This time, I've got an excuse!

I've been postponing this post for more than a week, but I have a reason this time. My mother-in-law turned 60 this Monday, and I decided I wanted to give her the Urdr shawl as a present. So I wanted to wait with posting it here until she got it, so as not to spoil the surprise. All of the family, that is Thomas and his five brothers, plus me and two other girlfriends, went to the family cottage on Tjörn, a small island off the west coast of Sweden, on Saturday to celebrate. We had lots of cake, ate at a lovely seafood restaurant, and played some board games and just generally hung out. I think Annika (my MIL) was very pleased, and she seemed very happy with the shawl.

I haven't got very many photos of it, so this will have to do. I really, really like it, and I could barely part with it, but I love my MIL like a second mother so I know it will be loved and used! It is made with Drops Lace yarn, which is 30 % silk and 70 % alpaca, and it turned out very soft after blocking. I have 1.3 skeins left, which is about 800 m I think, so I'll definitely make another shawl for me from it. Eventually.

I finished Urdr on Monday the 20th, and on the 23d Annika and my brother-in-law Adam came here to visit. Adam has just gotten accepted to the university in Linköping, so he's staying with us until he can find his own place, and  Annika just drove him here to help him get a bit more stuff here. So I didn't get to block the shawl until last weekend, but that was plenty of time for it to dry. Adam has put his TV up right next to ours, so now him and Thomas are playing their xboxes in tandem! It's lucky I like video games, and I get a lot of knitting time this way too :)

Once the shawl was done I made a little headway on the Faramir socks as well, and I've finally gotten around to taking a photo of them! I really like this pattern, and the yarn isn't too bad either.

It's Opal sock yarn, which is a very generic, 25 % nylon/75 % wool sock yarn that I enjoy a lot. It really softens once washed, and now it comes in a lot of solid colours too, as well as all the crazy patterned colours that has been around for a while.

I got a bit tired of trying to make these insanely complicated cables at work though, especially since the heel involves cables on the purl side as well, so I decided to start something a bit easier. I chose the Austin Hoodie, and I'm making it it Chili Gredelin Anastasia yarn (100 % alpaca), in colourway Chartreuse.

I'm also using a little bit of KnitPicks Stroll yarn in Forest Heather to make it a little bit more interesting. I think it looks really good so far, I'd say I'm almost halfway done already! It has been a lot of plain stockinette, which suits me just fine right now.

Last weekend was spent mostly on the couch though, so then I wanted something a bit more challenging to knit on. I cast on for a new shawl, as I am in a lace period right now, and I chose the Omelet shawl. I'm making it in Färgkraft Softblend, a swedish yarn that is 100 % wool, in colourway Warm Green (or Varmgrön as it is really named as it is a swedish yarn). Apparently, I'm also in a green phase right now!

I really like this one too, and I definitely like the yarn! It isn't wondrously soft, but it feels like it will become so once it is washed. I like the stitch definition, and I can't wait to wear it! Although I have mostly knit on the cardigan lately, as it is so simple.

This past March I got a really bad case of the flu, and I was home sick for almost two weeks. I broke a muscle in my ribcage coughing, which meant I walked like an old lady for about a week after too. This meant that I couldn't get any exercise, and then at the end of March we moved to the new house and everything suddenly got very busy. My fitness studio where I work out just started their Autumn schedule, so I've finally taken up the exercise again! It feels really good to start that up again, hopefully it will give me a bit more energy too.

Oh, we also got Toki neutered a week ago, and it seems to have slowed him down a little bit. Hobbe is slowly, slowly starting to accept him, which we have been a bit worried about, but now they're playing together and washing each other. Yesterday they were even napping together! Hoppe still hisses at Toki when he gets to be a bit too much, but it happens less frequently. 

Ok, now I think you know what I've been up to. Now it's time for some dinner, and then I'm going to enjyoy a bit of alone-time as both Thomas and Adam are in Linköping tonight!

/ Jenny