Yarn!

I decided on the spur of the moment a couple of days ago that I wanted to knit a Christmas gift for Thomas. I am going to make him a Knitted Companion Cube, from the video game Portal. Unfortunately I didn't have any yarn in my stash that really fitted, at least not in all three shades, so on Saturday when my parents, grandfather and godmother came for a visit, us women went on a real shopping spree, and I brought some yarn home with me. I'm knitting the companion cube in Drops Karisma, which is a 100 % superwash wool yarn in sport weight. I bought three colours:

Dark Gray

Light Gray

Pink

I have only knitted a little bit on it so far, as I have to do it a bit in secret, but it's looking pretty good so far. It will be my very first time steeking, which I'm kind of nervous about, but I have researched  on line to make sure that it is possible to do this with superwash wool  too. I'm thinking that a small project like this will be a perfect trial for this very scary method! 

Then when I have cut all of the pieces, I will have to mattress stitch them together, which will also be a first for me. Yes I know, it's a bit weird to have knitted for almost five years now and managed to avoid this, but I have never sewn anything together like that. There are plenty of good tutorials on line though, so I think I'll be fine.

It is very practical to knit for Thomas in secret, because he couldn't be less interested in what I'm working on. So far I've knitted about six rows or so, in all the correct colours, but he hasn't even glanced at it! I think he will be surprised, although I think I'll have to be more careful once the pattern starts to emerge a bit more. 

Oh, I also brought home a skein of crazy pink sock yarn, Austerman Step, which I haven't tried before.

It is the standard 75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon, and feels very soft in the skein. It will probably mature a bit in my stash a while before I decide what to knit with it, but I'm pretty sure it will become a pair of socks at some point.

Saturday turned out to be a real shopping day for both me, my mom and my sister. I bought a new pair of winter boots, some new underwear and of course all the yarn. I really didn't need any new shoes, but there you go. They are very pretty! 

You won't get to see the underwear though, this is not that kind of blog :)

Oh, and last week I also suffered from a bout of startitis, and I decided to make something really small. I cast on for some Christmas ornaments, from my 55 Christmas Balls to Knit book that I got for Christmas last year. The first one I'm making is looking a bit wonky, but I think my increases are a bit too tight so that they are scrunching up the fabric. 

I think I might rip it out and start again, which is fine as I think I might have spent two hours total in making almost an entire one! When I was in the yarn shop on Saturday I also picked up a package of mini wool skeins from Järbo, which is a package with 10 mini skeins with 10 grams in each. It is perfect for making these small types of projects! I already had a package of similar mini skeins in 100 % acrylic, and I plan to use them up too. As this will be our first Christmas in our new house we have decided to have a tree of our own, so I'm thinking I'll decorate the heck out of it!

Oh, and last week I also ordered me some more Soak wool wash from Garnkorgen, and of course some yarn had to accompany the detergent. I bought two more skeins of the Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend Fino yarn that I got a week ago in Uppsala, so now I have six skeins of this gorgeous yarn. 

I think I'll try to find a nice cardigan pattern for this. I wear cardigans A LOT, if you wonder why I seem a bit obsessed with them lately.

I also got two skeins of Regia Design Line sock yarn (75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon), in the colourway Exotic Pool, designed by Kaffe Fassett. 

I love the colours in these skeins, and I actually bought them with a specific project in mind (for once!), namely the Carousel Socks from Knitty. I think these look like so much fun, and you  know I like to try new techniques so these will be very interesting to make. I just need to finish the Faramir socks (and do you know it's been so long since I worked on those that I had too look up that name.

Ok now it's dinner time. I might be back pretty soon, as there might be another package fro Wollmeise coming my way...

/ Jenny

New cast-on

Today my parents very suddenly decided to come visit, so I've been hanging out with them the whole day. It was a really nice and cosy day, we just walked around the city center looking in shops and just generally having a good time. As my sister lives almost next door to me, it's very convenient for my parents to be able to visit us both at the same time. Mom had gotten her shawl in the mail too, and she seemed very happy with it! She has a black leather jacket with orange details on, and the shawl matched perfectly.

