Sewing Festival 2010

My oh my. The Sewing Festival in Borås this year was absolutely fabulous! I went to Borås on Firday evening, to stay with my parents. When I came into my room (It's more of a spare room, the only thing that's really mine in there any longer is the bed), I was greeted by an insanely strong smell of cat pee. Turns out one of my parents' cats had peed on the couch in there. Yay. We removed the wet pillows, but the smell prevailed all through the night. The next morning we found out that the stupid cat had also peed on a pillow that was on the floor underneath the bed. No wonder it smelled! Once we removed that pillow too, the smell disappeared! Stupid cat.

Ok, on to the festival. This year I went with my mother, and I didn't partake in any of the workshops. There weren't that many of them that I was interested in anyway, but it was fun to just walk by them and see what they were all about. And let me tell you, the festival was a bit bigger this year than last! There were so many yarn vendors! And before you say anything, let me tell you that I actually didn't spend any of my own money! A month or so ago, my sister got a pair of insanely expensive boots and a new autumn coat as a gift from my grandmother (well, she got the money for them, and bought them herself). And even though my sister and I are 25 and 30 years old, my grandmother still thinks that all gifts have to be equal, so she gave me the same amount of money. So I decided to spend it on the sewing festival, which I did!

And I tell you, the harvest was bountiful this year! I didn't get as many skeins as I did last year, but went more for quality this year instead. I still managed to come home with 14 new skeins of yarn! I had my camera with me, but I only remembered to take two photos the whole day, on my favourite booth. It was the swedish dyer Färgkraft (which translates roughly as powerful colours, or strenght from colours). One of my LYS's here in town, Garnverket, carry some of this yarn as well, but this booth that was run directly by the Färgkraft people had such a huge selection! If the yarn wasn't so expensive, I would have bought the whole inventory!

All the yarn is made from swedish sheep, and dyed by hand. I walked away with three skeins of gorgeous lace yarn called SoftBlend. Two in a gorgeous dark pink/fuschia colour called Cerise:

And one in a lovely green colour called VarmGrön (warm green):

I love them all so very much! The pink is destined to become the Butterflies and Flowers shawl, and the green will become a Troll Forest shawl. I have to say that I'm very proud of myself, because I almost only bought yarn with specific projects in mind! I even wrote down a list of patterns that I have in my pattern stash, but that I don't have any yarn for yet, so I would know what to look for. 

Next we came upon a booth that only sold Opal sock yarn (the link goes to the booth people, the swedish vendors). This is a German company that only make sock yarn (I think), and in so many crazy, self-striping colours. Since I mostly knit patterned socks, I didn't think I'd want any of this, but it turns out that they had a lot of solid colours as well. So I bought five skeins in total here:

Pink

Purple

Wine

Green multi-coloured (because I couldn't help myself)

And crazy multicoloured (one crazy skein is all right, right?)

All of them except the green will be socks from my 10 patterns collection. The green skein was bought so I can make a pair of socks for Christmas for my youngest brother-in-law William (he's 14 years old, and my husband's brother, not married to my sister...). He asked for a pair of socks a while ago, and I'm going to make the Manly Aran socks from the Toe-Up Socks for Every Body book by Wendy D Johnson. All the Opal skeins have 100 grams in them, so they should be enough to make at least a pair of socks from (I think the socks for Willie will be a bit more though, as he has bigger feet than me). The yarn is 75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon (which seems to be a standard for many sock yarns).

The next booth I shopped in was Limmo Design, who also has a web shop. She had soooo many gorgeous, hand-painted sock yarns, it was hard to choose! I walked away with two skeins of gorgoeus skeins that were 100 g of 75 % wool/25 % polyamide:

Colourway Sun

Colourway Rosebud

These skeins will also go to the 10 socks pattern collection. With these skeins, I actually have ten different yarns that I'm planning to use for this pattern collection, so hopefully I will make all of them! I'm sort of in a sock zone right now (I'll tell you more about that later), so this suits me very well!

