I'm still recuperating after the weekend

Yes, the weekend was really intense! Everything was fun fun fun, but I still can't really believe that I'm actually going to Virginia to visit Sarah! We spoke for almost three hours this past Saturday, and we think that the best time to visit her will probably be when she's on spring break next March. We're thinking that we (me and Thomas) will stay in her town for about a week, and then we'll try to see some other stuff as well. The hard part is trying to limit what we want to see! As a die-hard Stephen King fan I of course would love to see Maine. And I would also love to see new Orleans. Thomas wants to see New York and Las Vegas. We probably won't be able to see everything we want, as we're not made of money, but we'll certainly try to get some of it in. What sights would you recommend?

Other than trying to plan the trip, we haven't done very much this week. I've started using my Wii Sports Active program again, as I've finally tired of looking at my 10 kg too heavy self. I started taking antidepressants about 1.5 years ago, and almost immediately gained 10 kg. As we've been having really great weather this week, I've spent some time in the garden in my bikini, and now I've finally tired of this. I have to loose the weight! So I've started excercising a bit, and I'm also trying to eat a little bit healthier (although the HUGE ice-cream yesterday probably went right to my ass...). At least I've started, right? And now that I've written about it here, I feel more obligated to actually continue with it too.

I also got a yarn package in the mail yesterday! I ordered some skeins last week, before I knew about the upcoming trip, but now I'll really try to put all my extra money away instead of buying more yarn. Anyhow, I bought this Wollmeise lace skein in colourway Sabrina from a fellow ravelrer, Arwen666. I couldn't be happier with it, the colour is just amazing!

The skein contains 300 grams of 100 % merino wool lace yarn, and it is amazingly soft. I've decided to make the Evenstar shawl in this colourway instead of using my red Wollmeise yarn for it. This will definitely be my next cast-on!

And knitting-wise, I'm working on the edging of the Gala shawl. This is a real scorcher, let me tell you! At the largest point I was up to 1350 stitches on the needles! But I think it will be really pretty, and I'll probably be done bu Friday or Saturday. I have come to the conclusion that I really don't like this yarn after all. It is Pälsull, from the swedish spinner Östergötlands Ullspinneri, and it is just not fun to work with. It is really fuzzy, and sheds a lot. Plus it is really splitty, as it's a two-ply, and I keep getting only one of the threads! I think I'll probably use most of it for this shawl, and I think it will look very pretty once blocked, but I probably won't buy any more of it. The colour is amazing, but it just isn't worth the hassle of working with it.

I've spent today catching up with lots and lots of old paper work lying around! I've finally fixed all of the paper for the unemployment office, so hopefully I'll get some extra money from them soon too. I've sorted through all the papers I brought home with me from my old work place, and sent off those that shouldn't stay with me. I've also sorted through all the files on my old work computer (it chose to start today), and uploaded lots and lots of files to my dropbox. Hopefully I'll never need to start that computer again! So now I have to sort the laundry and clean the kitchen, then it's just knitting time for the rest of the evening. I can't wait to actually finish the Gala shawl, it seems like ages since I actually finished a project!

/ Jenny

I'm so overwhelmed!

I hardly know where to begin! I had my mind set yesterday to celebrate midsummer's eve with Thomas, my sister and her boyfriend in our new cabin. Thomas and I went out at lunchtime to do some basic cleaning and just hang out in the good weather, and Sanna and Pontus were supposed to follow us later in the afternoon. You can imagine how surprised I was when my sister had brought 12 of my other firends from all over the country! She and Thomas had conspired to host a surprise midsommer's party to celebrate my 30th birthday! I was so overwhelmed I cried a little!

So during the afternoon we all hung out at the cabin, did some barbecue and had pickled herring (a swedish traditional midsummer's eve food) with potatoes and sourcream. Some of the guests played some volleyball, and Jonas and Anders actually made a tiny midsummer's pole.

