Late night posting

I really should go to bed, but I just have to show off my just recently finished Pikmin:

This is only my third or so attempt at crochet, so I'm pretty darned pleased with myself! It's a little bit wonky, the ears aren't exactly similar, and the legs are pretty weird too, but I don't care. I really really love this little guy! I'm going to start a red one as soon as I have time :)

I also, finally, got my shipments in Mad Color Fiber Arts Doctor Who club yesterday. The shipment had been stuck in customs, as I kind of suspected, but I was extremely happy to find that Heather had included an extra skein as an apology for forgetting my shipment in the first place! I think I'll start by showing you the club shipments. First, there was April's yarn:

This is Bling (63 % merino/20 % silk/15 % nylon/2 % metallic, 411 m/100 g), and the colourway is called Life is Short, and You are Hot (which is from the episode Blink, which is one of the very best, where we meet the weeping Angels for the first time). It is a little bit intense, but I think I like it anyway. 

Then, there was the May yarn:

This is Trance (80 % merino/10 % cashmere/10 % nylon, 412 m/100 g), and the colourway is called The Church at Auvers. This. Is Awesome! It's from the Vincent and the Doctor episode, which is probably even better than Blink. And that is kind of hard for me to admit, as Blink has David Tennant as the Doctor, while the Vincent van Gogh episode stars Matt Smith. And even though I prefer David Tennant (probably over anyone!), the Vincent episode is just so amazing!

Anyway, back to the yarn. I love the colours, and I think Heather did an amazing job capturing all the colours in the original painting (she sent along a picture of it, and I had to look extra closely to see if there was a monster in the window. There wasn't.). I think this skein might be my next pair of socks, after the Mind the Gap socks are done. Which they should be this weekend, I've only got the toe and heel let on the second sock.

Then, as a bonus, I got a skein of Verity (100 % merino, 247 m/100 g), in Dk weight. The colourway is called Police Box Blue!

Even more awesomeness! This is the one colour that I've really been coveting from Mad Color, but I've been too cheap to buy it. And now I have a skein! I think this will probably become a hat for me for next winter, I imagine it will go pretty well with the Tardis shawl I made last summer :) After getting all of these goodies, I decided to join in for the next round too, which will be themed Firefly.

Ok, now I really need to get some sleep. Tomorrow we're having my mother-in-law and at least three (out of four possible) brothers-in-law here for the weekend, which will be a lot of fun and probably lots and lots of board games, but I need some sleep before that. We've cleaned most of the house, I only have one bathroom left to rinse out, but I'll do that tomorrow. They won't arrive until the afternoon, so it should be fine.

See you after the weekend, with some teasers for the upcoming give-aways. This blog is celebrating its fourth anniversary on the 29th of June, and I think we should celebrate!

/ Jenny

New yarn and some knitting non-progress

I'll start with the fun stuff. I got yarn in the mail both yesterday and today! Yesterday after work I picked up my Wollmeise yarn from the post office. I got three skeins of DK (100 % superwash merino, 428 m/200 g), in the new colourway Zartbitter (which means bitter sweet), which I believed to be a reddish brown. My three skeins, however, are just cocoa brown:

They are a bit darker than the photo shows, and I think I kind of like them anyway, but the colour I had seen on the Ravelry forums was prettier. I think these will mature in the stash for a while, to see if they grow on me. Otherwise I think I might sell them.

Then today I got another package in the mail, the June shipment in the 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon sock club. The yarn is The Knitting Goddess 4-ply Merino Nylon sock yarn (75 % superwash merino/25 % nylon, 424 m/100 g), and the colourway is called Looking Down.

I have no idea yet which movie this is from, but I LOVE the colour! It is such a pretty, dusky rose, and by far my favourite so far in the club. I can't wait for the pattern, to find out where the inspiration came from. Hopefully that will be stated in this pattern, as the last one didn't say which movie it was from (It was from Alice in Wonderland, but I had to google it to find out).

I'm almost finished with my first Pikmin! I only have three flower petals and two ears to finish, and hopefully I can manage that this weekend. I almost got the whole flower done this past weekend, but my hands were hurting too much. It is looking pretty cute so far though. I haven't gotten any new photos, as I haven't sewn on the new pieces yet.

I almost had the first sleeve finished on the Parcel sweater too, when I finally tried it on. It turns out that the shoulder is way too wide or me, so the sleeve cap looked really weird. The arm hole was also too long, so I decided to rip most of it out. I ended up ripping it out all the way down to the waist increases, as it was a little bit puffy in the chest area too. I made two less increases, and now I'm almost ready to divide for the sleeves again. It really sucks to have to rip that much out, as I felt I was almost on the last stretch, but I want the sweater to be wearable. Hopefully I can still finish it soon!

Other than that I'm knitting along on the Mind the Gap socks, and I've almost finished the leg part of the second sock. I think I'll probably finish those this month too. I haven't gotten any new photos of them though (or of the Parcel sweater), but you know what the first one looked like. I'm making the stripes matching on the two socks, so this one is more or less identical to the first one.

Friday is Midsummer's Eve here in Sweden, and we get the day off work. My mother-in-law and possibly some of my brothers-in-law are maybe coming to visit for the weekend, they haven't decided yet. We plan on making some barbecue, have pickled herring (which is traditional Swedish midsummer food) and just relax. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us too, so we can sit outside. It's supposed to rain though, which it seems to do almost every Midsummer's Eve. Last year the rain didn't start until late in the evening, so we got to have dinner outside at least. As we had over 30 guests last year, that was very fortunate!

Ok, time for some knitting. I think I'll work on the sweater, just to make some recovery on it!

/ Jenny

I'm crocheting!

