Shawls, shawls, shawls

I'm guessing that shawls will be pretty prominent in the next few posts... I've been sick for a few days now, this cold has been kind of bad. My nose is completely stuffed, and when I can't breathe through my nose, I can't sleep. So I've been getting about 2 hours of sleep for the last three nights. I can't use nasal sprays either, as my mucous membranes are to sensitive and start to bleed when I do that. But tonight I've actually managed a few hours more, probably due to complete exhaustion, but that makes life a little bit easier.

Ok, enough whining. As I've been sick I've been off work yesterday and today, and tomorrow is a holiday in Sweden. It's the 13th day after Christmas, and I can honestly say I don't know why we celebrate this. Can anyone help me out? My mind is telling me that it might have something to do with the three wise men, but it might be my imagination. Anyway, as I've been home, I've had a lot of knitting time! Nothing bad that doesn't have something good with it, right? I've come a long way on my September shawl, and I love it!

Blogger seems to have a life on its own today! I don't know why it insists on turning some of my photos around! The phone is included in the photo to show the scale. The colours work really wll with this pattern, and even though you can't really see the lace pattern in the photo, it's there. I'll get better pictures once it's finished and blocked. I've done the first chart D repeat, so now I just have to do one more chart D, and then it's the edging. It's a fast knit, it's a beautiful pattern, and I love the yarn! This will probably be my first finished object in the lace challenge!

Yesterday I dragged my snotty but into town to finally get some new needle threaders! I probably infected half the people in the yarn store, but I just couldn't wait any longer! The store only had two threaders left, so I bought them and I'm now keeping my fingers crossed that they will last for a long time! I'm going to have a look around today to see if I can't find any online. But at least I've got to work on my Aeolian yesterday evening.

Once again, the phone is included for scale purposes. I'm done with the Yucca chart repeats (I did four of them), and am halfway through the transition chart. I'm going to do at least one Agave repeat, and I figure if I have one whole skein of yarn left when I start the edging, I should be good. So I just have to see how long the first skein lasts me, so far I've only used about 10 g of yarn, so I'm hoping I can do more than one Agave repeat. I'm putting in lifelines after every repeat is done, so it should be easy to rip out if I run out of yarn.

This past Sunday I got another pattern as a RAK gift! People are just so generous, and it's so much fun! I got the pattern for the Viefalt II shawl, from Helene, Helene70 on Ravelry. This pattern is sooooo gorgoeus, and I really love it. And it was extra fun, as Helene is a member of Linköping Knitters, so I know her personally too. Thank you so much, Helene!

And speaking of shawls in my queue: Some people in the 20 shawls in 2010 have already finished their first shawls (talk about speedy knitting!), and today I saw a finished Haruni. I think I might have to move that pattern up in my queue, as it is completely adorable! I think I'll have to buy some yarn for it though...

This Saturday me and Thomas started watching Pushing Daisies. Why haven't I seen this before?! Sophipgi137 had read my blog posts about what movies and TV shows I like, and she told me that I would probably enjouy Pushing Daisies as well. And I do, I LOVE it! It has a very Burton-esque feeling to it, both in the visual stuff and in the narrator voice (which reminds me of Edward Scissorhands). It's so sad that there are only two seasons! But I will enjoy those thoroughly, I promise!

And on Thursday one of the swedish channels is starting to show the third season of Mad Men! Oh, how I love this show, I hope it will go on for many more seasons! I've watched most of the episodes from seasons one and two this weekend, and I wish I could marathon-watch season three in the same way. Unfortunately, I don't think that all the episodes have aired in the States yet either, so I guess I'll have to be patient.

Well well, back to knitting. Or at least, yarn! I'm glad that it's a new year, so my yarn diet is officially over! Not that I've used up much of my stash, but I just want to buy more yarn! Althoug I think I'll try to limit myself to light weight yarns, and keep to lace weight and sock yarns. I have a lot of sock patterns, gloves- and mittens patterns, and shawl patterns that I want to make, and not very many things that require bulky yarns.

It looks like there will be a new KnitPick's order soon! This time, I'm only buying yarn, and I'm so looking forward to it! My order will consist mostly of lace yarn (probably including the yarn for my up-coming Haruni shawl) and sock yarn, as well as a lot of the Palette yarn that I made the Moose mittens from for my grandfather. I really like that yarn, and it worked so well in the colourworks. I'm planning on making most of the patterns in the Selbustrikk pamphlet from this yarn. I wonder how many mittens a girl can have? Is there such a thing as too many?

Oh, and speaking of that pamphlet: I bought it from Helylle, a swedish site. They're having an after-Christmas sale, and they'r discontinuing their Rowan Cocoon yarn at their store in Kristianstad in the south of Sweden. So if you're in that naighbourhood, go there and buy some, it's so cheap it's almost indecent! It's almost worth it to take a trip there, even though it's a journey of about 350 kilometers or so... I went by Garnverket yesterday, and the owner insured me that the yarn will not be discontinued by Rowan, so it must be just the Helylle store that won't be selling it anymore. I'm planning on using this very luxurious yarn to make an Owls Sweater some time in the future, but I'm guessing it might not be this year...

This year is going to be a big year for both Thomas and me (as well as a lot of our friends), as we're both turning 30! A bunch of us have spoken about having a large party together sometime this Spring, which suits me just fine. I think it's too much hassle to host a party that size by ourselves, and as we all have a lot of friends in common, we've decided that we should just rent a place together and be done with it. Thomas' birthday is in february, so that's pretty soon. I'm just so happy that I already know what to get him, but unfortunately I can't write about it here as I know that he occasionally looks at the blog! But I've started to ask his friends if they want to join in on the gift, and he will probably get it at the party, and not on his acctual birthday. So I have to come up with something else, smaller, that I can give him on the very day. That's going to be difficult!

And the weekend 19th-21th of February, there will be a new Sewing Festival, this time in Stockholm. Me and Anna have talked a bit about going together, and I'm guessing there might be some more yarn purchases there too. However, I'll try to limit myself there too, to just buy lace and sock yarn. We'll see how well that goes :)

I think I'll continue with my knitting now, I really want to make some progress on the Aeolian!

/ Jenny