Three month anniversary!

Today I've written this blog for three months! Wehoo! I've made 47 posts, including this one, which is a little bit more than 15/month, which I think is really good. It's so much fun to have actual readers as well, that don't include my mother or sister (as they are almost obliged to read...). So thank you to all who read and comment, I hope you find something interesting at least once in a while!

As I'm on my lunch break at work, this post will be short. I just thought I would tell you about my experience with my new acrylic needles. I LOVE them! After I switched to my Harmony Wood from metallic and plastic needles this summer, I thought I would never knit with anything but wooden needles ever again. But I was wrong, these needles are just as comfortable! I've only tried the 3.5 mm needle yet, and since it's so thin it is slightly bendy, which I love. The thicker needles don't have any bend in them, but as they are just as sharp as the wooden needles I don't think that will matter much. So I guess I'll have to alternate between the different qualities now (well, I won't alternate in a single project, as I'm guessing my gauge will differ slightly between the different materials). But I'm so happy I got these, I guess when they come to Europe I might order some thinner, fixed circulars in this material as well (if they will be made as such, I haven't checked yet), and maybe some thicker needles as well. But that will probably not be until after christmas.

Now I'll get back to work. I'll hopefully return tomorrow with a book update (yes, I've ordered some knitting books, but I'll tell you all about them when they arrive).

/ Jenny

New needles!

A while ago a woman on Ravelry, KnitFitKnitter, offered up some new KnitPicks Options Zephyr needles for sale. She had bougth a full set (9 sizes!) and didn't like them, so she advertised them on the KnitPicks Lovers' forum on Ravelry. I asked her if she would consider shipping them to Sweden, and for $10 extra to pay for the shipping, I got to buy them. Today they finally arrived! They are gorgeous, see-through acrylic needles, with a slight bend to them as they are a bit soft. Unfortunately I have to work, and I can't wait until I get to go home and try them out!

I'll leave you with the picture of them that KnitPicks have on their site, as I haven't had a chance to photograph mine yet:

I think I am one of very few people in Sweden who has actually got these this soon, as they haven't been released in Europe yet! I'm so happy!

/ Jenny

Report from the sewing festival!

This will probably be a very pic-intense post, seeing as I came home from the festival with a whole paper bag full of yarn...

The festival was so much fun! Of course I forgot to bring my camera to the actual event, but don't worry: As I seem to have brought half of the yarns there with me home, there will be lots of yarn photos anyway :) I will definitely go again next year. It is actually going to be another one outside of Stockholm in about two weeks, but I really can't afford to go to another one that soon. So I'll wait til next year.

I began the festival by joining in a warkshop for shadow knitting, which I've never done before. It wasn't very hard, and took about 20 minutes to understand the basics. After that I went and looked at some of the booths, and did a little recon. I met up with my friend Gunilla after a while, and we watched a demonstration of knitting cardigans from the top down, by Tant Cofta ("Old lady" Cardigan, a lady blogger who does a lot of knitting from the top down), which was really instructive. She had a great method to make almost invisible increases, but unfortunately I forgot to buy her booklet! I think that the method can be found on her blog, as well as some tutorial videos (at least for those of you who read swedish =). I'll see if I can locate the video, and ask her if I can post a link to it here directly.

Those were the workshops we actually took part in. We also watched some lace-making, some needle felting, and Gunillas sister made a very beautiful pearl macramé bracelet in another workshop. And finally we walked around and looked at yarn. A lot. I was there from 10 in the morning until 17 in the afternoon, and was feeling pretty tired when I got home! So now for the interesting part... This is what I bougth:

First, the skein that I'm most pleased with. This is Kunstgarn by Hjertegarn, a Danish 75% Superwash wool / 25 % Nylon, with 420 m/100 g. I just LOVE these colours! The seller only had one skein left, otherwise I would have bought more. I do have a friend here in Linköping who can get more for me though, so I think some more of these skeins might find a new loving home with me eventually!

Then I found another yarn that actually looks quite similar to the Kunstgarn. This is Marks & Kattens Fame Trend, which is a Swedish yarn that also has 75 % superwash wool / 25 % polyamide. I see now that it is actually exactly the same weight, 420 m / 100 g... Maybe I'll limit myself to this swedish yarn that I can find easier, as the colours look about the same too...