When the evening came we all got a bit chilly, so we packed everyone and everything up in the cars and headed back to Linköping for some further partying. It was just a blast! A while ago Thomas won a collector's box of the AVP video game, and it came with a small toy facehugger from the Alien movies. This toy sort of wandered around during the evening, resulting in some pretty funny photos:

The next surprise for me came when we all had started to relax a bit here in our apartment, and Thomas put up a video on the TV screen for me. Apparently he and all of my friends and family had another surprise for me, and they had gotten Sarah from The Student Knitter to record a short video to tell me: They have all chipped in to give me a flight ticket to the States! So I'm going to visit Sarah in real life!!!! I'm so thrilled about this I can't even begin to tell you! I'm going to go on Skype later today and talk to Sarah and see if we can't come up with a date. I'm so  so happy about this, thank you to all who have chipped in!

Now I'm going to do some cleaning, as we've had seven house-guests this night. I'll see you next week for some knitting-related news :)

/ Jenny

The cabin is ours!

Yesterday me and Thomas signed the papers for the cabin, so now it's officially ours! I feel so grown up, owning a property, but it is just so much fun! We're going to start with fixing a small leak in the roof, and then move on to tearing down all the 20 layers or so of old wall papers to put up some new ones. It seems that all the previous owners have just put up new wall paper on top of the old one, and now it's really showing. We're thinking white in the main room, and probably something blue and possibly flowered in the kitchen. Tonight we're going to buy some cleaning gear and stuff, and spend all of tomorrow just cleaning and fixing stuff.

I also got some yarn in the mail this week! On Monday my latest purchase from Nyansera arrived. Jenny, the owner of Nyansera (doesn't she have a beautiful name?), is going to publish her new shawl pattern in the near future, and she posted a photo of her first finished prototype the other day. She had knitted it in her new line of yarn called Takino (80 % merino/20 % bamboo lace yarn) in a colourway called Enchanted Forest, and I immediately fell in love. So I ordered two skeins, and the first arrived on Monday.

Isn't it gorgeous?! I love it, and the yarn is very soft and very shiny. I'm going to turn it into the Mystic Roses shawl, another of Anna Dalvi's designs.

Photo borrowed from Ravelry

Today my latest purchase arrived too. I ordered 7 skeins of Rowan Silk wool DK yarn from Garnkorgen that I intend to turn into the Silken Scabbard sweater. The yarn was on sale since it will now be discontinued at Garnkorgen, so I bought all the skeins they had. Unfortunately this won't be enough for the whole sweater, so I've also ordered some more skeins from Colourway in the UK.

Siken scabbard photo borrowed from Ravelry

Other than that I haven't done much but knit on the Gala shawl this week. I've almost finished the first skein, so I'm almost ready to start the edging. I can't wait to finish it so I can block it and show it to you, as the unblocked shawl looks like a frumpy lump right now.

/ Jenny

Lazy Sunday

Yesterday my sister had a party, together with one of her friends, to celebrate thet they had both finished their teacher's studies. With my stomach issues I was only there for a couple of hours, but it was so much fun to get to walk among the living once again :) But today I'm sort of paying for it (and I was sober yesterday!), as I'm feeling a bit worse for wear. But that's ok, I don't mind having a lazy Sunday spent with my knitting and bad TV (I just watched an old rerun of Canada's top model...).

This past Thursday my friend Maya, the owner of the yarn store Garnverket here in Linköping, called me and had a knitting panic. She was going to start selling a pattern pamphlet with knitted flowers in the store on Friday, and she didn't have any time to knit any of them herself (for the store window). So she asked if I could help her, and I of course was happy to oblige. I spent the rest of the day knitting up these very pretty flowers:

I didn't have time to block them, so they look a little bit frumpy, but I still think they are very cute. I'm thinking they could be used for broches, hair clips or something like that. As payment for the work done, I got to take home one gorgeous skein of sock yarn from the store. So I picked this Colinette Jitterbug yarn (100 % superwash Merino), in colourway Jay.

