane hat for a friends baby.

Yarn : Both 100% superwash merino wool (no brand)
Needles : 3,75mm for the sweater, 4mm for the hat
Pattern : Pea Pod Sweater by Kate Gilbert (available for free at Interweave), Candy Cane Hat from Handknit Holidays

Started : Sweater was started early September and finished today (September 23rd 2007), Candy Cane Hat was started and finished today.

These are both for the first of our close circle of friends who gave birth to a baby. It's a girl and she was born last night. It's a dual feeling for me. I'm very happy for them of course, but on the other hand it hurts for me as I so badly want a baby but I'm the only one in this relationship so it's no happening. :( But at least I have some knitted stuff to give the baby!

I knitted more Candy cane hats this week.

Same info as with the other, only different colours.

These were started September 21st, finished September 23rd 2007. My mom asked for gifts for 2 grandchildren of a friend of hers. One was born in June but she has a sever heart condition (it wasn't sure she would survive, but she's doing quite well). The boy was born about a week ago.

I love these hats. They are so cute and a quick knit as well. I might be knitting more in the future, just to have at hand for new babies to be born.

I have been dyeing some yarn today as well. I have a huge headache though so I stopped dyeing after one batch of wool (I was planning on another batch).

Can you see the pattern? Well, I plan on knitting a few felted pumpkins to decorate the house! They look so great (look here) and at least I can keep them till next year! ;D I wish there was a pattern for a bigger one (I know there's one at knitty, here, but I wan't one with less sewing!). I might invent/desing one based on the small ones, or I might just knit the one at Knitty. We'll see.

Half of the yarn is DK for felting, half of it is sock yarn for colour work I think. I'm very pleased with the orange! I still need to write down the dye-mixture if I want to be able to repeat it. Don't know if I actually remember it though. I don't know if I have enough yarn for what I plan, but then again, I don't know if I'll be knitting as much as I'm planning.

I'm still having a hard time getting solid colours. Not so bad for the felting, but the sockyarn should be more solid for what I'm intenting.

I will finally take something for my headache, it won't go away otherwise I'm afraid.

Hobby fair

2007-09-21T12:32:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday I went to a hobby fair in Mechelen. It's the biggest in Belgium, and the best if you ask me (I have to add though that I only go to fairs in the Flemish part, so I don't know about the French part of Belgium).

I wasn't feeling to well and when I arrived there I started feeling even worse as it was crowded. Most people were in the older range (50 and up) and not so friendly. Pushing you aside and all that. I don't know why this is but at fairs these older people always seem to be so annoying. While I usually have nothing against these people at all!! The fighting starts at the entry to buy a ticket - like you wouldn't get in if you didn't push everyone aside - and it continues at all the boots. The amount of younger people on weekdays is usually quite smaller.

I had told myself I wouldn't buy to much. I'm always tempted to buy a ton of craft supplies but I hardly do crafts these days. And I have plenty of yarn to go by. Plus the boyfriend and I had a discussion earlier that week about saving money and all (to put on a savings account) and that kept going through my mind (I live by the philosophy that it all can be over tomorrow and I want to enjoy my life now - as long as I have nothing to save money for I won't do it).

So, I didn't really enjoy it. What's the use of looking at the boots if you can't get anything? I only needed some sewing thread to add buttons to a little baby sweater I knitted. Nothing else really. The only boot I really didn't want to miss was Klaziens Kreatie as she's the only one with decent yarns.

Basically there were a few yarn stands, but all frizzy acrylic yarns and nothing of real value. One stand had some 100% wool (tweed) at sale, but as I didn't have a project in mind and I couldn't think of a use at that point I passed it on. It was some old yarn they probably found in storage somewhere, because all the other yarn was the standard acrylic stuff.

You have to know I never liked these yarns for knitting scarfs or anything. I don't even like it if it's wool. And unfortunately we don't seem to move on from this. It's all acrylic.

There was some Regia yarn to be found, but Regia has no nice brown colours in their solids (what I was looking for) and I really couldn't bring meself to buy much but this :

Regia 6ply Polar - socks for the boyfriend

Regia 4ply - Kaffe Fasett collection in Landscape (I think).

