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