I had another of these skeins (colourway Gaugain) a while back, that I turned into these terribly clown-barf-patterned Glynis socks (from the book Sock Innovation, by Cookie A.). 

The socks are actually pretty fugly, but that's my fault for choosing such a heavily patterned pattern for this crazy yarn. With my new skein I'm planning on making a pair of Firestarter socks instead, I think that will work better. I have washed the Glynis socks a couple of times now, and they are just so incredibly soft! I just can't help loving this yarn so much!

Firestarter socks, photo borrowed from Yarnissima store where you can download the free pattern.

I also got a new package in the mail the other day. I don't know if I told you, but I got some birthday money from my grandfather last weekend when the family was here visiting. I haven't spent all of it, but some, and I actually just bought yarn with specific patterns in mind. I ordered three (yes THREE) skeins of this super thin Grignasco MerinoSilk yarn (75 % merino/25 % silk, 1400 m/100 g!!!) in a beautiful dark plum colour. 

I'm going to use it for the Maskenball in Venedig shawl, I've had the pattern for a while now. It takes 4500 meters of yarn, so I'm guessing it will be fairly huge! Very pretty, though.

Photo borrowed from Klaubterwolle shop, where you can buy the pattern.

I also joined my very first mystery KAL! I bought the 6 month subscription for the Knit and Knag season of lace KAL, where you get one pattern each month form June to November. The three first patterns will be based on the three Norns form Norse mythology. The Norns were the three sisters who sat at the base of the Yggdrasil tree of life and wove the loom of fate. The first patterns, Skuld (the name of one of the sisters, and also the norse and swedish word for guilt) is already released, and it's looking sooooo pretty! 

Photo borrowed from Ravelry project page.

The designer, Anna Dalvi, is swedish from the start, although she now lives in Canada, and I adore all of her patterns! So I'm very happy that I could afford to join this KAL, even though I probably won't knit all of the patterns right away.

I've also done a fair bit of knitting on the Gala shawl these past days too. I haven't taken any new photos, since the un-blocked item looks really frumpy. But it's going to look great once it's done! I've already used over 30 grams of the first 100 gram skein, so it's moving along at a fair speed. I haven't really decided if I'm going to use both full skeins, I'll have to see how big it gets. I'm thinking I want this fairly large though.

Oh, and I also have some great cabin news: On Tuesday we're signing the contract, and then it will be ours! Yay!

/ Jenny

Stupid stomach

I had to call in sick for a third day today, as my stomach just won't ease up! I hate to be away from work more than I have to, as I really like my new job, and that's a new feeling to me. I don't think I realised how much I actually hated my research job until I actually quit. 

One thing that was a bit nice about calling in sick today again was that the lady who handles all sick leaves told me that she had spoken to my new co-workers yesterday, and they had told her what a terrific worker I was! I'm very very pleased about that :)

The other thing that has been nice about being at home is that I've actually gotten lots and lots of knitting done. I finished the first Kai-Mei sock on Tuesday, and I love it!

I love the Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock yarn, and this colourway actually works really well with the pattern (for once!). They were really fun to knit, and the whole leg part is just 3 x 3 ribbing so I can bring it to work and knit at the coffee breaks.

Yesterday I also finished the first of the Guinevere gloves yesterday, and I've woven in the ends this morning. 

I can't begin to tell you how fond I am of this gorgeous yarn (KnitPicks Stroll, colourway Saphire Heather). It's such a deep and vivid blue, and even though I very rarely wear blue I just adore this colour. The pattern was so much fun to knit, and I've now made my first i-cord edging. Too bad that it really is way too warm to wear them any time soon (although I'm certainly not complaining about summer, I love these warm, light days!).

I've also knitted a lot on the Gala shawl, and it is looking really good!

