Summer!

We've had amazing weather with over 20 Centigrades here in Linköping for the past week. Actually, I need to stop saying "here in Linköping", as we've actually moved from there! We are now in Mantorp, which is a small town of about 3000 residents, and we're actually right outside Mantorp too. Almost in the country! I bet anyone who knows me is rather surprised about the fact that I moved away from the city, but I LOVE our new house!

We've finally gotten pretty settled, even though there are still a few bags of books to unpack. But I have finally gotten around to taking a few photos, so I'll start by showing you the living room:

We renovated this room as soon as we moved in, as we hated the wall paper that was there. It was red, black, blue and white, with HUGE flowers and birds in a really garish pattern. We chose white instead, and we still need to get curtains up in the second window, and the paintings hung on the wall too. That will get done before midsummer's eve though, as we're having some people over.

Then there is our gigantic, light kitchen:

We actually didn't really realize how big the dining area was until we started putting our tiny furniture in. As you can see, we have room for two arm chairs and a second table by the windows! We sit there and eat breakfast all the time. I really like the kitchen, but we need to get the final curtains up here too. We want to buy a new set of dining furniture, but we can't afford that right now. Maybe when autumn comes around!

Then we have our bedroom:

We decided to keep the walls white, and when we can afford it I really want a new wardrobe. The ones we have now are really ugly, I want that entire wall filled with homogenous closets with sliding doors that don't hit the bed when we open them :) But that will also be a question for a later day!

Then, I'll show you two quick photos of my crafts room:

As you can see, the walls are black and red, and this will be changed as soon as we can afford it. I dare say this will be our next renovation project! I hope we can get to it after our vacations are over, because I hate these colours! But I'm thinking a really pale grey, or possibly pale olive green, and I want a new desk for the sewing machine, and a really comfy arm chair too. I really like having a separate room for all my crafts supplies, but I have to admit that so far I spend most of my knitting time in the living room, as always.

Finally I snapped this photo today of Thomas cleaning the pool outside on the deck (he's to the far right of the photo, almost hidden in the shadow). 

It is pretty cool to have a pool, and it's finally getting almost warm enough to swim in too. Unfortunately it seems like the nice weather is going away on Tuesday, so we're hoping for a really warm day tomorrow too.

Oh, and I have some news too: We sold the cabin! We decided pretty much as soon as we bought the house this Christmas, that we don't have time for both a house and a cabin. The house was built in the late 19th century, so it's pretty high maintenance, and we decided to keep our focus on that. So the past two weekends we've spent most of our time in the cabin, fixing it up for sale. And on Thursday last week, a couple from the south of Sweden came to have a look, and wanted to buy it for our asking price! Yay! So on Wednesday this coming week, we're signing the papers, and it's out of our hands. We are very happy about this, as it means we can pay back the loan we took to buy it in the first place, meaning we can put more money aside each month for the house upkeep funds!

And would you believe that I've actually managed some knitting these past weeks too?! I've finished a pair of socks, The Owlie socks, in The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! yarn:

I really, really like them! Even though the eyes on the last pair of owls by the toe tend to hurt a little bit when I wear the socks in shoes, but beading a pair of socks was an experiment for me anyway so I'm ok with that. The yarn is incredibly soft, these are by far the softest socks I've made. So I'm happy! I bought the yarn from Eat.Sleep.Knit a while ago, and I think I might not buy any more until I find a supplier in Sweden.

I've also knitted a bit on my Ethereal Triangle shawl, that I'm making in Madelintosh Prairie yarn:

I'm almost done with all the repeats of the first chart, so I hope to move on to the edging some time next week or so. I'm not overly impressed with the yarn, as I find it a bit stiff to work with, but I hope it will soften up when I wash it.

And yesterday I actually picked up the Silken Scabbard sweater again! 

It's been "resting" since way before we moved, and I'm not sure why. I really, really enjoy working on it, and the yarn is amazing! It's Rowan Silk Wool DK, which is discontinued, which is a real pity. The sweater fits me well too, so I finished the body yesterday and started the first arm too. I hope to finish this one soon too, so I can at least wear it once autumn arrives.

I thought I would show you a photo of the Urdr shawl I'm also working on, in Garnstudio Drops Lace yarn:

I haven't worked on this one for quite a while, and I think I'll try to finish the Ethereal Triangle shawl first as I want to wear that one for a wedding this summer. I think I enjoy this one too, but I haven't decided if I think the yarn knits up prettily yet. I think it looks like it doesn't have very much stitch definition, but I haven't been able to stretch it out properly yet either so I think I'll leave that unsaid.

