Shopping weekend

I feel like I'm only writing about getting new stuff lately, but to be honest: Most of the stuff I've been telling you about lately were all ordered around Christmas. It just takes stuff a while to get here from the States! At the beginning of the week my two AWESOME geek bags from JessaLu arrived, and I could not love them more. The first one is from Vincent and the Doctor, and features the Starry Night motif, with a tiny Tardis added:

It is just so completely full of win! I immediately transferred my Aquaphobia socks into it, so now it goes with me to work every day. I've finished the first sock, and am about half-way down the second leg. I think I might actually finish these before the end of the month (which means they will count in the Stockinette Zombies' self-striping KAL).

The second bag is a bucket bag, which I think technically is more for spinning, but I'll use it as a project bag anyway. It has Daleks on it!

It is so cool, and my inner Doctor Who nerd is melting in a puddle of happy goo just looking at it. At the end of March I'll get the last shipment from the Mad Color Fiber Arts yarn club, and as I'm in the one that's Doctor Who themed, I'll also get another JessaLu bag then! Yay!

I think it was the day after the bags arrived, that I got some more yarn in the mail. I managed to snag two skeins of KnitPicks Felici sock yarn from Great British Yarns, and I think these might have been the last two in the Time Traveler colourway because they don't have it listed any longer. It is a self-striping sock yarn in the same colours as the Doctor's scarf (do you notice a theme here?), and as KnitPicks don't have it on their website either I think this colourway is discontinued. So I'm very happy I got them!

I think these will probably become my February self-striping socks.

On Friday, my mother came to Linköping for a short visit, so on Friday evening her, me and my sister went to dinner at a lovely tapas restaurant. It was so much fun, and the food was amazing (and I haven't had breakfast yet, so I'm getting really hungry just thinking about it). She stayed with my sister for the night, and then yesterday we all went on a huge shopping spree for almost the entire day! Here in Sweden there is always a big sale on clothes right after Christmas, and now the shops are selling a lot of stuff for half of the sales prices. So both my mom and my sister got some clothes (I got some too, but mostly pyjama pants and boring stuff like that), and then we went into the crafts store. My sister needed to get some embroidery thread, as she's working on a HUGE Super Mario hanging. My mother offered to pay, and to be fair I got two skeins of sock yarn too :)

The first one was a skein of Four Seasons Gründl Hot Socks Nil yarn, in lovely teal colours. I haven't tried this yarn before, or even heard of it, but it seems like a standard, 75 % wool/25 % nylon, 384 m/100 g sock yarn. Sort of like Regia or Opal I think.

The second skein was Austermann Step sock yarn (also 75 % wool/25 % nylon, 420 m/100 g) in a lot of mixed colours. 

I think I might need to stop buying self-striping yarn for a while! My plan to buy only sweater yarn this year held out for almost an entire week... But technically, these skeins were gifts (even though I picked them myself), so maybe they don't count? I'll try to do better. I don't think I have any yarn money left for January at least, so I'll try not to get any more this month.

Oh, and while we were in town yesterday I also upgraded my phone! I've had a pink Ericsson for a couple of years now, and I've been pretty happy with it. Lately though I've found myself wishing I had a smartphone instead, so now I finally got one. It's a Samsung Galaxy, the mini version, and so far I'm very happy with it. I've got apps for Facebook, Plurk, Ravelry and blogger (the important stuff), so I think I'm set. I decided to actually pay for the Ravelous app, as that was the only one I could find for Android (I have the Wooly app for my iPad, and I like that a lot, but that one is only for Apple) that had my stash in it. I like it, and it really has all the important features of Ravelry that you might want on the go. 

Ok, on to the knitting: I've mostly been working on the Grey Havens sweater, and it's finally coming along nicely. Later today I'll get to start the sleeves, as I'm up to the arm holes on the body. 

The pattern actually tells you to start by making the sleeves, but I feel more comfortable starting with the body. I really, really love this pattern, and the yarn (Madelinetosh Pashmina) is heavenly! I'll definitely get more of that in the future. 

Other than that I've worked some on the Aquaphobia socks that I showed you above, and that pattern is great to bring to work. It's more or less mindless knitting, so I can chat during the coffee breaks, and I really like how they are coming along.

Now Thomas has finally woken up, so I think I'll go make breakfast for us. Today will be spent mostly cleaning, as the house desperately needs it!

/ Jenny