Then there was this stand that had Gedifra at €3 instead of the regular €5,95 per 50gr ball, so I bought this :

Fashion Trend Sportivo - socks for the boyfriend (I already have some for myself from before)

See whom I tought of most? He does like his handknit socks and I had to throw one of his 3 pairs out lately as it was totally worn and I don't mend these socks.

Anyway, I got this for me :

Various colours of Shetlands Wolle as an addition to the huge collection I already have. The idea still is a top down pullover with a turtle neck and some colour work. It's based the the pullover of a friend of mine, which I really liked. I still need to work it out. I seem to a have a weird love for orange these days (I usually hate orange) but I think it has to do with fall colours. I like the more brown-orange anyway.

Arwetta Sockyarn (Merino/nylon). The green and pink are for striped socks, the blues and white for some sort of - yet to be determined - colourwork.

The newest addition of her collection : Softsilk (100% silk). 2 skeins to try out. Don't ask me about the green. It's normally not my colour but I kept picking it back up. We'll see what it becomes.

I bought a few other things but all in all I was pretty good in keeping myself from buying. I loved all the beads but I know I usually don't end up doing much with them anyway. So some beads, but the bigger ones for some knitting (I kept looking for suitable beads for Lorelei but nothing I found fit over the Wool/cotton. It's to late for the sweater now but maybe for something else that needs bigger beads).

Back to knitting now!

The good things about Ravelry

2007-09-21T12:17:00.000+02:00

Given, it's as addictive as most of you think it is (and most of you know it is once you are in!). But I'm sure it'll pass again for me once I have put up all my projects - FOs and WIPs - and so on. I don't think I'll ever be able to add all my stash, and I don't think I want to as I'm afraid I'm about the one with the biggest stash. :S Even the thought of starting this scares the hell out of me!

Anyway, I've been slowly adding all the projects I finished since starting the blog. There is no use looking at what I finished before as I have no pictures or anything. I think I knitted a few scarfs and one pair of socks before starting the blog so I'm not missing that much.

Going through the blog to collect pictures of the FOs and information, I started realizing I used to be a fairly quick knitter. I usually finished one or two pairs of socks and one other thing during a month. Now months go by without me finishing anything, though I am knitting! Could it be I have to many projects on the needles at the moment? *hiding here*

I don't even want to count the ammount of projects I have going right now. There are - I think - 2 projects that will probably never get finished. But I just can't get myself to rip them (or throw them out, in case of one lace project I don't think I can rip).

The other projects are all ongoing, or stalled, but with the intention to finish them. I should do that.

So, good intentions. I want to finish a few things this month, or at least try. No socks though. As I like the idea of Socktober I'll save that month to finish all the socks and maybe knit a few extras. I have 2 pairs of socks that are in a quite advanced state (one sock done), one sock that I'm at the foot (for the boyfriend, so big feet), one sock that no longer has needles and I just need to rewind the yarn as I don't plan on knitting these socks with this yarn, and one sock that has just the ribbing started but I don't think I'll finish it. Oh, and one pair I haven't knit on in about 2 years. I remembered it when putting my list of at Ravelry. The thing is I already did the ribbing of the second sock, and it's plain stockinette, so I should just finish it.

I also want to start a gazilion amount of other socks. But no starting now, before other things are finished.

This weekend I need to finish 2 babyhats my mom asked. I might knit a third one for a friend who should be giving birth any moment now. I started one last night and I think I can finish this one and another one tonight if I don't turn on the computer. Thing is I would have brought them on the train if it wasn't for the huge balls of yarn (I get this yarn in big skeins of 400 grams and wind them in one ball, so those are huge!).

Then I want to knit some more on my Lorelei sweater and maybe finish a lace shawl. No rushing. Oh, and I need to knit a felted bag for my LYS lady. The bag I should do over the weekend, the other stuff is for the month of September.

Can you imagine I have one sweater - Raspy from Rowan Denim - that only needs sleeves and one sweater - Glee from Zephyr Style - that needs only one sleeve? Both are just stockinette! Oh, what to do?

They say we might have temps up into the 20-ies over the weekend. Not to happy about that. I want cold weather!

*Edit* I'm a big fat lier! :D I was on Ravelry again and I saw that I have a little more socks on the needles then I claimed. There are the pairs I started for every project spectrum colour-combination. The Winter socks in Blue, white and grey (barely at the leg of the first sock), the Vine socks in green & yellow/pink (just past the heel of the first sock) and the black en red sock (just pas the ribbing of the first sock). I might have other socks hiding in corners of my house. I'll let you know later ...