I also bougth my first cobweb yarn, Jojoland Harmony, which I think is an american yarn, but the label says "Made in China". It is very thin, 800 m/50 g, so this will be a VERY thin shawl i think. It's 100 % Merino Wool and super soft!

I also found two balls of Zitron Noblesse, a german yarn with 70 % Merino / 30 % Silk, that is 150 m/50 g. I think these might be some really luxurious socks, or maybe lace gloves for me? It is a really beautiful burgundy/wine colour that doesn't really come through in the photo.

I found some really cheap 100 % Merion wool from Denmark as well, Löve-garn Symfoni, which is bulky (I think...), with 90 m / 50 g yarn. It was about half price from what it would have cost in a store, so I bought four skeins. I don't really know what I'll make from them, but they are beautiful and soft, so I'm sure I'll come up with something!

I found a very interesting yarn as well, that was 90 % Bamboo/10 % Soy. I've never knitted with either soy nor bamboo before, so of course two skeins of this had to come home with me. It's called Delfi, and I have absolutely no idea where it's made. It's 180 m/50 g, so quite thin. I think these will turn into socks as well.

I found a lovely 100 % wool from Marks & Kattens as well, called Sarek (which is a National Park in the north of Sweden). It's about 50 m / 50 g, so very bulky, and SOOO beautiful! Green is my very favourite colour, and this yarn is variegated in a lot of green and brown colours. I bought 10 of these skeins, and will definitely make them into a sweater of some sort for myself!

I also found a 110 g skein of Colinette JitterBug yarn, which is 219 m of lovely, multicoloured 100 % Merino wool made in Wales. This will definitely turn into socks for me! I've learned that I shouldn't really buy merino wool, as there was some scandal involving the treatment of Merino sheep a while ago, but I just LOVE Merino! I tried to not buy any Merino that I didn't know where it came from, as I believe the badly treated sheep were Aussie. So I guess there will me no Aussie wool for me (If I can help it...).

I found two more skeins of the lovely Eco-Alpaca from Viking of Norway. This is the yarn that I made the scarf in for my mother-in-law (which she loved, by the way, I saw her this weekend!), and I just had to have some for me as well. I bougth one skein of while, and one in a lovely toffee colour (I'll only show you the toffee one here, if you want to see the colour of the white one you can just read my previous post). It's also bulky, 125 m / 100 g. I'm not sure what pattern I'll use yet, but I think it might turn into a striped scarf for me.

I also bought some really cheap acrylic yarn that I'll use for crocheting amigurumis. The green one is Järbo garn Lady, 125 m / 50 g, and the pink/purple one is Marks & Kattens Carolina, 130 m/50 g. Not very fancy, but I've found I like making amigurumis in acrylics. I also found a skein of very cheap cotton, Järbo garn Soft Cotton, that is 80 m/50 g, 100 % Cotton. I don't really know what I'll use it for, but it was practically free with the acrylics, so it went home with me. It's the dark red on the right.

I bought a set of Järbo Mini's 10 skeins of about 10 g each, with 100 % acrylics in different colours. Some of them will probably be used for amigurumi making, and some of them will probably be sent out in RAK gifts all over Europe!

I found a Chinese yarn as well! This is AAA Aotexi Jingpinrongxian (try pronouncing that! and 100 % Merino wool (I actually wonder if the chinese sheep are really treated any better than the Aussie ones?), 180 m / 100 g. I thought this yarn looked perfect for socks, and as it wasn't very expensive I thought I'd try it. It's green as well!

My final yarn purchase was two skeins of 100 % banana fiber yarn! I've never seen this either, and it has such a shine to it, almost like silk! I think it is about 68 m / 100 g, but it's actually quite hard to understand what's written about this yarn, and the website is under construction. I bought one green skein, and one yellow, and I think they will turn into some kind of striped scarf/shawl for me.

That was all the yarn I bougth. So no cashmere, and no pure silk. I actually saw a 100 g skein of pure silk, but it was incredibly expensive, so I ended up not buying it. I got the 10 balls of Sarek for the same price instead... I also found myself some beads, and a circular shawl pin. You can hardly see the beads at the top of the photo, but they are white frosted glass and really pretty. I'll definitely have very beautiful shawls from now on!

