Keeping myself busy

Today has been a busy day for me! I don't know if you know this about me, but I like to sleep. If I have no alarm set, I can easily sleep until 11 in the morning. So now that I have a new job I need to get a better daily rhythm, so I set the alarm even when I'm off work. This means I have so much more time in the days to do stuff!

So today I went for coffee (well, I don't drink coffee, I had hot cocoa instead) with an old friend of mine who was in town just for the weekend. When I went to high school we were four girls who always hung out (well, sometimes we were more, but the four of us were the "core" of the girl gang), and when I left Borås in 1999 I only kept up contact with one of them, Christine. Well, Annika whom I went for coffee with today is one of those two girls that I don't really know anymore, but we managed to hook up for almost two hours today. It was just so much fun! We've sort of kept track of each other on Facebook, but haven't actually seen each other for at least four years. I'm sort of surprised at how little we reminisced, I guess we were just too busy updating each other on what we've been up to for the past 10 years!

Then when I got home I intended to do some cleaning, but the knitting pile was much more alluring :) For the first time in weeks I'm not doing any projects for any-one else but me, and I have absolutely no deadlines for anything I'm making. So today have been a real cast-on mania for me!

I began with the Owls sweater. So far I only have an inch or so of the ribbing at the bottom of the sweater, but this was so much fun! I haven't worked with needles bigger than 3 mm for quite a while, and this sweater is worked on 7 mm and 8 mm needles! They feel like drumsticks in my hands, but it is also nice with a change. And I bet this project will get done very fast, as the yarn is very thick as well (It's Rowan Cocoon, 80 % merino/20 % kid mohair, in colourway Bilberry).

Then I put that project down, and started a pair of gloves for me. On Ravelry I've namned them Super Complicated Gloves, because they are, but the pattern is Guinevere by Julia Mueller. I love basically all of her patterns, they are just gorgeous. This is the first pair I'm making, and the construction is far away from anything I've made before! They start with the thumb! I'll get a photo of the schematic diagram to show you once I get a little further. I'm making them with KnitPicks Stroll yarn (75 % superwash merino/25 % Nylon) in colourway Saphire Heather.

Finally I skeined my two hanks of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn (80 % Superwash wool/20 % nylon, colourway Aslan) and got started on a new pair of socks for myself. I had such a hard time deciding on a pattern, I just have too many sock patterns lined up! But as I realised I couldn't make up my mind, I just decided to pick a new pattern from the Sock Innovation book by Cookie A. This designer is just so amazingly talanted, all of her patterns are just amazing and beautiful. So I'm making the ones called Kai-Mei, and so far I only have a piece of ribbing to show you. This yarn knits up beautifully, and I'm going to love these socks!

I'm also thinking of casting on for another pair of gloves for myself, from the Selbuvotter book. I've decided to start with the ones called Annemor #15, and I'm going to use KnitPicks Palette yarn (100 % wool) in colourways black and Lipstick. But I might wait with these until I've finished one of my current four WIP's (remember I'm also working on the Haruni shawl). We'll see how much willpower I have this weekend!

Tomorrow I'm going back to work again, and I'm still excited about it. I hope to get to try drawing venous blood (you know, from the arm) for the first time! The only thing I don't like about working is the fact that I have to get up at 6.00 to get there in time...

/ Jenny