Ravelry!!

2007-09-19T11:31:00.000+02:00

I got my invite 2 days ago and it was a total surprise! I had been waiting for this and checking every few days, but because I was so busy the last 2 weeks I didn't check at all. It was great to see the invite.

I have been browsing and looking and adding. I love it. I wish I had more time to get into this all. I share the enthousiasm of many about this little site! (Well, little, I wonder if it's still little). I now surely regret not signing up when I first heard about it from Adrian. But hey, I'm in!

Now taking all the picture of my stash will take me some time. First I thought I wouldn't do it - much of my stash is not labelled and such - but it might be a help for me. I like the whole setup of the site and all. So I might just start with the sock yarn and go from there!

If you want to add me, I'm Emily37 (not very original, but easy). If you are in, let me know so I can add you!!!

It's almost Fall!

2007-09-12T22:24:00.000+02:00

And my energy is returning big time! The last couple of weeks it has been quite cold out here. Like sweater and heat in the evening cold. We've been sitting in front of the fireplace quite a few evenings - and the older doggy and me sit quite close to it! :D - and I've been tempted to put the heating on more then once. I did yesterday evening and I forgot to turn it out again, so it's still on. Especially at night it gets cold!

But I love it! More and more I realize I'm a Autumn/Winter person more then anything! I hate Summer, and I feel so much more alive when the weather starts turning again. More energy and inspiration. I just love this period of the year. I realized it big time this morning sitting in a meeting (which was horrible) and just looking outside. The clear blue sky and the sun but the heating already on inside. Just perfect!

My fingers itch to knit more, to write letters, to read books and to take walks outside. Yes, take walks. I hate this in Summer, but the colder it gets the more I like cuddling in sweaters, a vet and a scarf and go out.

Now one big thing is that I need more hats. I started to take my bike to the station again (first time after my accident in July) and I had a crushing headache getting there, 2 days in a row. I just need to cover up my ears or my head splits. So knitting it'll be! But most hats I have don't cover my ears properly, like Shedir I knitted back in May. Many people need to cut a repeat in that pattern, I need to add one for the hat to cover my ears. So another one is planned soon. Will try to get the yarn tomorrow. It's Calmer of course, but it's still kinda "Summer" and it just needs to cover the ears, not warm them. Of course I might get some Felted Tweed for another one, 'cause I like the ones I saw in it so far. We'll see.

I also want more scarfs and gloves. And sweaters, and socks. Can I please switch to knitting full time then? :D Let's just get from behind the computer and take up the needles again!

On Rowan ...

2007-09-12T22:00:00.000+02:00

This week I heard or read somewhere that Rowan was not for beginners. The person really complained about the books not having any instructions for beginners and that the patterns were quite difficult.

Now I disagree. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate beginning knitters and I support books for them. I was a beginning knitter not long ago, and I'm still far from experienced. But on the other hand, I don't think every single book or magazine shouldn't have chapters for beginners. I mean, there are plenty of books out there who do have those chapters and are thus great for beginners, but also for knitters further along. Now isn't it normal there are book that don't have those beginners instructions? Should every book have these chapters?

As I said, I do think not every book should contain these explanations. I don't need them, so I prefer them not to be in books. I have enough books laying around with all kind of basic instructions so I can refer to those.

Now I don't think Rowan books are to complicated or for experienced knitters. Given, Rowan doesn't have many charts or stuff like that. It might be confusing, and some patterns do take a few reads. But apart from that I don't think the patterns are that difficult.

I like Rowan, a lot!!! I recently finished up Carolina from Rowan 39 as a custom knit. Not something I would knit for myself. But finishing that one I allowed myself to knit on other things again. Mainly to restart a sweater from Rowan I started last Winter.

Lorelei from Rowan 40

Last Winter I started it following the instructions, which means you start with the back and knit back and forth. There were 2 reasons I didn't like this. Purling fair-isle (and 3stranded knitting patterns) is not easy (me thinks) and I prefer knitting fair isle. Plus I didn't look forward to sewing in a ton of ends (most of the colour strips are uneven so you couldn't carry the yarn along the edge).

So I ripped it and restarted, knitting in the round this time till the armpits. I'm going to do the same with the sleeves. I do realize this might change my gauge, but I'll just pay attention a bit more.