So as you can see, I spent about a year's yarn budget just this weekend. I'll really REALLY try not to buy any more yarn until at least after new year, and just knit with what I have. I have two exceptions to that rule though: The first is if I can get my hands on more Kunstgarn yarn. The second is that I have to find a white contrast yarn that goes with the green KnitPicks yarn i got from Ulrica a while ago, so it can turn into knee-high socks, gloves, a neck-warmer and a hat for me before it gets too cold.

I also have a surprise finished object for you! I have been working on this secretly for a while, as it was a birthday for my mother (and I know he reads this blog). Her birthday is actually not until october 18:th, but I'm not going to see her until November again, so she got her present early this weekend. I've made her a matching set of neck-warmer, hat and gloves. They are made in Drops Merino Superwash, 105 m / 50 g, and really super soft. She loved them, but refused to model them for me, so here is a photo of them lying on my bed:

I had to block the neck-warmer quite hard, as it wouldn't lie flat over the shoulders otherwise. But it looked very good on my mother, and as she takes long walks almost every day, I think she will get good use from them this winter.

I also had time to see my best friend Christine home in Borås this weekend as well, as well as her three sons (Lucas 6,5 years, Leo 4 years, and Alex, 2,5 months. It was so much fun to see her again, we see each other way too seldom! She and her fiancé actually asked me and my husband if we would be Godparents for little Alex at his christening, and we are so honoured! So I guess I'll have to knit him something soon, especially as those three boys are practically the only children among our friends.

I also got to see Martin and Gunilla today before I went back to Linköping. They are the newly-weds whose wedding we attended this summer, and I haven't been at their place for much too long. Thye've just turrned vegan, and actually finding some coffee bread for all of us (as I don't eat gluten) was quite hard! But I managed to find some cinnamon buns that didn't contain either egg, milk or wheat flour! And they tasted good! I wonder what's actually in them...

Ok, that turned into a VERY long post. Hope you got through it!

/ Jenny

Going to the sewing festival!

Today me and my sister is going south to Borås to visit my parents over the weekend, and tomorrow I'm going to the sewing festival there! Yay! It's going to be so much fun, and thankfully I get my paycheck tomorrow so I can actually shop a little. There are going to be a lot of yarn vendors there, and I have three goals: I want to buy some yarn of pure silk, I would like some cashmere yarn, and I would like to find some yarn that comes in hanks, so I can use my new swift! I think I might be able to achieve at least two of them (I'm not sure about the silk). There is at least one booth that will sell some banana fiber yarn, and I'm guessing that I won't be able to resist that either. I'll tell you all about it after the weekend!

This past Monday I was at a café in town and had coffee (well, I had hot cocoa, I don't drink coffee) with Désirée, a knitter who found my blog and wanted to meet me. I thought this was so much fun, and of course I agreed to meet her, and we had a really nice time. I made myself a new motto this summer: You're never too old to get new friends. And this meeting really went in line with that! I think us swedes tend to be a bit on the shy side, and I actually don't know that many people who would actually ask to meet someone after just reading their blog like that, and I'm SO thankful that Dési did it! I hope we will see each other again soon!

And yesterday there was a new knitting café with Linköping Knitters. I went there a bit early, because I wanted to go to Garnverket first to buy some yarn that I had ordered. When I got there, Anna was sitting in the store knitting, so we started talking. She is also a new Linköping Knitter, and we get along very well. She had decided that she didn't have the time to go to the café yesterday, she had too much studying to do, so she had sat down in the store instead and talked some to Ulrika (the wonderful progg on Ravelry, who by the way has actually gotten a job at Garnverket - talk about a dream job!). I ended up staying in the store for about an hour, just chatting away with Anna and Ulrika, and of course buying some yarn. I had ordered two skeins of each three colours of Drops Eskimo wool that I'm using for my needle storage unit that is going to be felted, so I bought those. And a small ball of Rowan Classich Cashsoft 4-ply (57 % merino/33 % acrylic microfiber/10 % cashmere) fell into my shopping bag as well. Completely by accident, I swear! But as it lay there, I didn't have the heart to separate it from it's newfound Eskimo friends, so it went home with me as well. I now have two of these balls, and I'm thinking of making me some lace gloves from it.