The yarn is really working well with this pattern so far, and I'm really curious about how it will look when it's blocked. I haven't even used a quarter of the first skein yet though, so I'm guessing it will take some time yet.

Finally, I'm also working some on the Owls sweater, but I haven't taken a photo of it yet. It's still only stockinette, but I'm almost up to the arm holes. The season is a bit warm for this sweater too, but I can really see myself using it a lot this winter!

Today I think I'll focus more on the Gala shawl, as I really want to finish it as fast as possible. Let's all hope that my stomach gets a grip on itself so I can go to work tomorrow!

/ Jenny

Long absence!

It's been almost a week since I wrote here! All I can say is that I've just been too busy and tired. Work is starting to get crazy now that the summer has started, so I'm just so beat when I get home in the afternoons. But work is also lots of fun, and I'm starting to learn the ropes now so it's becoming more intuitive. 

This past Friday I got some yarn in the mail (are you surprised that I'm buying yarn?)! I got my first shipment of the Nyansera summer yarn club. The yarn is Sundari 4-ply silk yarn (100 % silk, 400 m/50 g), and the colourway is called Spicemarket:

I love this yarn! And I really like the idea of a yarn club, where I don't know what yarn or what colour I will get. I think I'll see if I can buy another skein of this yarn, to get a bit more yardage and make a larger shawl of it.

I also got my latest Wollmeise purchase, two GORGEOUS skeins of 100 % superwash merino sock yarn (526 m/150 g) in colourway Sabrina:

I can't begin to tell you how much I love this colour, the photo doesn't do it justice at all. It's a greenish turquoise, and it is very very soft. I haven't decided what I'm going to make from it yet, but I'm pretty certain it will be shawls. Probably more than one shawl, as I have 300 g of it!

Oh, and speaking of Wollmeise: I've decided to keep my red lace yarn. I'm going to turn it into an Evenstar Mystery shawl, I'm just waiting for the pattern to be released. Well, I might not start on it this month anyway, because I'm knitting on so many other projects right now. I need to finish some other stuff first :)

Wollmeise Lace garn, colourway We're Different Sanguinello

Evenstar Mystery shawl, photo borrowed from Ravelry

On Saturday my parents and my grandfather and his girlfriend (they're not married, so I guess she is a girlfriend? They've been together for about ten years though, so I would call it pretty serios even though they don't live together) came here for a visit. They wanted to celebrate my birthday and my sister's graduation. She's finally done with her teacher's degree, and she's already landed her first job! She's going to work for a year at a high school (swedish gymnasium) in Västervik, whish is about an hour and a half away by train I think. I'm so proud of her!

Anyway, we all went out to look at our cabin (we haven't actually bought it yet, I'll get to that later), and they all seemed to love it! My father was a bit worried that we hadn't realised how much work that we need to do it, but there aren't a lot of stuff that needs to be done immediately. We're just going to renovate it when we have time and can afford it, so it will definitely be a work in progress. But that's kind of the idea with it, both me and Thomas really feel that we want a project that we can work on together.

The reason that we haven't actually bought the cottage yet, is that Kristina (the current owner of the house, she's Thomas' grandfather's sister) suffered a terrible loss last week as her husband very suddenly passed away. We really feel for her, and of course we're in no hurry to get the deeds to the house. Especially since we can go there pretty much as much as we like already, as we're family. Thomas was actually there yesterday together with the chimney sweeper people, to look at the wood stove and chimney. Everything seems to be fine, so we're happy about that too.

Tthis weekend I got the wonderful opportunity to do yet anohter test knit for Cheri/dartfrog911! Do you remember that I test knitted her pattern Spring Thaw earlier this spring? This is what my finished Spring Thaw lookes like, and I really really love it!