The not so fun side about this is that one row takes ages! Last Winter I remember knitting 3 or 4 colour strips in no time, and now I'm only in the second strip on my third evening of knitting (keep in mind I have been quite tired and 2 nights in a row we went out so I didn't have much knitting time at all).

I promissed myself I could get myself yarn for another knit if I finished up Carolina. Because I can't make up my mind about which of the patterns in the new Rowan book I put it on hold. Maybe I'll try to finish up another project first (so many on the needles).

The choices :

Similar, right? On the left is the Fyne vest, on the right the Fyne tunic. The pattern is the same (I mean the fair-isle pattern), but of course the lenght and design is a bit different. And the colours are quite different. Colour-wise I lean more towards the tunic, but I think I'll get started with the vest. The ribbing is done in a dark purple, totally my colour.

Now you might ask why I keep the colours of the designs. First of all I like the colours. They are my thing (in both the Tyne and Lorelei). Plus I don't feel like changing the colours in such a complicated knit when I don't really need to. Like I want to knit Venezia in the future but in totally different colours! So it's not like I always stick to those colours. Though, like some studies say, many people stick to the colours. I guess the designers just pick nice colours.

Oh, and there are about 10 more designs in Rowan 42 that I want to knit, like in almost every Rowan magazine! :D

Spinning

2007-09-12T12:41:00.000+02:00

You might not believe me, but I have been knitting and spinning! There just isn't much to show, and due to being very busy with work I neglected to post here.

I have one FO that I can't photograph (I'll try tomorrow at my LYS) and there's one almost FO (a baby sweater that needs seaming and a collar, to be done tonight I think).

Now I have been spinning as well and the last yarn I finished I was very pleased with :

It's the July yarn from the Hello Yarn fiberclub, Lantern Festival.

Corriedale wool, 5oz. spun into a 2ply. It's about 650 yards total, so I think a nice fingering weight!

I recently spun the Spunky Eclectic yarn very randomly (it was similarly coloured) and I wanted to try something different here. So I spil the roving lenghtwise as evenly as I could and spun the singles like that. While plying I kept a close eye on the colours and when the difference was to big I cut out strands. To my amazement I had to do this only twice, and I don't know if it was because of inconsistent spinning or rather the splitting of the roving. I added those 2 lenghts at the end which gives of course barberpole. But apart from that I have a few nice solid places.

I normally don't go through this efford to keep the colour nicely even. I like barberpole effects on yarn. But this yarn is so bright. Now I did see an example of randomly spun Lantern Festival and the colours seem to tone down quite a bit. Oh well, I like it this way as well! :D

I normally spin with sock yarn in mind. It's an obsession, just like socks are. Now this yarn, not sure about socks. I mean, with the long colour repeats and not really any pattern. So I have been thinking about a scarf, or a shawl like this one, or maybe Argosy. Any other ideas? Of course the yarn is fine and I don't have much yardage-wise for a shawl. I'm not really sure about this yet.

That's it for now, back to the knitting!

Christmas Knitting

2007-09-06T21:20:00.000+02:00

Yes, Christmas knitting. Not only am I think of it now - as opposed to cranking out a few things at the beginning of december, till about 5 minutes after gifts - but I am actually considering knitting gifts!

Last year I swore I would not do anymore Xmas knitting. I don't have the family to appreciate my handknits, so why knit for them? Well, my boyfriend loves the socks and keeps asking for a sweater, in his own not so super way. My aunt loved both the gifts I made here. She kept repeating how much she loved the felted "boots" I made her 2 years ago, and she was really happy with the scarf last year. My mom does wear the handknits though she never mentions it, and my youngest sister actually loved the pair of socks I knit her a few months back. She had brought the yarn back from Spain, that might be part of the liking.

Anyway, I have been planning the gifts but I'll see where I get. No obligations.

- Grandfather : as many handknit socks as I can manage :D
- Grandmother(s) : shawl out of thicker yarn (maybe for both, but for sure for one)
- Mother : socks? shawl? not sure yet
- Sisters : socks for sure, maybe a pair of endpaper mitts for S as she didn't get any last year
- Boyfriend : Socks, the promiss of a sweater
- Uncle : pair of hunting socks, most likely out of DK weight yarn :D
- Aunt : no idea yet

To conclude the list I would also like to knit gifts for the 2 ladies at my LYS, like I did last year. I know this list is almost impossible. To help me a bit I got this :

Recognize the needles? I needed some more addi turbo needles (I have plenty but my obsession with starting projects and my lack of obsession for finishing them makes I'm always out of needles, plus I seem to have misplaces some ...), so I ordered some addi lace needles as well. Never enough needles.