After about an hour at garnverket, I went down to Espresso House and met up with the other knitters. It was a rally cozy meeting, we weren't very many people, and there were actually three new members there. So now I'm not the newest in the flock any longer! I really love the casual feeling of Linköping Knitters, there is no membership fees, and you don't have to tell anyone if you're coming or not. You can just show up when you feel like it, no strings at all. So I think I sat there for over two hours, just knitting and chattering away with the girls and boys!

And when I came home I finally finshed the cabled scarf I've made from the Eco-Alpaca. It is just so incredibly soft! I've decided to give it to my mother-in-law as a too-early christmas gift/too late birthday gift (her birthday was on Sept 3, but I've actually not seen her since then). I'm having a little bit of a hard time separating from this yarn, but I figure that this gives me an excuse to actually buy more of it!

I think I've discovered why my arm has been hurting as well. I think I've sat in a very bad position when I've worked on my tiny laptop, especially as I've been using it a lot before the seminar. I have now changed my position, and I've also found a mouse to use, to relieve my left arm some (otherwise I use it to right-and-left-click on the mouse pad), and it actually feels a bit better. My sister dragged me to a spinning class this last Tuesday, and I have to say that the arm hurt quite a bit afterwards. I've never done spinning before, and since I haven't gotten the technique yet I tended to lean a bit too much on my arms. I'm not sure spinning is for me thouhg, as I actually hate bicycling, but I guess I'll give it antoher shot. The start classes are free until the end of october, so I guess I'll go until then at least.

Now I'm going to start packing for the weekend. I wonder how much knitting stuff I can bring without seeming totally crazy? I wonder if I care?

/ Jenny

Best. Present. Ever.

Ok, good news first: When I had my licenciate seminar a week ago, my co-supervisor from AstraZeneca, Karin, told me she had bought me an exam gift, but that it hadn't arrived in the mail yet and would come directly to me via mail. I was very glad that she had bothered to buy me something at all, so when I got a note from the post office that they had a package for me, I thought that this would be the aforementioned gift. I know that Karin does pottery as a hobby, so I thought that it might be something she had made me herself. You can imagine how surprised I was when I opened it and found a hand-made pottery yarn-bowl from KnitWitch inside! I had mentioned KnitWitch in passing to Karin a few weeks ago when we were discussing hobbies over lunch, and she had remembered and actually bought me a yarn bowl! I am just beside myself, it is SOOO gorgeous. And as I know how expensive they are with the shipping to Europe, I'm just so grateful! Have I got the best supervisor or what?!

The yarn bowl works like this: It has a little hole on one side, where you thread your yarn through. Then you have your skein or ball in the bowl and just pull the thread through the hole while you knit, and the yarn stays in the bowl and doesn't dance all over the floor (and thereby doesn't collect any dust lying around). It might seem like a little bit useless, but it is actually very good to have when you're not such a big fan of cleaning your house (as I'm sorry to admit I'm not...). Plus, it's a handmade pottery bowl, and is very beautiful to look at. I'm going to keep mine on the couch table even when I'm not using it.

Unfortunately, I also have some boring news (well, not really news...). I seem to have acquired an inflammation in my left arm, as it has been hurting like h*** for four days now. And I have absolutely no idea what I've done to cause this! The arm hurts from shoulder to palm, and painkiller pills doesn't seem to help either. I think I will have to call the doctors clinic tomorrow and find out what's wrong. The worst thing is that it's inhibiting my knitting, as I can't knit for very long without the arm hurting. On the other hand, it hurts when I don't knit either, so I might as well knit while it hurts anyway...

I'll leave you with a darling photo of Hobbe appreciating my Alpaca yarn (he was actually using it as apillow, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera...

/ Jenny

Time for new photos!

I slept for most of Tuesday, and felt much better in the evening, so I guess I wasn't really that sick... It was probably fatigue from when the stress left me after the weekend. I went to work as usual yesterday, and today I'm working from home, mostly reading articles about macrophages and gold absorption. Interesting, right?