Oh, and at Limmo Design I also picked up five bags of Kool-Aid! It's a bit hard to come by here in Sweden, so I was very pleased to find it here. I have five different colours (or flavours, really): Grape, Cherry, Slammin' Strawberry/Kiwi, Black Cherry and Pink Lemonade. I realized yesterday evening though that I might actually need more than one bag to dye a whole skein, but I think I might be able to get more bags from the Limmo Design web shop. 

Next we went to the booth where GarnGalleriet sold it's wares. I got to fondle Hand Maiden for the first time, and of course I couldn't resist. One skein of AMAZING Lace Silk (100 % silk, 900 m/100g) in a beautiful, lustrous copper hue went with me home. 

This will become a Lirio shawl, which is a pattern that I've had in my queue for a while now but never got around to buying. The other day though, I got it as  RAK gift from Pyttan, and I couldn't be happier! The yarn is just so incredibly soft and shiny, it's going to be a real treat to work with it!

We then moved on to Nysta's booth, and this was also a real treat! She had lots of yarns from Colinette (although I didn't see any Jitterbug), and some Debbie Bliss and Heaven's Hand. This is the booth where I bought my only impulse yarn, that I didn't have anything planned for. Two skeins of Debbie Bliss Andes went home with me:

It's 65% alpaca/35 % silk, and oh so soft! The colour is a pale purple/grey, and I think they will become a pair of mittens for me. It's 100 m/50 g, so DK weight. 

Finally I also bought a pair of DPN's from Marks & Kattens (a swedish manufacturer), but I can't seem to remember which vendor I bought them from. They are very pretty wooden needles (you can see them in the photo of the Kool-aid above), and I'm very curious to work with them as they're not as smooth as the KnitPicks Harmony needles I'm used to.

Oh, and one more thing: I've finaly gotten my mother back on knitting! When I came home on Friday she showed me a scarf she had knitted! She used to knit a lot of sweaters and cardigans for me and my sister when we were young, but she quit some time in the late 80's. And even though I started obsessing about knitting about a year ago, she hasn't really picked it up again until now. So she went with me to the festival yesterday, and she bought some Caron Simply Soft yarn to make a sweater for herself! 

Yay! I doubt she will become as crazy as I am about it, but I love that she has finally started again. The 100 % acrylic yarn ws really, really soft, and as she wanted a white sweater I think she made a good choice in going with a washable yarn. 

There were of course LOTS of vendors that I didn't shop at, and it was so much fun to just look around! I stood a long time at Ullcentrum's booth and finally decided that I would wait with that! After the festival we went to visit my grandmother and uncle for a short while, and yeaterday afternoon I went back to Linköping again. Thomas and his friends went to a metal concert last night, so I had the apartment all to myself. I just sat in bed listening to my new audio book and knitted a bit (and Skyped with Sarah for 2.5 hours!). And fondled all my new yarn, of course! 

Ok, I'm actually going to talk a bit about my own knitting too. I finished my secret Christmas project the other day, so I decided that they would become a birthday present instead. My mother has a birthday coming up in October, so she got her gift a bit early on Friday evening. A while ago I found a free sock pattern on Ravelry called the Rosalie Socks. This was really funny, as my mother's name is Rosalie! The match was ment to be, so I knitted her a pair using KnitPicks Stroll yarn in the Saphire Heather Colourway:

She loved them, and put them on right away. Once I got into the zone knitting them, they went really fast, and as soon as I finished them I had to cast on for another pair of socks for myself! I just enjoy knitting socks so much right now! I chose the Wanida socks, from the Sock Innovation book by Cookie A. I'm using a yarn that I bought at last year's Crafts day in Old Linköping, it's Zitron Trekking XXL. 

So far I've only gotten past the cuff, so I don't have any photos to show you yet.

I've also been working a lot on the Tunic Dress, and I've finished the skirt part and just picked up stitches for the top part. Now I'm starting the pattern though, so it's become a bit too challenging to bring to work. I need to find another stockinette pattern that I can have as a work project! But today I think I'm actually going to knit some on the languishing India Stole! I'm more than half-way through it, and I really want to finish it so I can start something else :)

/ Jenny

Report from the sewing festival!