As she had another pattern that needed to be tested I immediately volunteered to do it, so now I've cast on for yet another shawl. The pattern is called Gala shawl, and Cheri's finished shawl looks like this:

Isn't it pretty! I love the edging, but I have to say that the body is really growing on me too. I love the lines of yarn-overs between the leaves, it makes it look really airy. I'm making mine in a swedish 100 % wool garn from Östergötlands Ullspinneri (Östergötland is the county where I'm in, Ullspinneri means Wool spinnners). The yarn is called Pälsull and has 600 m/100 g skein. I haven't taken any photos of my work in progress yet, so you'll have to make do with a photo of the yarn :)

I really really like how this yarn knits up in this pattern! I started the Twinkle Twinkle little Star shawl with this yarn, but it didn't look good with all that stockinette stitch. But in this pattern it works, and I'm really happy with it! The test knit for the Spring Thaw shawl took me ages, as I knitted on it when I was so sick this spring, but I'm hoping this Gala shawl will be done much faster.

And speaking of sick: I bet you're wondering why I'm at home at 8.00 on a Tuesday morning? Yes, you guessed it: My stomach is really on the fritz today. So I had to call in sick, as I can hardly leave the bathroom. Hopefully it will be over soon, so I can get to work tomorrow again. I really hate having to call in sick!

And I almost forgot! This past Saturday was also Word Wide Knit in Public Day (WWKIP)! Linköping Knitters gathered in the city park to have a knit fest, but we actually had to move indoors after a while as it was just too cold to sit outside. So we went to a café that is located in the park, and sat there and just knitted and chatted away. It was very fun, although I only stayed for little over an hour as my parents were visiting.

Finally, I've decided to sort of skip the Creativity boot camp for a while. I'm just too tired when I get home from work, so I've decided to do it next week when I go on vaccation leave for four weeks. I'll have a lot more time then, to focus on my designing skills. And speaking of that, I actually have a finished swatch to show you! This is the first I've done that I've designed myself, and I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I call it The Ivory Tower:

It's knitted in a cheap cotton/bamboo/acrylic yarn called Järbo Tropik, but it's very very soft and I actually rather like it. I could very well use this for socks in the future (although I don't have any more of it, so maybe somday far, far into the future) as the bamboo gives it a very pretty shine. Anyhow, this swatch is the first of may to come, as I have several scetches that I want to try out, but right now I don't really have time.

And speaking of time: I think I'll have a lot of knitting time today, especially as Thomas is already on vaccation so he'll probably sleep until noon or so. I think I'll focus on the Gala Shawl!

/ Jenny

Creativity Boot Camp, day 3

Ok, I was hoping to have the energy to actually post here every day about my creativity endeavours. As it turns out, I'm just too tired when I get home from work, so yesterday I didn't make any post at all. I am writing a separate journal for the boot camp though, and doing all the excercises, I just haven't found the energy to share all of it yet.

I decided that this creativity challenge would be about designing for me, as that is something that I really want to do, but I just never seem to get around to it! So this is the perfect opportunity for me! And so far I've gotten several good ideas, and I've even started to knit a swatch with one! I think I'll wait with showing it to you all until the swatch is complete, but so far I really like it. I'm actually really loving this boot camp so far!

Other than that I haven't done much since last time, other than going back to work (as I was sick almost all of last week). Yesterday we had over 100 patients coming to leave blood tests with us, so it was a crazy day. I've even gotten to draw blod from kids now, and it's going fairly well (at least if you ask me, I doubt the kids love me though :). I still love the job, even though this new workplace is a thousand times more busy, but that is almost only a good thing. The days fly by!

Oh, I almost forgot the most important news: We got the bank loan, so we're good to go on buying the cabin! YAY! SO I'm guessing this summer will be mostly about renovating! I'll try to get some new photos of it this weekend, as my parents are coming for a visit. Actually, both my parents and my grandfather are coming, as we're going to celebrate that my sister got her teacher's degree yesterday! She's done with all her studies, and she actually already landed a job in the Autumn! So YAY Sanna! I'm guessing my parents will celebrate my birthday a bit too, as I haven't seen them in a while (I don't really remember when I was home last, but I think it was before Easter).