I ordered the sock yarn for socks for the boyfriend and grandfather. It's all 6ply (and 8ply!) so it'll knit up quickly. And they both won't mind thicker socks. I also ordered some black 6ply (not in the picture) for socks for me, to use in colourwork. Again, thick and quick socks. I got Regia and Online to compare the quality, to get more in the future. I'll compare it with Dale of Norway Baby Ull, which I already used for socks. We'll see.

That being it for today, I need to get more knitting done! :D

Spinning!

2007-08-15T15:39:00.000+02:00

I've been addicted to my spinning again the last couple of weeks! It's been so much fun and my yarn is finally getting finer then before. I might make it to a fingering weight (2ply) in the near future!

Anyway, here are the 2 yarns I finished recently, both from club fiber (both from Spunky Club fiber to be exact)

Nightshade, the May fiber. It's Coopworth sliver to be exact.

4 oz, about 275meters (about 300yards), which is about sport weight, 2ply

This is a rather easy fiber to spin as it's quite rough. I didn't mind. The only thing I did mind was the bleeding of the dark colours. My hands were completely black after spinning/plying it. I hope it's settled now and this will become socks.

Celebrations, July fiber. Shetland wool

4 oz, about 300meters (approx. 330 yards), so light sport weight, 2ply

I loved spinning this fiber! Could have been finer, but I didn't pay much attention. I also just split the roving in half, predrafter and spun. That's why the 2 skeins are so different from eachother.

I'm still not sure how to knit this up. There are 3 possibilities :
- knit 2 completely different socks, one from each skein, and see them as a pair.
- knit the ribbing, heel and toe from each sock from one ball, the rest of the sock from the other. For the second sock use the balls the other way round.
- knit in stripes, like 5 rows from one ball and then 5 from the other ball.

As you can see I am planning on starting these soon. My yarn is quite thick and uneven so I might try to knit these with 2.75mm needles.

I tried taking some "artsy" pictures from my yarn. I love the ones in the Fiberlicious group! But I'm not good at taking artsy pictures, and as I already have plenty on my plate I'm not going to invest time or money in photo equipment right now.

These will do for now. I have to go, it's a public holiday and when the boyfriend is home he wants my full attention! (He's already yelling for me!)

I do still knit!

2007-08-10T10:25:00.000+02:00

Ok, I haven't been showing off much knitting. To be honest, I'm more obsessed with spinning right now then knitting. I have no pictures of the spinning, but on Sunday I did take some pictures of my FOs as my moms place (who has a beautiful garden to take pictures at!).

First of all, something I finished long time ago (don't remember when I started it, but I do remember finishing it on the way to The Netherlands back in May!).

Pattern : Shedir from Knitty
Yarn : Rowan Calmer (don't remember the colour, have to check)
Needles : 3.25mm addi turbo

This was a fun knit! I like the cap a lot but for me it should have been a bit longer. That is, I like it to cover me ears completely. I have a big head, and with all my hear a hat usually doesn't cover my ears as I want it too. I think I should have done another repeat but then I wouldn't have had enough yarn to do so. I might consider doing one in Black as well. For those cold mornings in late Summer and early Autumn when I take my bike to the station.

I do plan on knitting one of these in wool, like here (Eunny did it, so it should be good, right?). And then maybe a scarf to go along?

And then, the socks showed up! I had thrown them aside among some fiber and didn't remember.

Pattern : from Sensational Knitted socks, a ribbed pattern
Yarn : Opal Petticoat Cotton
Needles : 2.00mm addi turbo

Started/finished :I don't remember as usual!

I wanted a really stretchy ribbing for these socks as I heard that the cotton content can make the socks slouchy. They are almost perfect now! I say almost as I made the foot a tat bit short to be really comfortable, but they might stretch a little. I do like these socks a lot, though I will always be more of a wool knitter then a cotton knitter!