I managed to pick up a new pair of shoes today too, black summer shoes with a small wedge heel. Very pretty! I love that they are patterned on the inside too, so I can feel extra pretty in secret :)

The yarn I ordered from Garnkorgen also arrived today, and I couldn't be more happy with it! I can't believe it was so incrediby cheap, I promise that as soon as I get a new job (not that I've been looking for one yet!), there will be a new order for more colours of this yarn. It is a little bit stiff, but it's 100 % wool (single ply, 600 m/100g), but I think it will soften a lot when I've washed it, and these types of yarns tend to soften a lot with wear too. I bought three colours:

Yellow

Burgundy/Wine

Pink

The yarn is called Kampes 100 % one-ply wool. The pink is absolutely gorgeous, a really old-fashioned hue, and I've already cast on for the shawl I'm making for Thomas' grandmother. I decided on the Sari Lace Triangle by Sylvie Beez. It is my first shawl knitted from side to side, so I'm really glad I get to try something new with this one too. 

Unfortunately, the whole thing is charted in the same way as the Murdered by Lace pattern, and I've happpened to print it on both sides of the paper, so I'm foreseeing a bit of puzzling here. But it will be ok, and hopefully it will be finished in time. Thomas is leaving for England on the 8th of May, so I only have two weeks to finish it! Yikes!

As the yarn didn't arrive until today, I've worked some on the Haruni shawl too. The photo is taken tonight after dark, so the flash is very bright. It makes the beads stand out a bit more than they do in real life. But I love this shawl, it will be so pretty when it's done!

I also cast on for a new pair of socks, and I decided to just make the next pair in the Sock Innovation book. These are called Eunice, and involve both cables and lace. Unfortunatley I discovered yesterday that I need two cable needles for the pattern, so I've bought some new ones today (I actually had two before, but one is 2.5 mm and the other is 5 mm, and too big as I'm making the socks with size 2 mm). I'm using the KnitPick's Essentials yarn in colourway Sarge. As I haven't started the pattern yet, I only have a cuff with ribbing done, so nothing much to show you yet. And they will be on the back burner until I finish the Sari Lace shawl. I'll try to have them done by the 15th of May, as Christine is having a party to celebrate her 30th birthday then (and they are for her).

Now I'm going to continue turbo-knitting :) If you don't hear from me for a few days, you now what I'll be doing!

/ Jenny

Beads!

I wasn't really planning on updating the blog today, as my knitting hasn't progressed very much since the last time. The gloves are still not completely dry, so I can't even show you a photo of them. And I've already showered and put on my PJ's, so I can't take a better photo of the Lettuce coat. Plus, Thomas isn't home to help me either... I'm knitting on the Candle Flame shawl though, and that I can show you! I'm almost out of yarn, we'll see if I run out of beads or yarn first. I decided to show you the photo taken without flash, as this is the one that shows off the pattern best. What you can't see in this photo are the beads, as they are so tiny. I've placed one bead at the top of every flame, and it looks so good (If I say so myself :)! I can't wait to be finished so I can wear it!

I also got a RAK package in the mail today! I think I've told you before, but I'm a member of a group on Ravelry that's called RAK in Europe (RAK means Random Acts of Kindness), where we send gifts to each other. It is not a swap, so everyone just posts a wishlist every month, and you chose for yourself which ones you want to fulfill. I got a package from Germany today, from a woman named Lisa, and she sent me four bags of beads that are just lovely. And I'm telling you, there must be at least 1500 beads of each kind!

Just look how tiny they are!

And remember I told you that I was going to make an Aeolian shawl without beads. Well screw that, now I actually have green beads that will go perfectly with the Chili Gredelin Madame yarn! So there will be pearls in my Aeolian too, I just like shawls with beads in them! I'm not sure yet what I'll use the rest of the beads for, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

In the package were also included three packages of KoolAid powder, and one package of Easter Egg dye, that I will use to try my first dyeing (Is it spelled like that? I didn't just write that I'll try to die, did I?) experiment with! Last month I got some undyed silk yarn that will be perfect for this. Now I just have o find out how you do it, but I'm guessing that won't be too hard when I have Ravelry at hand! KoolAid was the only thing I wished for this month, and I'm so pleased that I got some. Me and Anna will definitely have a fun time trying this out!

And today my sister and I went for a long walk and went shopping in the middle of it :) She was going to get some Glögg (you know, the swedish version of Glühwine I told you about), and I went looking for winter shoes. I know what you're all thinking: "Doesn't she have enough shoes?", but alas, my winter boots from last winter hardly fit me anymore. I've gained so much weight the last year due to my antidepressants, that my boots barely zippered up when I wore pantyhose. And I was planning on wearing them over my skinny jeans... And the jeans definitely won't fit over the boots... And I really don't need any more excuses to buy shoes, so I bought these today:

They were super-cheap too, as they were half-price-off, so I really made a bargain! I'll try to take a photo of me actually wearing them some day too...