Now I'm going to clean out the litter box and do a quick load of hand wash laundry before I get to bed.

/ Jenny

Beautiful Blogger Award!

I just recieved a Beutiful Blogger Award from Kate, over at Lazy Kate Creates! It's almost silly how happy I become when I get this kind of positive feed-back on the blog. Thank you so much, Kate!

Part of recieving this award is to tell you readers ten things about me that you don't know. So here they are: 10 new facts about me!

1) I've always been a bit of a collector. When I was younger I collected stickers, erasors and stationary. The other day when I was looking for some coloured pencils in my drawers I actually found my old collection of stationaries, and I looked through them. I still think they're really pretty :) I guess my most recent collection is my yarn!

2) I had my very first kiss when I was 10 years old. The boy was in my class, and it was during recess. I hated it, and thought it was sloppy and slimy! Thank god a girl can change opinion, right?

3) I was always a pretty good student, and got almost top marks in all the classes in high school. Except for the cooking classes, sports and crafts! I really wish I could take the crafts classes again today, I think I would appreciate them a lot more now.

4) I just recently learned to eat asparagus. I used to be a really fussy eater, but when I got my gluten intolerance diagnosis at age 18 I had to learn to eat a lot of new stuff. But asparagus took me several more years, I think I've only eaten it for maybe three years. And now I love it. Preferably wrapped in bacon or air-dried ham :)

5) Ever since I learned to read at age 5, I've wanted to become a writer! When I was a young teenager my parents gave me an electrical typewriter for my birthday, and I wrote so many sappy teenage love stories that I've forgotten half of them. I used to kill off at least one of the main characters, and every time I sat at the typewriter just bawling my eyes out. My parents thought I was a bit weird :)

6) And speaking of bawling: I can't watch sad movies. I can't even watch sad cartoons, I'm so sappy I cry at everything! I remember when me and my mother (who is equally sappy) watched E.T for the first time, and how much we cried when E.T. got to go home. I think I was still a bit swollen around the eyes the next day!

7) I love Donald Duck! Or rather, I love Scrooge McDuck. I've subscribed to Donald Duck & C:o since I was a child, and I just stopped the subscription this year. I adore Carl Barks, the writer/cartoonist who came up with most of Duckburg and most of the fun characters. But my very favourite cartoonist is Don Rosa, who has done a lot of sequels to the stories Carl Barks wrote. Unfortunately he is now retired, and that's why I stopped subscribing.

8) I am scared of dogs. When I was about 1.5 years old, my mother was outside pulling me around in a sled. A huge dog apparently cam a nd stole my blanket, and ever since then I've been terrified of dogs. I don't remember the event itself, but it seems to have etched itself into my subconcious. I used to be so scared that if a dog came close to me, I looked around for the closest tree (or parent) to climb! I got to practice on my neighbours' dog when I was about 7-8 years old, and since then it's a little bit better. I still have a healthy (or maybe non-healthy) respect for dogs though, and I doubt that we'll ever own one.

9) I dream almost every night. And remember it. I used to write a dream journal, but it got to be too much to write as I dream so much, so I stopped. Today I only write down dreams that inspire me, whether it be for knitting, writing, or anything else.

10) If we could afford it, I would love to be a stay-at-home wife! I would love to have all day free for cleaning, knitting and possibly cooking (although I hate cooking: Thomas does about 90 % of the cooking in our house). I don't want any children, so I won't be a stay-at-home mom, but I could definitely see myself as a housewife (not a desperate one, though). Maybe if we win the lottery!

Ok, that's it. I hope you learned something you didn't know before. Now I'm going to finish up the last of the cleaning, so I have the rest of the night free for knitting (and Skyping with Sarah, I hope!)