Remember that I joined the 52pairplunge? Well, I'm immensively behind and I don't think I'll be able to catch up. :( This cotton pair was my 9th pair of socks since April, and counting I should have 16 pairs of socks by now (not counting august). I might have to consider knitting some sport/DK weight socks. I usually don't do that but I have a lot of yarn in that weight so I might just. I want to do some colour socks like this pair, but I need more sport weight yarn in Black! I've been trying to think if I have anything suitable in my stash, but I don't. I promissed myself not to order any yarn, but I love doing my socks with a variegated and a black yarn, so I'll just have to. I like Baby Ull, but I'll see what possibilities I have!

Handspun yarn pictures over the weekend!

Ps.: We're having true Autumn weather over here with clouds, rain and temps as low as 15°C during the day, so it's a pleasure to work with wool. Did I ever mention I don't like Summer?

New patterns

2007-08-07T20:54:00.000+02:00

The new Magknits is up, and I'm - for the second time in a row - dissapointed. There is nothing that really catches my eye. There's a pair of socks, but honestly, it couldn't be plainer. I don't need a pattern for that (and I'm sorry for the designer, I don't mean anything by it, it's just my opinion). The dress with the huge open back, no thank you. The cardigan is rather old looking.

Today I also recieved my copy of the new Rowan Magazine (Fall/Winter 2007/2008) and I LOVE it!! Well, as always there are good patterns and things I would never knit, but overal I'm very happy! I also bought the Rowan Kidsilk Auro book with some amazing patterns, and RYC Travel, which is also really nice. One happy girl here! I whish I could knit faster/more/...

Any other things for fall I should now about? What about good sock books?

Reading finished early

2007-08-04T14:23:00.000+02:00

I finished the book last night, or better, early this morning (at 3am). A record reading for me, if you count that I had to work yesterday (Yeah, I have devoured books like this before, as a teenager I could hardly pack enough books to last me through a holiday).

To my great surprise I'm more "involved" in the books then I thought I was. Though I'm all for series actually ending (both in books and on tv) and not going on and on and on, I know I'll really miss the stories of Harry. I think it's mostly because of the little part it gave me into a childhood with actual friends, which I never had. And - big confession here - maybe the love that shows in the last 2 books, which I never really knew that way.

Then I was also really, really upset by a death at the end of the book. I hope I'm not spoiling it for someone here, as we all knew people would die in the end of this book. But this one death upset me so much (tears are in my eyes again and I don't know why this is happening).

I also found it nice to read this web chat J.K.Rowling did. Gave me some answeres I needed to know. To my surprise I had a really hard time imagining what happened to all the characters and I wasn't satisfied with the book or with my own thoughts of futures.

And with this I will end my babbling about HP on my blog. Posting about knitting should resume soon! (I'm off to take a nap, and maybe try to get over my sadness a bit).

Ps.: PJ mentionned the HP pattern book that was released a couple of months back. I'm going to honest here and tell you I'm not interested in it. The socks/scarf I will design myself, and so will I do with the other things I want to knit. I'm not someone who would knit other "witch" or HP stuff, sorry.

Harry Potter

2007-08-03T09:22:00.000+02:00

Oh yeah, I'm a fan! :D I just thought I'd let you all know there won't be any knitting content for sure till after the weekend!

I've been a fan for quite a few years, but mostly a fan of the books. Though I know they are not considered high standard writing and were originally ment for children, they are an escape for me from reality and god knows how much I needed that in the past years! I still like to get absorbed in a book and forget all around me. I don't do much about all the fuss around Harry Potter. I started watching the movies but with the known fact that they would never be nearly as good as the books. And so far I have not been part of any of the craze around HP.

I am considering knitting up a pair of socks and maybe a scarf in the Gryffindor colours, and I am inspired by the things Hermoine has been wearing in the last movie. But I have to add that I recently got a lot of inspiration from movies (still have to knit that first self designed sweater though! maybe I can finish a sweater first, that would be nice). But apart from this I have no interest whatsoever in any of the stuff surrounding HP.

