Another knitting-intense weekend

There will probably be a lot of pictures today, as I've had quite an eventful weekend. Yesterday, there was a knitting festival in town, and I made sure to see most of the activities. First, I went to Hemslöjden, a crafts store that sells everything handmade, from wood carvings to wool to finished clothing. They had a pre-release on a swedish sock/hat/mittens book that looks very promising, so I bought this as well as a crafts magazine issue that focuses mostly on knitting.

I also got a chance to see a knitting machine, and got a very nice explanation on how it works. Unfortunatly, I forgot my camera at home, but it was very interesting. They also had a little workshop with the author of the sock book, Ann-Mari Nilsson, where you could make a pair of the wrist warmers described in the book and get some directions from the actual designer.

Then I went to a "yarn tasting" at Garnverket. It was so cute, they had made tiny balls of yarn and stuck a tooth-pick in them so that they looked like tiny hors d'ouvres (is it spelled like that?), and put them up on some beautiful trays! The shop is just starting to import Rowan yarns, and some of them were SOOO soft! I brought some of them with me home (the tiny balls that is, I didn't really have the money to buy that expensive yarn that I don't have a project planned for), but of course I forgot to write down which yarns I took.. I guess I have to take the swatch with me if I want any more of some kind. Yes, that's right, I of course had to try the yarns when I got home last night, so I made swatches of all of them.

Next in line was a workshop on how to make spiral shawls from the Plissard Spirale yarn. It was so easy, and the shawls looked very pretty too, so I of course bought three balls to make myself a spiral shawl. A small ball of Rowan Classic Cashsoft 4-ply (57 % merino/33 % acrylic/10 % cashmere) made its way into my bag as well. It was just so soft, I think I will make myself a scarf with it.

Next, I went to Garn-Netto, where I bought three skeins of pink Drops Alpaca. This will turn into a pair of fingerless gloves for me, once I finish with my husbands gloves. I think these will be great for me to knit in, since I'm always cold on my hands.

Finally, I went to the local museum, which had invited a japanese knitting artist to come and speak about her knitting. Her name is Sakiko Arai, and her work was truly inspiring! I don't know if I would actually wear her sweaters, but they were really more like pieces of art than actual clothing. And unfortunatley, since my camera was resting peacefully on my couch table at home, you won't see any pictures of these. I'm sure that you could find some online, though. She mostly knits in plain stockinette, it's just that she does some really awesome colourworks, and she talked about where she finds inspiration and such. The whole speach was in japanese, whit a swedish interpreter who translated for the audience. I'm so glad I got to see this!

After this, I went home feeling tired but happy, and managed to finsih the first of the fingerless gloves I'm making for Thomas (my husband). He wasn't very thrilled about the cables at first, but when he discovered that he could wear them with the cable on the palm side as well, he got very pleased, and I think he will use them a lot. I've cast on for the second one as well, and am already about to start the thumb increases, so they knit up very fast. They are made in 100 % superwash wool from Marks&Kattens. As I mentioned, I'm going to make similar ones for myself in the pink alpaca, but I think I will try to find another pattern to get some variation.

Then today, I went to Old Linköping (which is about 5 min walk from my house, no big journey...), where there was a crafts day. I mostly looked at the yarn booths, since I'm not really interested in the other crafts, but you could buy handmade wooden things, jewellery, pottery and a lot of cloth things. Linköping Knitters and Linkmaskan were there with a booth where you could try knitting or just ask questions about yarn and yarn-work.

Unfortunately it rained a lot, so there weren't many visitors who sat down to knit, but there were a lot of people walking by, and I think a lot of people patronized the different yarn-selling booths. I know I did! I bought two skeins of very fine. 1-ply 100 % wool, one green and one pink, where 100 g give you 600 m yarn! Incredible, they will both make a whole shawl each. I got a pattern as well, I just have to finish some other projects first before I cast on for these....

I also bought some sock yarn, one 100 g skein of green Zitron Trekking (75 % superwash wool/ 25 % Nylon) that will make two socks, and two skeins of pink Gepard Cash-soft (69 % wool/25 % acrylic/6 % cashmere) that will turn into at least one pair of socks for me also. Thomas won't wear homemade socks, so I get to make socks only for me, which suits me just fine!

That was all the knitting related activities for the weekend! Today I will go buy a training card at Friskis&Svettis, a swedish health organisation that has training activities all over the country, together with my sister. I've been eating anti-depressive pills this year after a lot of things got a bit too much for me last fall, and these stupid pills has made me gain 10 kg... I'm about to stop taking these pills this september, so hopefully a bit of physical activities will help me get back to my normal 52 kg (or even better, 50 kg which is what I actually want to weigh...). We will do some aerobics and step-up, and my sister is thinking of taking some spinnig classes as well (not me, I hate bicycles).

Oh, and I have to tell you: Friday night we had a big scare here in our apartment! Thomas went into the kitchen to make some tea, and asked me if I had thrown any yarn in the sink. I knew I hadn't, and when we looked a bit closer, we saw a HUGE spider! I'm not kidding you, I think it was at least 10 cm long, with a 2-3 cm body! I've never seen a spider that big, and since both me and Thomas are pathetically afraid of spiders, we really didn't know what to do... I'm a bit ashamed to admit that we finally poured boiling water on it. I really believe in releasing bugs rather than killing them, since I love animals, but we just couldn't handle this one. At least it died really fast. I think it is still lying in the sink, as neither me nor Thomas is really keen on touching it, even though it's dead!

Now I'll go grab something to eat, so I'm not hungry when it's time for aerobics!

/ Jenny