Oh, and I'm supposed to forward the award to ten more bloggers. These are the ones I choose:

Anna bland andra (swedish blog)

Både varken och eller (swedish blog)

Cloudberry

Ilsefin bloggar (swedish blog)

Implausible yarn

Samurai Knitter

The 60/40

The World according to Jane

Abby's knits

The Student Knitter

I tried to not give it to the same blogs that Kate had awarded, but I just had to include The Student Knitter, as it is my favourite blog ever!

/ Jenny

Creativity Boot Camp, day 1

Yes, I know that I should be outside to take advantage of the super nice weather we're having, but I really can't spend any more time in the sun without burning. Plus, it's the middle of the day, and then you really shouldn't be in the sun, so I'm taking a little break.

Today is the first day of the two week long Creativity Boot Camp that I'm participating in. I'm not sure if I'll be able to blog about it every day, but I'll try. Today's assignment was to write a letter to myself, describing what goals I'm planning on achieveing these two weeks. The twist was to write it as if the course was already done, and be sure to tell myself how well I've done! I'm not going to reprint my letter here, but I've decided that for me this course will be about dsigning knitted stuff. 

We're also going to get a daily word to be creative about, and today's word was "Ivory". I immediately associated it with the Ivory Tower, from the Neverending Story book by Michael Ende. It is one of my altime favourite books, and I also love the movie, so I thought: Why not design a lace shawl with patterning inspired by shapes from the movie/book? So I've spent a good hour of the morning searching for inspiring photos online from the movie, and also doing a lot of scetches by hand. I can't draw for squat, but at least I think I have an idea of what I want it to look at. I'll continue the process over the coming week, and maybe even show some of the progress to you!

I aslo have a lot of other insirational books to draw from, so possibly there will be a whole series of knitted stuff to come :)

And now for something completely different: Yesterday me, Thomas and my sister, Sanna, visited a local flea market, Loppis i Djupdalen, and it was really fun! I've not been to very many fleas before, and it must be almost 20 years since the last time, but now that we're buying a cottage (no, we still haven't heard from the bank) we wanted to see if we could find any vintage-looking furniture and other stuff. We didn't buy any furniture, but I came home with my very own spinning wheel!

I love it, and I love that it's wood coloured. I have one at home that's on loan from my mother's work (she works at a school), but that one is painted a grayish white. The one I bought is so much prettier, even though the wheel is missing one spoke. I don't care about that though, I love it anyway. I just have to put in a new piece of string to run the wheel, but that should be pretty easy. I haven't had time to do it yet though, but maybe later next week. The wheel cost just over $15, and I couldn't be happier! 

Thomas has plans to start brewing his own beer, as he is a beer afficionado. He likes to try new kinds, and he even has a beer blog (that he very seldom writes on, but even so). He found a huge glass bottle (the name for it in swedish is damejeanne, I guess that's a french word from the beginning) that is used for brewing stuff, and it didn't cost him more than $5! So we both made really good finds, and we're very pleased with the whole adventure. I'm sure we'll visit more than once, as they are open every Saturday for the whole summer.

I also made Thomas take some photos of me wearing the Haruni shawl, so you'll get an idea of how big it is. I love this size, as I can easily wear it over my shoulders like a shawl, but it can also be scrunched up and worn around the neck.

Finally, I also started the India Stole this past Friday, but I haven't really made enough progress to warrant a photo yet. I'll knit on it this week, and show it to you later on :)

Now I'm going to get some cleaning done, so I don't have to do it after work during the week!

/ Jenny

Haruni is finally done!

It feels like I've been working on the Haruni shawl forever, since I've frogged it twice already. But today it was finally done, and now it's blocking upstairs. I was a bit scared of the crochet bind-off, but that one was actually pretty easy. When I came to the cast-off I had about 500 stitches in total, and I think it took about an hour to finish the cast-off. Then it was time for the blocking, which was a completely different story. I think the blocking took over two hours! But it was sooo worth it, just look at it:

I LOVE it! And I finally have a pink shawl again! I made a Candle Flame shawl last year in a pink Garnpaletten yarn, but I gave it away this spring, to my grandmother. She loved it so much, so it was totally ok to give it away, but I've missed having a pink shawl. Now I have one again!