This will probably be a very pic-intense post, seeing as I came home from the festival with a whole paper bag full of yarn...

The festival was so much fun! Of course I forgot to bring my camera to the actual event, but don't worry: As I seem to have brought half of the yarns there with me home, there will be lots of yarn photos anyway :) I will definitely go again next year. It is actually going to be another one outside of Stockholm in about two weeks, but I really can't afford to go to another one that soon. So I'll wait til next year.

I began the festival by joining in a warkshop for shadow knitting, which I've never done before. It wasn't very hard, and took about 20 minutes to understand the basics. After that I went and looked at some of the booths, and did a little recon. I met up with my friend Gunilla after a while, and we watched a demonstration of knitting cardigans from the top down, by Tant Cofta ("Old lady" Cardigan, a lady blogger who does a lot of knitting from the top down), which was really instructive. She had a great method to make almost invisible increases, but unfortunately I forgot to buy her booklet! I think that the method can be found on her blog, as well as some tutorial videos (at least for those of you who read swedish =). I'll see if I can locate the video, and ask her if I can post a link to it here directly.

Those were the workshops we actually took part in. We also watched some lace-making, some needle felting, and Gunillas sister made a very beautiful pearl macramé bracelet in another workshop. And finally we walked around and looked at yarn. A lot. I was there from 10 in the morning until 17 in the afternoon, and was feeling pretty tired when I got home! So now for the interesting part... This is what I bougth:

First, the skein that I'm most pleased with. This is Kunstgarn by Hjertegarn, a Danish 75% Superwash wool / 25 % Nylon, with 420 m/100 g. I just LOVE these colours! The seller only had one skein left, otherwise I would have bought more. I do have a friend here in Linköping who can get more for me though, so I think some more of these skeins might find a new loving home with me eventually!

Then I found another yarn that actually looks quite similar to the Kunstgarn. This is Marks & Kattens Fame Trend, which is a Swedish yarn that also has 75 % superwash wool / 25 % polyamide. I see now that it is actually exactly the same weight, 420 m / 100 g... Maybe I'll limit myself to this swedish yarn that I can find easier, as the colours look about the same too...

I also bougth my first cobweb yarn, Jojoland Harmony, which I think is an american yarn, but the label says "Made in China". It is very thin, 800 m/50 g, so this will be a VERY thin shawl i think. It's 100 % Merino Wool and super soft!

I also found two balls of Zitron Noblesse, a german yarn with 70 % Merino / 30 % Silk, that is 150 m/50 g. I think these might be some really luxurious socks, or maybe lace gloves for me? It is a really beautiful burgundy/wine colour that doesn't really come through in the photo.

I found some really cheap 100 % Merion wool from Denmark as well, Löve-garn Symfoni, which is bulky (I think...), with 90 m / 50 g yarn. It was about half price from what it would have cost in a store, so I bought four skeins. I don't really know what I'll make from them, but they are beautiful and soft, so I'm sure I'll come up with something!

I found a very interesting yarn as well, that was 90 % Bamboo/10 % Soy. I've never knitted with either soy nor bamboo before, so of course two skeins of this had to come home with me. It's called Delfi, and I have absolutely no idea where it's made. It's 180 m/50 g, so quite thin. I think these will turn into socks as well.

I found a lovely 100 % wool from Marks & Kattens as well, called Sarek (which is a National Park in the north of Sweden). It's about 50 m / 50 g, so very bulky, and SOOO beautiful! Green is my very favourite colour, and this yarn is variegated in a lot of green and brown colours. I bought 10 of these skeins, and will definitely make them into a sweater of some sort for myself!

I also found a 110 g skein of Colinette JitterBug yarn, which is 219 m of lovely, multicoloured 100 % Merino wool made in Wales. This will definitely turn into socks for me! I've learned that I shouldn't really buy merino wool, as there was some scandal involving the treatment of Merino sheep a while ago, but I just LOVE Merino! I tried to not buy any Merino that I didn't know where it came from, as I believe the badly treated sheep were Aussie. So I guess there will me no Aussie wool for me (If I can help it...).

