It's almost June 29th!

...Which is the official birthday of this blog! I have lots of fun contests and give-aways planned, so make sure you tune in this weekend! My mother is coming here to visit on Friday and Saturday though, so the celebrations will probably not start until on Sunday. Just so you know.

I've been going through my stash and picked out some very nice prizes for you all to compete for! I've come up with the following:

Prize no 1: 1 skein of Colinette Jitterbug (100 % merino), in the colourway Jay.

Prize no 2: 5 skeins of Rowan Silk Wool DK yarn (50 % merino/50 % silk).

Prize no 3: 1 skein of Cascade 220 Superwash (100 % superwash merino), in the Dark Aqua colourway.

Prizes no 4 and 5: 2 ChiaoGoo Red Lace metal circular 24 inches, 3.5 mm needles (these will be divided into two prizes).

Prize no 6: 1 set of Addi Click Bamboo 3.5 mm needles with three cables (24, 32 and 40 inches).

Prize no 7: The book Folk Socks: The History and Techniques of Handknitted Footwear, by Nancy Bush.

Kind of neat, right?! Let's have a party! Be sure to check back on Sunday to get the details on how you can win any of these prizes!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Friday we had the day off, since it was Midsummer's Eve, and my mother-in-law, two brothers-in-law plus one girlfriend, and two of our friends came over for a traditional Midsummer's Party. We had pickled herring with new potatoes and clotted cream (which is a traditional Swedish Midsummer's dish), with schnapps of course, and we also had some barbecue and quiche, followed by strawberries and ice cream. We were very lucky with the weather, so we got to have a swim in the pool too. All of them stayed over, and we all had breakfast together on Saturday morning. It was really nice!

Then on Sunday I got to do lots and lots of knitting. First, I finished the Mind the Gap vanilla socks:

Even though I didn't really enjoy knitting with this yarn, I really like the finished socks. The colours are awesome, and they feel nice and durable on my feet. I haven't washed them yet, but I hope they soften a little bit. I used just over half of my skein, so I guess I might have enough to make something else small with it. I'm not sure I will though. Maybe I should offer it up as a prize this weekend too? Please, leave me a comment to let me know if I should!

As I was really in a sock zone, I actually picked up the Gördes socks again too, and I finished the first one!

These socks I really love, they are turning out very pretty and the yarn is great to work with (it's Shibui knits sock yarn). They are going to my mom, but I doubt I'll finish them for this weekend. She'll probably get them later this summer. They are a lot of fun though, and I'm really enjoying the cables now that I'm really into them.

And as I finished the vanilla socks, which were my work knitting, I had to cast on a new pair of mindless socks. I picked up the Mad Color Fiber Arts Trance yarn that was the May club yarn (the colourway They Church at Auvers, the Vincent van Gogh colours), and I started a pattern from the More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch which is called Spaced Checks.

It is really easy, and I really love how this crazy yarn is spiralling! I know that you can't really see the spiralling in that photo, but I'm almost at the heel after today's day at work, and I'm too lazy to take a new photo. You'll have to wait until next time! I chose to make these toe up, as I want to use up most of the yarn, and I think I'll make an afterthought heel. The colours are completely insane, and they really shouldn't go together, but somehow it works. I love the yarn, the base is really soft and nice to knit with. Especially after knitting with the Trailing Clouds stuff, which was really stiff. I think I'll probably finish these pretty fast.

Yesterday I got the final shipment in the Doctor Who club from Mad Color Fiber Arts, and once again I love the yarn. This time we got a skein of Fugue (100 % superwash wool, 375 m/100 g), and the colourway is called The Fall of the Eleventh:

I really like the colours, but I think the coolest thing this month was the JessaLu bag that came with the yarn:

It has the Doctor's Foes on it! Me and Thomas sat for a long while yesterday evening trying to identify all of them, but I have to admit that my geek-dom isn't deep enough. There are several that I don't know, but the main, coolest ones are on there. I love the bag, this is my fifth JessaLu bag, and in three months I'll get one with Firefly on it too. But there's no such thing as too many project bags, is there?

Ok, I think that's it for today. I haven't knit anything on the Parcel sweater since last time, I think I lost a little momentum on it when I had to frog half of it. But I'll finish it soon! I might try to finish the Gördes socks first though.

Be sure to come back this weekend for an update on all the prize drawings and contests!

/ Jenny