I'm really glad I felt better yesterday, as there was going to be a knitting café at Garnverket. I went there very anticipating, only to arrive and find out that it had been cancelled. The girl who was supposed to fix coffee and cake, and keep the store open until 19, was sick witht he flu, so the store had to close at 18 instead. We were very welcome to stay until then and sit and knit and talk, but there were no cakes available. Most of the knitters then went to Espresso House instead, but a few of us who weren't really that hungry for cake anyhow (I'm intolerant to gluten, so I don't eat a lot of cake at all) stayed. I was really happy to get a chance to talk a little bit to Ulrika (alias progg), who is just the most generous person I've met! She had brought another batch of yarn for me that she said she had no use for, so she gifted me with 9 skeins (thats right 9 SKEINS!!!) of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in a lovely caramel colour, one skein of Noro Silk Garden, and some left-overs Malabrigo lace in a dark blue, almost charcoal colour. I unpacked them when I came home and just sat on the couch petting them for a while! Thank you so much Ulrika, you are just the sweetest peach!

Cotton Fleece:

Noro Silk Garden (which is already turning into a shawlette):

And Malabrigo Lace:

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I bought two skeins of a very lovely Viking of Norway Eco Alpaca. I'm turning this into a slim winter scarf, and it's such a fast knit with this chunky yarn. I'm thinking of giving it as a christmas present to my mother in law, if I can bear to part with it. It's just so incredibly soft! And I think the scarf looks pretty neat too.

I've started antother project as well, I think I might suffer from starteritis. I'm using my Drops Eskimo wool for a needle storage unit. This part is knitted in plain stockinette, and will be felted to prevent the needles from poking through so easily. Then I'm going to knit two cables and attach them, which will function as the actual holders. A finished version of this can be found here and here. Unfortunately I ran out of yarn, and Garnverket didn't have the colours right now (I ordered two skeins of each colour yesterday), so this is hibernating for a week or so. This is what it looks like so far (of course blogger insisted on turning this picture too. It isn't oriented this way in my computer, anyone knows why blogger turns it around?):

And what about my socks? Well, they are also hibernating, but I think I'll pick them up again once I finish the scarf and the shawlette. Maybe.

/ Jenny

Sickday

I woke up this morning with a blinding headache, and now my nose won't stop dripping. And I also have an ache in pretty much all my body. I think I'm sick! I guess my immune system decided to relax now that my seminar is over. Isn't that typical! I hobbled downstairs to make myself some breakfast, and brought the computer with me back to bed (yes, I've had breakfast in bed). I think I won't leave the bed for the rest of the day... Oh, wait, I have to go brush my teeth!

The only positive thing is that I'll have time to knit today. If I can find the energy. I'll try to return tomorrow with a less whiny post!

/ Jenny

Finally an update!

Today I've finally found the time to update the blog! This week has been so busy!

I'll begin with the most fun part for me: I'm now officially a Ph Lic! I ha my seminar this Friday, and it went really well. I had two opponents from Stockholm and Örebro, and they were really good. They asked good and difficult questions, but in a nice way, and I think I managed to at least discuss the questions (which is sort of what you're supposed to do, no one is actually expected to be able to answer all the questions, you just have to show that you are able to discuss them in a scientific way). They passed me, at least, so I got my degree. And afterwards, when we were having a celebratory lunch at work, my boss came up to me and told me that they had decided to keep me on at work for at least 6 more months! YES!!! I don't have to be unemployed! So that was a really good day!

After the seminar I went on a shopping trip with my mother and sister. I bought two pairs of sneakers (but I'm going to return one pair, as I'm not sure how much I would actually wear a pair of purple sneakers...), some training clothes, and of course some yarn! My husband is so thrilled about his fingerless gloves that he requested a matching hat, so I bought two more skeins of the Marks & Kattens Superwash Safir wool:

This yarn is so funny, because when you feel the ball, it feels a little bit rough and scratchy. But when knitted, it is really soft! I'm glad Thomas likes it, as it is quite cheap.

I also bought two hanks of Vinking of Norway Eco-Alpaca, and this yarn is just adorably soft! I've allready started a scarf for me, pattern can be found here. I'm doing the scarf without ribbing at the ends, so we'll see how it turns out.

I also finally bought myself a ball-winder! It wasn't too expensive in the store, and I'm always happy to support my local yarn store if I can, rather than order stuff online. I really wouldn't want the shops to run out of business. I also asked the shop-owner how much they wanted for a swift, but it cost almost 60 dollars (of course the price was actually in swedish kronor...), and I really didn't have that kind of money this month, even with the exam gift money I got from my parents and my grandmother. The shop owner than told me that I should look in the second-hand shops instead, since the swifts can be cheaper there, if they have any. So yesterday I dragged my husband with me to Hjärta till Hjärta, a second-hand shop just outside the center of the city, and bougth my first swift. It cost me less than 6 dollars! This was definitely the bargain of the month for me!