I found two more skeins of the lovely Eco-Alpaca from Viking of Norway. This is the yarn that I made the scarf in for my mother-in-law (which she loved, by the way, I saw her this weekend!), and I just had to have some for me as well. I bougth one skein of while, and one in a lovely toffee colour (I'll only show you the toffee one here, if you want to see the colour of the white one you can just read my previous post). It's also bulky, 125 m / 100 g. I'm not sure what pattern I'll use yet, but I think it might turn into a striped scarf for me.

I also bought some really cheap acrylic yarn that I'll use for crocheting amigurumis. The green one is Järbo garn Lady, 125 m / 50 g, and the pink/purple one is Marks & Kattens Carolina, 130 m/50 g. Not very fancy, but I've found I like making amigurumis in acrylics. I also found a skein of very cheap cotton, Järbo garn Soft Cotton, that is 80 m/50 g, 100 % Cotton. I don't really know what I'll use it for, but it was practically free with the acrylics, so it went home with me. It's the dark red on the right.

I bought a set of Järbo Mini's 10 skeins of about 10 g each, with 100 % acrylics in different colours. Some of them will probably be used for amigurumi making, and some of them will probably be sent out in RAK gifts all over Europe!

I found a Chinese yarn as well! This is AAA Aotexi Jingpinrongxian (try pronouncing that! and 100 % Merino wool (I actually wonder if the chinese sheep are really treated any better than the Aussie ones?), 180 m / 100 g. I thought this yarn looked perfect for socks, and as it wasn't very expensive I thought I'd try it. It's green as well!

My final yarn purchase was two skeins of 100 % banana fiber yarn! I've never seen this either, and it has such a shine to it, almost like silk! I think it is about 68 m / 100 g, but it's actually quite hard to understand what's written about this yarn, and the website is under construction. I bought one green skein, and one yellow, and I think they will turn into some kind of striped scarf/shawl for me.

That was all the yarn I bougth. So no cashmere, and no pure silk. I actually saw a 100 g skein of pure silk, but it was incredibly expensive, so I ended up not buying it. I got the 10 balls of Sarek for the same price instead... I also found myself some beads, and a circular shawl pin. You can hardly see the beads at the top of the photo, but they are white frosted glass and really pretty. I'll definitely have very beautiful shawls from now on!

So as you can see, I spent about a year's yarn budget just this weekend. I'll really REALLY try not to buy any more yarn until at least after new year, and just knit with what I have. I have two exceptions to that rule though: The first is if I can get my hands on more Kunstgarn yarn. The second is that I have to find a white contrast yarn that goes with the green KnitPicks yarn i got from Ulrica a while ago, so it can turn into knee-high socks, gloves, a neck-warmer and a hat for me before it gets too cold.

I also have a surprise finished object for you! I have been working on this secretly for a while, as it was a birthday for my mother (and I know he reads this blog). Her birthday is actually not until october 18:th, but I'm not going to see her until November again, so she got her present early this weekend. I've made her a matching set of neck-warmer, hat and gloves. They are made in Drops Merino Superwash, 105 m / 50 g, and really super soft. She loved them, but refused to model them for me, so here is a photo of them lying on my bed:

I had to block the neck-warmer quite hard, as it wouldn't lie flat over the shoulders otherwise. But it looked very good on my mother, and as she takes long walks almost every day, I think she will get good use from them this winter.

I also had time to see my best friend Christine home in Borås this weekend as well, as well as her three sons (Lucas 6,5 years, Leo 4 years, and Alex, 2,5 months. It was so much fun to see her again, we see each other way too seldom! She and her fiancé actually asked me and my husband if we would be Godparents for little Alex at his christening, and we are so honoured! So I guess I'll have to knit him something soon, especially as those three boys are practically the only children among our friends.

I also got to see Martin and Gunilla today before I went back to Linköping. They are the newly-weds whose wedding we attended this summer, and I haven't been at their place for much too long. Thye've just turrned vegan, and actually finding some coffee bread for all of us (as I don't eat gluten) was quite hard! But I managed to find some cinnamon buns that didn't contain either egg, milk or wheat flour! And they tasted good! I wonder what's actually in them...

