First FO of the year (plus more spoilers!)

Today I finished the first FO this year! It is the Aquaphobia socks, that I've made with Regia Design Line Garden Effects yarn (75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon) in the Spring colourway.

They are part of the Self-striping KAL that the Stockinette Zombies are hosting on Ravelry, and I guess this yarn barely qualifies as striping. But I'm very pleased with them, and I think I'll wear them to work tomorrow. The Regia yarn reminds me a lot of the Opal yarns, it has the same kind of work-horse feel to it. I bet they'll wear like iron!

I made a lot of changes to the pattern, most of them inadvertently. I misread the pattern, so instead of the slipped stitches that I was supposed to make, I held the yarn in front when I lifted the stitches, which creates a kind of woven effect. I also stopped mirroring the cables after about half of the first sock, because I forgot. So the second sock only has non-mirrored cables. I had to make some decreases on the leg part too, as it was getting very big on me, but now they fit me very well! I call all of the changes design features :)

Last week I also got the January shipment in my Knitting Goddess sock club. It's called 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but it's about Helena Bonham Carter instead. The pattern I got is called Wallace, which is really pretty, and inspired by the Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit movie. The yarn is The Knitting Goddess 4-ply merino nylon sock yarn (75 %/25 %, 424 m/100 g), and the colourway is called Trousers for a Fiend.

This yarn just screams my name! Green is my very favourite colour, so this yarn couldn't suit me better. It is so gorgeous, but I think it will have to mature a little bit in my stash before I decide what to knit with it. It will probably be socks though.

Yesterday my friend Anna had invited some of her knitting friends to a yarn swap day, so five of us gathered for a very nice, chatty day and evening at her place. We all brought a lot of stuff from our stashes that we knew we would never use...

Yeah, that was a lot of yarn! We gave a lot of it to Lovisa, who has a friend who does a lot of charity knitting, and we swapped some between ourselves. I got rid of a lot of the scratchier wools I had, foremost all of my Färgkraft yarn. It kind of hurt to let those go, because the colours are so awesome and pretty, but I really hated working with it! I made the Omelet shawl out of it right before Christmas, and my hands kind of hurt after working on it. So I'm happy to know that it will be going to new good homes, where it will be used (Lovisa got two skeins of Glam Goth, and Alexandra got two skeins of Cerise).

I got to take home some skeins instead though! The first haul was two skeins of KnitPicks Shimmer hand dyed Lace yarn, in the Deep Woods colourway. 

This is 402 m/50 g, 70 % alpaca/30 % silk lace yarn, and I really like it! It will become a pretty shawl some day, although not right now. I'm really into sweaters right now, if you hadn't noticed, so the lace knitting has gotten a bit left out. I'll pick it up soon again though, I kind of like having lots of different projects going at once. And now that I finished the socks, I think I need to start something new soon.

I also got two mystery yarns with me home. The first was another brownish lace yarn, that I think Maria said was Hand Paints Lace yarn of some kind. But I don't know how to find it on Ravlery (so if Maria has a link to it Id' be happy!), so for now it's just called Mystery Lace yarn.

It is very pretty, and more subtle in the colour variations than the KnitPicks ones. The second is a skein of green Angora/Lambs wool yarn that is kind of similar to the one I made my Tardis vest from last year.

I think this is around sport weight yarn, and I think it will become a hat and possibly a pair of mitts for me. It is super soft and cozy, and the angora makes it really warm.

I got all three of my yarns from Maria's stash, but I think we were all happy with what we got. She got some Kampes one-ply wool from me as well, which I find to be just on the border of too scratchy. It's a nice yarn, and the FO's are awesome, but it's just a little bit too stiff to work with for me to be completely comfortable. I guess I've become a real yarn snob!

I've knit a lot on the Grey Havens sweater too, I only have one more chart repeat left on the second sleeve! Then it's just the yoke and the collar left. I haven't gotten any new photos of it yet though, so you'll have to wait until I've attached the sleeves. I do think I'll run out of yarn though, so yesterday I went to Eat.Sleep.Knit and ordered one more skein. As the shipping is kind of expensive from the States, I figured I might as well get some more stuff while I was ordering, so now some Dream in Colour Classy and some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarns are also on their way to me. I'll tell you more about them when they get here.

Ok, it's time to tackle the laundry. Have a great week!

/ Jenny