So when I got home, I immediately balled up the four hanks I had in my stash. The pink and the green balls are Garnpalettens 100 % swedish wool, 100 g at 600 m, and the white ball is the new Viking Eco-Alpaca, 100 g at 125 m. I'm so happy with both my swift and my winder, I think I might have to re-wind all of the skeins I have in my stash!

I also got some chocolate from my sister, as well as a gift certificate at one of the sports stores in town, so next week I'll go and buy myself one or two more training brahs. I now own two, and since we're working out three to four days every week, it's just so boring to do so much laundry! I'm trying to lose my extra 10 kilos, and I think my sister wants to lose about as much. And before you say anything, I know I'm hardly fat, but I've been eating anti-depressants for almost a year, and they've made me gain 10 kilos. So to me, I actually weigh 10 kilos too much, and I can hardly fit into my clothes any more. But that's about to change! I'm goint to visit my physician next week, and start to decrease my intake of the pills (you're not supposed to stop cold turkey, as you might get withdrawal and the depression symptoms can return), so hopefully I'll not have to take them for very much longer. I feel fine now, they've really helped, so hopefully I won't feel bad again.

I got some exam presents from my mother in law and my grand-parents in law as well. I got a very nice book from my mother in law, about chocolate, filled with a lot of mouth-watering recipes, which I will probably use way too much (I'm a real chocoholic!). And Thomas' grandparent got me a very inspirational book about Kaffe Fassett. That was so nice of them, as they know I love knitting. The book is so colourful and inspiring! Unfortunately blogger won't co-operate with me today, and insists upon postin the picture on the wrong side. So I guess you just have to turn the screen arund, or something...

One of my best friends here in Linköping got her PhD this spring, and she has just gotten a new job as a post doc. She starts at the beginning of October. In LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND (home of the Beatles). I'm of course very happy for her, it's such a great opportunity, but I'm also sad that she's leaving Sweden. It's only for two years, but after two years her boyfriend will have finished his PhD, and God only knows where they will end up then. But at least it's not too far to England, and the flights can be really cheap, so we'll definitely go visit her. Hopefully some time this winter. Anyway, she had a combined birthday/going-away party yesterday, and it was so much fun! We had crayfish and chanterelle pie, and a really good red wine ( I know, you're supposed to drink white wine with seafoood, but we're not pickish...), and just talked and laughed and listened to music all night.

So today I might actually get some knitting done! I'm so glad that my seminar is over, because now I'll at least have time to knit after work! And this week I'll actually have time to go to the knitting cafés (there are two this week), and have time to work out.

This past christmas, Thomas and I got a gift certificate from his father for a Spa visit just outside Linköping. As this past year has been really busy, and quite hard on us both, we haven't had a chance to use it yet, but next weekend we're going! We're staying for one night, and we're going to get some treatments and just relax the whole time. It will be so much fun! And the weekend after that is the Sewing-festival in Borås. So September looks to be a really promising month for me!

Now I will do some actual knitting, possibly I will have some progress to show you next time I write (or rant)!

/ Jenny

Competition-time!

I haven't done much knitting over the weekend, I just have too much to do with work this week. I've managed to work out with my sister three days in a row, but that's pretty much all the breaks I've had. Oh, you remember I told you about the wedding party we attended on August 1st? The newly-weds had visited Stockholm this weekend, and yesterday when they drove home to Borås, they stopped here for a coffee break, It was so much fun to see them and get to talk with them a while, we see them way too seldom! Hopefully the bride will accompany me to the sewing festival that takes place in Borås 25-27 September. I just found out about this festival, but there are going to be at least 12 yarn sellers there, so you bet I'll be there. And right after payday too!