Ok, that turned into a VERY long post. Hope you got through it!

/ Jenny

Going to the sewing festival!

Today me and my sister is going south to Borås to visit my parents over the weekend, and tomorrow I'm going to the sewing festival there! Yay! It's going to be so much fun, and thankfully I get my paycheck tomorrow so I can actually shop a little. There are going to be a lot of yarn vendors there, and I have three goals: I want to buy some yarn of pure silk, I would like some cashmere yarn, and I would like to find some yarn that comes in hanks, so I can use my new swift! I think I might be able to achieve at least two of them (I'm not sure about the silk). There is at least one booth that will sell some banana fiber yarn, and I'm guessing that I won't be able to resist that either. I'll tell you all about it after the weekend!

This past Monday I was at a café in town and had coffee (well, I had hot cocoa, I don't drink coffee) with Désirée, a knitter who found my blog and wanted to meet me. I thought this was so much fun, and of course I agreed to meet her, and we had a really nice time. I made myself a new motto this summer: You're never too old to get new friends. And this meeting really went in line with that! I think us swedes tend to be a bit on the shy side, and I actually don't know that many people who would actually ask to meet someone after just reading their blog like that, and I'm SO thankful that Dési did it! I hope we will see each other again soon!

And yesterday there was a new knitting café with Linköping Knitters. I went there a bit early, because I wanted to go to Garnverket first to buy some yarn that I had ordered. When I got there, Anna was sitting in the store knitting, so we started talking. She is also a new Linköping Knitter, and we get along very well. She had decided that she didn't have the time to go to the café yesterday, she had too much studying to do, so she had sat down in the store instead and talked some to Ulrika (the wonderful progg on Ravelry, who by the way has actually gotten a job at Garnverket - talk about a dream job!). I ended up staying in the store for about an hour, just chatting away with Anna and Ulrika, and of course buying some yarn. I had ordered two skeins of each three colours of Drops Eskimo wool that I'm using for my needle storage unit that is going to be felted, so I bought those. And a small ball of Rowan Classich Cashsoft 4-ply (57 % merino/33 % acrylic microfiber/10 % cashmere) fell into my shopping bag as well. Completely by accident, I swear! But as it lay there, I didn't have the heart to separate it from it's newfound Eskimo friends, so it went home with me as well. I now have two of these balls, and I'm thinking of making me some lace gloves from it.

After about an hour at garnverket, I went down to Espresso House and met up with the other knitters. It was a rally cozy meeting, we weren't very many people, and there were actually three new members there. So now I'm not the newest in the flock any longer! I really love the casual feeling of Linköping Knitters, there is no membership fees, and you don't have to tell anyone if you're coming or not. You can just show up when you feel like it, no strings at all. So I think I sat there for over two hours, just knitting and chattering away with the girls and boys!

And when I came home I finally finshed the cabled scarf I've made from the Eco-Alpaca. It is just so incredibly soft! I've decided to give it to my mother-in-law as a too-early christmas gift/too late birthday gift (her birthday was on Sept 3, but I've actually not seen her since then). I'm having a little bit of a hard time separating from this yarn, but I figure that this gives me an excuse to actually buy more of it!

I think I've discovered why my arm has been hurting as well. I think I've sat in a very bad position when I've worked on my tiny laptop, especially as I've been using it a lot before the seminar. I have now changed my position, and I've also found a mouse to use, to relieve my left arm some (otherwise I use it to right-and-left-click on the mouse pad), and it actually feels a bit better. My sister dragged me to a spinning class this last Tuesday, and I have to say that the arm hurt quite a bit afterwards. I've never done spinning before, and since I haven't gotten the technique yet I tended to lean a bit too much on my arms. I'm not sure spinning is for me thouhg, as I actually hate bicycling, but I guess I'll give it antoher shot. The start classes are free until the end of october, so I guess I'll go until then at least.

Now I'm going to start packing for the weekend. I wonder how much knitting stuff I can bring without seeming totally crazy? I wonder if I care?

/ Jenny