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