This was my eight shawl this year, so I'm doing very good time as I'm planning on making ten this year (remember, the 10 shawls in 2010 group on Ravelry?). I think I'm going to cast on for the India Stole tonight, I'm planning on making it with my Chili Gredelin Simone yarn in colourway Sheer Apricot.

India Stole (photo borrowed from Ravelry)

Chili Gredelin Simone (70 % alpaca/30 % silk) in colourway Sheer Apricot

I haven't made any stoles yet, so this will be new to me. I'm very excited to make it, as I've had it in my favourites on Ravelry for ages. I think the pattern is charted in the same way that the Sari Lace triangle (the same designer, Sylvie Beez) and Murdered by Lace (designer Kalinumba) shawl were charted, that is that every stitch is included in the charts. Meaning wide charts!

Or, maybe I should just work some more on the projects I have already going? But I think I want to have at least one shawl on the needles, otherwise I think I might get bored. Plus, it's not really the season for gloves or heavy sweaters, as we've had about 20 Centigrades here this past week :) So I think I shawl (or stole) is just the thing!

/ Jenny

I hate being sick!

Well, it turns out that Thomas didn't have strep throat after all, it was just a really bad cold. And now I have it too! I had to stay at home from work today as I'm running a fever too, and this morning I actually coughed until I cried. No fun at all!

But enough whining! I also got my two last birthday presents (I think) in the mail today. Boy, do I love to get yarn in the mail! I ordered these myself, for the last of the birthday money I got from my grandmother. I got one package from Chopped Tomatoes, with three beauiful skeins of Heavenly Infusion yarn (85 % wool/15 % cashmere) in colourway Thicket:

And one skein of the same yarn in colourway Forever young.

I already had one skein of Forever Young in my stash, but I love the colour so much I had to order one more skein so it will last for a big shawl. I wish I could afford to buy all the colourways available for this yarn, as I love them all, and the yarn is just so incredibly soft!

I also got a cheaper package from Garnkorgen, that held five skeins of yarn and a magazine for me:

Two skeins of Kampes one-ply wool yarn, in a green colour

One skein of Kampes one-ply wool yarn in pink

Two skeins of Kauni fingering weight yarn (100 % wool) in a lovely lilac colour

The pink Kampes I also had a half skein of before, it is the yarn I used for the shawl I made for Thomas' grandmother, and I just adore this colour. I want to use it for something for myself too! 

The magazine I bought is the spring/summer issue of Debbie Bliss magazine:

I bought it almost solely for the pattern for the Tunic Dress, and I have to say that the rest of the magazine is not much to my taste. Most of the patterns are sort of oversized, or pretty out-dated (at least in my opinion), so I think I might give it away once I've knitted the tunic (which probably won't be in the near future if I know myself), but that's ok.

Tunic dress, photo borrowed from Ravelry

I think that I will try REALLY hard to not buy any more yarn for a while now! I actually got a subscription to a yarn club at Nyansera this summer, the first shipment is due at the beginning of June so probably in a few days, but other than that I think I'll try to use up at least 10 skeins of my stash before I buy anything new again. Oh, wait. Chili Gredelin (her store is currently down, so I can't link it until it's re-activated) is probably starting up her store for the summer again... Maybe that will have to be the one exception!


Yesterday Thomas and a building conservation guy from his work went out to have a look at the cabin, and the building guy said that there weren't anything wrong with it, and we should really buy it. So now we're waiting for the bank to tell us that we can borrow the money! Yay! Thomas also took some more photos, so here's some more cottage pr0n for you:

Outside artsy sunset photo

Kitchen

Kitchen, with a wood stove

I really hope that the bank gets back to us soon, and with a positive decision. Otherwise we'll be really crushed!

/ Jenny