I started rereading the books starting from book 4 at the beginning of July. The main goal was to reread HP5 before the movie and HP 6 before the new book. I didn't finish HP 4 before the movie (with the accident and all) and finished it in Portugal. I started reading HP6 there and picked up HP7 at the airport at the way back home. I admit I couldn't keep myself from reading the last few pages. I know, I know, not a good thing. It's the first time ever I've done that with a book. But I knew that by doing this I would take my time to finish HP6 which I hardly remembered anything about. And I did. I finished HP6 yesterday, sucked up again by the books. And I started HP7 at about 6pm. Had to stop reading at 6.30, started again at 9 and stopped reading at 1.30am! I'm 1/3rd into the book now and would read the whole day if I could. I'm obsessed. I have to work though today. I don't plan watching any tele tonight and just read. And read again on Saturday, hopefully the book'll be finished by tomorrow evening so I can go back to knitting! :D

Well, I just wanted to share this. I won't be saying anything about the books. I don't want to spoil it for anyone else. It's already bothering me that some post shot comments about it, and I didn't want to know that. Ok, never mind.

I'm off to work some, maybe I'll find some sneak moments to read! :D

2 pairs of socks!

2007-07-31T10:40:00.000+02:00

Ok, there should be 3 pairs to show here, but when I went to shoot the pictures I couldn't find the third pair and I haven't been looking since. I suspect the pair is hiding in my yarn room, I have to dive in there some time soon.

So, 2 pairs to show. Little, isn't it? Hopefully more soon but I think I have a little to many projects on the needles to be able to finish something up.

Ok, the first pair was started early July and finished in Portugal (quite soon after arriving there).

Pattern : Baudelaire by Cookie A.
Yarn : Regia Silk in red
Needles : 2mm addi turbo for the foot and 2.5mm addi turbo for the leg

These were toe-up and quite nice to knit. I have to say the foot is a bit snug but nothing to bad. I like them a lot! I didn't change anything except for the needles.

Then the second pair was mostly knit in Portugal except for the last part of the second sock (on the plain home) and the grafting of the toe (done at home immidiately after arriving!).

Pattern : Pomatomus by Cookie A.
Yarn : Handdyed sockclub yarn by SpunkyEclectic
Needles : 2.75mm circs

Yes, I knitted them before, but those were for my sister and I wanted a pair for myself! :D I decided to use sportweight yarn (my sisters were done in LL sport and I liked them) due to the big needles asked for. I have plenty for this yarn through yarn clubs so I should knit it up. And I can always use thick winter socks!

I only just made it with the yarn though. I think I could have used one size bigger needles for these, at least I wouldn't have cut it so close with the yarn. This was very nervewracking as I had no scale in Portugal and well, I was so afraid I wouldn't make it. I had already figured I would rip the upper part of then sock and half of a pattern repeat to use for the foot if I didn't make it. The second sock was way more relaxed as I knew I would have enough yarn!

As you can see one sock is slightly different from the other. It has more purple/pink in it. Comes with handdyed yarn I guess. I don't mind though, I like these socks!

There are plenty more socks on the needles! If I manage to find the sock I'll try to photograph it as we've had quite ok weather the last couple of days.

I'm at work and should get some stuff done today, so more later!

A quick note

2007-07-22T21:52:00.001+02:00

To let you know I'm back from my holiday. I'm death tired though as I was sick through most of the holiday. Not during the day, but my nights were horrible due to a stuffed nose and a sore throat. So sleep to catch up (I have the needed medicine at home to get me through the night, and no choice between to hot or AC-cold).

I have FOs to show, but no pictures yet. I have decided to firstly finish up 2 commissionned knits and 3 baby knits (because I have to - sais my boyfriend - as I promissed them - no I didn't).

But more later, I have over 700 entries in my bloglines to catch up with (but I guess some are old ones as bloglines keeps doing that these days).

Leaving for a few days!

2007-07-13T00:46:00.000+02:00

In a few hours we are off to Portugal for 10 days! I'm looking forward to it. It's always very stressy just before I leave, but then I can relax a bit!

I have FOs to post but I didn't get around taking any pics. On July 3rd it was my birthday, but it wasn't a good one. On my way back home from work by bike I was hit by a car. I went down quite hard but came out with a concussion, a huge bruise on my head and some other bruises. I was down in bed the next 5 days and then went back to work for 3. Today was packing and shopping, and dropping off the doggies at my moms.

Now I'm going to try to get an hour of sleep before we leave for the airport. See you all in 10 days, hopefully totally rested!