Thomas is drinking beer with his friends tonight, so I have the apartment for myself the whole evening. I'm just knitting away and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is awesome!

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, to those of you who celebrate that!

/ Jenny

I counted my shoes...

So, do you want to know how 44 pairs of shoes look toghether? Well, like this:

I now own 44 pairs of shoes... And I think I have a few pairs in boxes in our storage closet as well, that I don't use but don't want to throw away for sentimental reasons. I might have to stop buying shoes now. I wonder what I'll choose instead?

I'm knitting away at the shawl. I think I have about 20 rows left, but I'm not sure I'll finish it in time for the wedding on Saturday. I have to block it before I use it, and I guess it takes a day to dry too, which means I will have to finish it on Thursday ( we leave early on Saturday morning).

I'll try to write again tomorrow. My sister is making embroidered fridge magnets in the shape of Tetris blocks, so I thought I would take a photo of them for you to see as well. Maybe I will make them too someday, when I have time.

/ Jenny

Lazy...

Hi all!

I've not written anything for a while, I've just been too lazy. On Friday 17th, my parents came to Linköping, and on Saturday we all helped my sister and her boyfriend move. It was really exhausting, so yesterday I did mostly nothing. Me and my husband went to the post office and picked up my new knitting books, and they are great! They actually arrived at the post office last saturday, but since I had ordered them in my husband's name, and there is an ID check to collect the books, I couldn't pick them up until he came back from Borås.

I am most pleased with the Crochet Amigurumi book, it actually doesn't look that hard. So I guess I will be filling our apartment with little stuffed animals from now on, and all my friends and family will probably get one for christmas as well! The learning how to crochet book immediately migrated to my sisters new apartment (which I guess is ok, since we now live about 20 meters from each other, we're neighbours), so I guess she liked them too.

The shawl is coming along nicely. I think I have a little over 500 stitches on the needles now, and I saw yesterday that there will be 700 when it is finished. I only have 2 1/2 skeins of yarn left, however, so I think I will have to bye one or two more or I will run out. The pearls are looking great as well, and I went and bought some more on friday when my parents were in town. They are actually intended for scrap-booking and such, and I've bought them at the paper store so they are really cheap plastic I think, but they fit perfectly with the purple yarn so I don't care.

Oh, on Friday when me, my mom and my sister walked around in the center of the town, we found a new shoe store! So I immediately proceeded to buy two pairs, because they were REALLY cheap as well, and my sister bought three pairs for herself. Unfortunately, I now have blisters underneath my feet from another pair of shoes, so I have to wait for them to heal before I can use the new ones. But they were really nice, a pair of really bright red slippers with a tiny, 2 cm heel, and a pair of gorgeous green stilletoes with white dots on, that were open in the toe, with maybe 7 cm heel. I guess I have to throw out some old pairs soon, to find the space for all the new ones...

I'll see if I cant finish the shawl this week, so I'll have some photos to show you soon. Each row takes me forever now, since there are so many stitches, so I might be overly optimistic about that time frame.

/ Jenny

Progress

Hi all!

I actually don't have much to report, at least knit-wise. I'm working on the shawl, and it's going very well. I haven't had to frog much at all lately, and it's up to 400 stitches on the needle now. I've used 2 1/2 skeins of yarn, out of 8, but as it gets bigger, it also needs more and more yarn. It looks really good too, I think I will take some pictures of it in progress some day now, to show you.

I went shopping with my sister today, and actually found a pair of shoes that I've wanted for over a year now. Today they were on sale, for only 125 kr (13 Euro or so), so I got myself a new pair of shoes! As if I needed any... Shoes are one of my great shopping weaknesses, I can't seem to get enough! I haven't counted them in a while (I don't dare), but I guess I have at least 40 pairs now... Maybe I should stop soon! But I just love shoes! Especially with high heels, even though I rarely get to wear them (I can't really walk a whole day at work in 10 cm heels). But they look really great in the shoe shelf!

I think I'm going to go admire my shoes some more (and maybe count them). And try to knit some more too!

/ Jenny