Oh, and last week I had my birthday too! I turned 32, and we didn't have a big celebration or anything. My mother, father, sister and grandfather visited last Sunday, and we had dinner and cake outside on the deck. I got a new bike from my grandfather, which is perfect now that we live in the country! And I got two sun deck chairs from my parents, and a rhubarb plant from my sister, so almost only stuff for the house. Which was almost the only things I wished for! Thomas, on the other hand, gave me the new Zelda game for the Wii, so I got to feel young too :) We've only just started playing, but I adore the Zelda games! We even had Link and Zelda for our cake dacorations when we got married :)

And Thomas told me to order myself some yarn as a present too! As you might have noticed here on the blog, I've been really good about knitting from the stash for quite a while! I haven't stashed any new yarn on Ravelry since November last year, which means 6 months without buying yarn! I'm very proud of myself. But I ordered some now, and last week I got myself three new skeins from Chili Gredelin. These are Anastasia, 100 % alpaca in fingering weight, in colourway Chartreuse:

I plan to turn them into either this cardigan, or this sweater (if I can get the pattern, it's been removed from KnitPicks' website, and the designer hasn't answered my PM on Ravelry). I haven't decided yet. Right now it's resting on the book shelf!

I also got some spending money from my father-in-law, and I've ordered some yarn and some wool wash from Garnkorgen as well. I think it won't arrive until maybe Wednesday, so I'll try to get back to you next weekend to show you. Then I'll try to wait until Christmas until I buy any more...

/ Jenny

Getting settled

Hi everybody! It's been a while! I was planning on participating in the Annual Knit and Crochet Blog Week this year as well, but as it took place during the last week of April, right after we moved, I just didn't have the time. We're finally getting a bit settled in the new house, and we love it! It's an old house, probably built sometime around the end of the 19th century, but it's been renovated in 2005 and 2009, when two new parts of the house were added as well. On the ground floor there is a HUGE kitchen, with lots of light and air, a living room which we've painted these past few weeks, a big bathroom, a small guest bathroom, the laundry room and our bedroom. On the second floor there is a small hallway, Thomas' computer/music room and my very own crafts room! You won't get to see any photos of anything just yet, as I haven't gotten around to taking any! But we are very pleased with the whole thing.

Once the living room was painted and finished, we could finally move all of the furniture out of the kitchen and into its proper place, and since then I've managed at least a small bit of knitting. On Tuesday I finished my seventh pair of socks from the 10 socks collection I'm working on, and I'm very pleased with them. These are the Blue Lagoon socks, made with KnitPicks Stroll yarn (75 % wool/25 % nylon) in colourway Saphire Heather:

I adore this gorgeous blue colour! I made a pair of socks with it for my mom about a year ago, and now I finally have my own pair as well. I wore them to work yesterday, and they are very comfortable as well!

Since I hate not having a sock on the needles, yesterday I cast on for a new pair. I chose the Owlie Socks, and I'm making them in The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga yarn (70 % Merino/20 % Nylon/10 % cashmere), in colourway Oleander Nymph, and this is how far I've gotten so far:

I decided quite late on Tuesday night that I wanted to bring the yarn to work on Wednesday to cast on there, and went upstairs to wind the skein into a ball. Let me tell you: This yarn was a NIGHTMARE to wind! It just kept getting tangled in itself, and I ended up having to wind the whole thing by hand, just so I could move the growing ball around the tangling skein. I then re-wound it with my ballwinder to get a center-pull ball, and it took me almost an hour! But now that I'm knitting with it, the yarn is totally worth it. The stitch definition is to die for, and it is incredibly soft.

I also chose to bead the owls, and I've settled on a set of yellow/orange beads from my bead stash. I'll make sure to post photos of it once I get so far on the knitting!

I'm also knitting a bit on the Ethereal Triangle shawl I'm making in Madeline Tosh Prairie yarn, and this one is turning out very pretty. The colourway, Oxblood, is incredibly beautiful, and I really enjoy the pattern as well. I think the yarn feels a bit stiff though, but that might change once I wash it. In the middle of July my cousin is getting married, and he asked me to sing something at the ceremony. I plan to wear this shawl then, so I better get a move on!

Ok, I plan to hang some curtains before it gets dark here, so I think I'll leave you for now. I hope we get some sunshine this weekend, so I can get some daylight photos. I want to show you all my crafts room!

/ Jenny