Stormy skies

2007-06-28T10:24:00.000+02:00

It's been a while and I still have no knitting to show. Well, no FOs that is, 'cause I am knitting. But way to many projects on the needles to actually finish something. And a definite urge to start even more!!!

It's hard to believe there are only 2 weeks left before we are leaving on a holiday! 10 days in Portugal will do me good. I need a break from many things. Mostly work though. It's been hectic and I'm getting stressed by a few of my colleagues. I finally got the nerve yesterday to tell one her behaviour is annoying me. Well, I only told her about part, but more is. She chatters all the time, without a break, she never listens to what someone else sais, and when I'm talking to a parent she always comes in between because she apparently doesn't want me to explain things. Horrible. Oh well, I see her less during the holidays. Lets hope it helps.

Anyway, it's busy all time at work right now, and it's tiring.

The last couple of days have been very cloudy and grey over here, and cold!!! Like 15°C. I've had frozen feet more then once.

I like this kind of weather. Everyone wants hot Summer weather, but I don't care all that much. I'm just as happy with this weather. I knit no matter what, but it's more enjoyable when it's a bit cooler.

I'm terribly exhausted though (apart from the tiredness from work). So tired it's hard to function for me. There is a lot going on in my life right now, half of it I could go without. The regular relationship problems are weighing twice as much. My father decided to show up again at my moms and sisters. Let's hope he leaves me alone 'cause I no longer want him in my life. Things were finally getting better again. Doggy school is just to much to handle at the moment. If I mention I'm tired to the bf he just sais I should sleep more. I long for sleep, but the problem is I don't want to wake up because life is just as hard as before and then I feel all bad again. It's more then just the lack of sleep. It's mental exhaustion as well.

I'm looking forward to my holiday but I'll have to make sure I have some moments alone. I'm going with the bf and my 2 sisters. Maybe getting up early, but I'm not really a morning person. It might be the best way to get some time for myself though.

Well, needles to say there might not be much knitting or spinning to show in the near future. I'm working on things, but in the evening I'm usually so tired I only watch tele, half asleep, before my eyes are getting to heavy and I just fall asleep. Knitting is just asking to much energy. It's hard to lift my arms and make the stitches.

I'll try to post and show stuff, but just so you all know why I might not be around as much.

Spinning

2007-06-23T13:24:00.000+02:00

I'm quite in the ban of my spinning again. Well, I constantly want to spin but sitting down and actually spin is something different. I just don't see the use of starting for 5min, so I don't. And at the recent pace I didn't have more then a few min every time. In between busy things. Like in a few moments my sister will be here to pick me up, so I only have a few minutes. And I still need to change clothes! :D That's me.

Anyway, the spinning!

Spunky Club April 2007 - Strawberry Fields
4oz of Corriedale

Big skein is 263m, the little one in front is 52m. The little skein was the leftover from the second bobin I spun which was relatively finer spun (as both bobbins had 50gr on them!). It means there was 100m more on one bobbin then on the other!

Will be socks somewhere in the future!

Now I'm spinning some silk I got from Franquemont fibers. My pup got it (somehow) and tore it apart, but thankfully silk doesn't felt so I can still use it!

A thank you note!

2007-06-21T18:56:00.000+02:00

Yes, I do have an FO to show, but first I wanted to thank a few people who have commented here over the past. I hope everyone will read it! It's just horrible I can't reply to comments, I'm just not a wiz in that area. I have been using Wordpress for the new Destash Blog, and I'm tempted to move over there. But then I wouldn't know how to move over my previous posts. I need to figure it all out a little. But I'm a bit to busy at the moment!

But, the thank yous. It goes to everyone who commented here on the blog in the past and will do in the future! I so appreciate it! :D

Thank you to Knittingajour, Julie, Ambermoggie and Minty Fresh for the comments on my test-knitting issues. I'm still not sure what to do. Blueatd, thank you for the offer on the magazines! I'm mostly curious to see if my test knitting ever made it to the 2nd one, as I'm kinda thinking it didn't.

Ann K., Angelika and PJ, thanks for the nice comments on the thief! :D It was an exciting experience and it's a nice story now! I'm still amazed with myself, but I guess more people would have some kind of reaction like this. Good thing I had my sporty shoes on and not my high heels! :D

As I said, I would reply to all of your comments if I knew how to, but blogger only gives me your profile link and no more. :( So dissapointing. Maybe it's just time for some improvement.