Anyhow, the reason I'm actually taking the time to post today is that I've entered a contest in the Klub Knit Witch on Ravelry. Knit Witch is a yarn vendor who dyes SOOO beautiful yarn, but so far I've been too cheap to order, since it's rather expensive with shipping from the US. But with her September Contest, you can win 25$ gift certificate at her store! The contest is as follows:

You have to be a member of the Klub Knit Witch group to enter. You get one entry by posting your favourite vacation picture on the KKW forum. It doesn't matter if you post one or several pictures, you only get one photo entry anyhow. But you can get one additional entry by posting about the contest on your blog (which I'm doing now!), for a total of two entries. The Knit Witch also has a blog which is so much fun to read, I follow it enthusiastically. Her and her husband do much charity work as well, and sell so much fun stuff in their shop!

Now I'll go to bed so that I can muster the energy to work tomorrow too. Friday is approaching a bit too fast for my taste!

/ Jenny

Frogging the tunic

So, I decided to finally frog the tunic. I got the suggestion to elongate it to make it into a dress instead, which I think might have worked, but to me it was too much work to pick up new stitches at the bottom hem line. So into the frog pond it went. I spent the better half of my Saturday evening rolling the yarn into balls, which was a real hassle since I'd knitted with two yarns (alpaca and cotton viscose), and the two strands kept tangling! But I finally managed to salvage all of it. I think I've found another pattern for the alpaca, a long sweater with cables, but I'm not sure what I'll make of the cotton viscose. It might turn into some kind of shawl eventually, but that will have to wait a while until I find a good pattern.

Meanwhile, I'll try to finish my thick, cabled socks, maybe some time next weekend? I've got a lot of reading to do next week before the seminar, so I guess I'll not get a lot of knitting done, but I'll make up for it the week after.

So, no interesting photos today. I'll try to take some of the socks once I finish the first one.

/ Jenny

I've got so much to do!

This week has been very busy for me, I've had stuff to do almost every day. On Tuesday, two of our friends came over, and we barbecued and watched a movie. Then on Wednesday lunch, my sister and I went to another aerobics pass at Friskis&Svettis, and in the afternoon I went to a knitting café with Linkmaskan at Garnverket. Before the knitting café I went to visit progg (that's her Ravelry name, I haven't asked her if I can use her real name here on the blog, so for now she will remain progg) at her apartment, to look at some patterns. And let me tell you: I now have a knitting idol and a goal to work for! She had a whole bookshelf full of knitting books, and she told me I could borrow anything I wanted! I want a bookshelf like that of my own some day! I borrowed some patterns from her, as well as the book "Custom Knits" by Wendy Bernard. So I have a lot of projects planned for the future, I just have to find the time to make them all.

Today, my sister and I are going to a Yoga pass. And tomorrow is another knitting café, this time with Linköping Knitters at Waynes Coffee. At least I'm getting some knitting done!

I finished the gloves for my husband this past weekend, and I think I posted some pictures the last time I wrote. But here is another one of me modelling them in actual daylight, although it is a bit cloudy here today.

I guess I forgot to tell you, but I frogged the red/green/blue/yellow zig-zag sock I was making from the Hjerte Sock-yarn. They were also turning out too small, although this time I think it was mainly due to the fact that I had cast on too tightly. I've found a pattern on garnstudio where you knit the socks sideways, and I think I will try this with this yarn instead. I'll just finish up the thick cabled ones I'm working on first. They are going slowly, but I'm almost at the heel on the first one, so maybe I'll finish them this weekend? I'm not promising anything, though.

I'm also thinking about frogging the tunic. When I first saw the pattern, I envisioned a light, airy summer tunic. But the yarn suggested, which I'm using, makes it anything but this! It's very heavy and thick, a real winter garment, and I'm not sure I like this tunic model as a winter sweater. So I'm not sure if I will wear it? So maybe I could find some better use for the yarn. What do you think? I can't make up my mind, so for now it's just sitting in the knitting bag.

Next Friday, on 11/9, I will have my licenciate seminar! I'm working right now on reading up on the subjects that I might get questions about, and I'm actually getting a bit nervous. This last Monday I had a practice seminar for my supervisors, where they could give me feedback on the presentation, and also comment on what types of questions I might expect. It actually went really well, so that made my nervousness fade a bit. But the closer I get to the actual date, the more nervous I get. So I might be very stressed out next week, which might either mean that I fell I don't have the time to post on the blog, or it might mean that I procrastinate and post every day... We'll see.

For now, I'll continue readin though. I'll try to keep you updated on my knitting progress next week.

/ Jenny