I just couldn't wait, so about right after I finished writing last, I cast on for my very first Pikmin. I'm using the 100 % acrylic yarn I showed you last time, and it's actually pretty soft. The hard part for me is the actual crocheting, I'm really not good at it! But I have finished the main body and legs on the Pikmin, so now I just have to make two arms, ears and a head flower.

It's pretty fun, although I get a cramp in my hand after a while. I'm not used to the movements you make while crocheting, so I can only do it for a short time before I have to take a break. I'm planning on making a blue one and a red one too, while I'm at it. A whole Pikmin family!

This weekend I mainly worked on the Parcel sweater though, so now I've finished the body and started the first sleeve.

It fits me almost perfectly, although I've only tried it on while not wearing a bra. I think it will be fine anyway! In the photo the sleeve cap looks like it's a little bit scrunched up, but that is because the cable pattern started on the first row and pulls the cap together. It will block out. I like the sweater a lot, and it will definitely be very warm to wear this winter!

I've also been knitting a bit on the vanilla socks that I'm making from the Mind the Gap yarn, and I've finished the first of the socks:

The sock is amazingly pretty, and I love all the colours, but I'm just not overwhelmed by the yarn. It is a bit on the thin side for a fingering, and a bit too stiff for my taste. I'll probably wear them a lot anyway, as they are so cool, but I won't be buying this yarn again.

Yesterday when I came home from work I had gotten the final shipment in the Hunger Games yarn club from Friday Studios. The yarn this time is a little bit more luxurious, it's her Saturday base which is 80 % Merino/10 % cashmere/10 % nylon, and the colourway is called The 75th Arena:

It represents all the tropical colours of the last Hunger Games arena (in the final book), and I really, really like it! This has been a very good club, and if Frida has any more themes that I'd enjoy (the next one will be Breakfast at Tiffany's, which is a movie I've never seen, so I chose not to join), I'll definitely consider joining again.

And speaking of clubs: Mad Color Fiber Arts will be starting sign-ups for her next round of yarn clubs newt week. The coming three months will be themed Browncoats (which of course is about the TV show Firefly), and I'm very tempted to join. The problem is that I still haven't gotten the first two shipments of this round of club yarn. When the first month's yarn didn't show up I contacted Heather on Ravelry, and it turned out that she had completely missed my order. This is fine, I know that we're all human and it's easy to miss stuff sometimes. Heather was really nice about it too, and apologized profusely  As she didn't have any more of the yarn dyed up, she had to make a new skein for me. She then sent it together with the second month's yarn, but I think the package is probably stuck in customs. If the yarns had been sent separately, the packages' values would have been marked as below $30, which is the amount that I don't have to pay customs for. But as the yarns were combined, I'm guessing that Heather put the actual value of both skeins on the envelope, and then it gets held up in customs. Which sucks. I know that this isn't Heather's fault, but it still irritates me somewhat, so I'm thinking I won't join in for the next three months. We'll see.

Finally, today I got another book package in the mail. I've been buying books like crazy lately, but most of them have been very good. First, I got the package with the new Joe Hill book, Nos4A2, which was AMAZING, by the way! I usually say that I'd leave Thomas for Stephen King, if he only promised to keep writing for me, but I think the same might be true about his son too (and possibly about Neil Gaiman too...). He is such a good writer, and his comic book, Locke & Key, is the best comic I've ever read. The last two issues will be out this summer, and I can't wait!

Anyway, while I was waiting for that package to arrive, I re-read some Dianna Wynne Jones books, the main one being Howl's Moving Castle. If you haven't read that one you really should. It's such an amazing book, and the anime movie does not do it justice at all. I happened to look the author up on Fantastic Fiction, and discovered that there was a sequel that I hadn't read, so I immediately ordered more books. I'm planning on slowly getting all of the books by Dianna, as I really, really love her. It's a shame she isn't around any more.

Then, on my birthday, Thomas had gotten me three more books. And today I got yet another, albeit small, package of books! This one contains the new Stephen King book, Joyland, so now you know what I'll be doing for the rest of the week! I also got a knitting book that I've had my eye on for a while, Cast on, Bind off by Cap Sease. It's a really good reference book about cast-ons and bind-offs (obviously), which is actually something that I'm really lousy at. Or maybe lazy. I just keep using the same starts and finishes to most of the stuff I make, and I thought this book might inspire me to try some new things. 

Now, I'm going to go put on my PJ's and start m new book. See you in a couple of days, possibly with some more knitting contents. And there might possibly be a package on it's way from Germany with some more Wollmeise yarn. You never know!

/ Jenny

Knitting frenzy!

I have been knitting like a fiend this past week, trying to finish a special project. On Tuesday evening after work I finally cast on the Mermaid Cocoon Newborn Photo Prop, that I was planning to give to our friends Klara and Micke, who just had their first baby. I was going over to their place on Thursday, so I wasn't really sure I would be able to pull it off. I didn't finish all of it, but I knit the last 2 inches of ribbing, and sewed it together while I was at their place :)

It actually fit little Arvid! He is such a cute boy, and as Klara had sort of requested a fish tail cocoon she really like this one. I made it with Cascade 220 Superwash, on 5 mm needles, and I don't think it took me more than 10 hours or so in total. I'm very happy with it, as I think it turned out very cute, and I have a whole skein left to use for something else. I really like working with Cascade 220, I've used both the superwash and the feltable and like them both. I think I'll probably make a hat or something like it with the second skein.

On Saturday I went on a small shopping trip with my friend Anna, which was really nice. She was going to look for shoes and accessories for a wedding, and I wasn't looking for anything special. I came home with a new pair of shoes and yarn... We went to Panduro, which is a crafts store that has supplies for all kinds of crafts. They carry a few kinds of yarns, mostly acrylics, and that is actually what I got. I got 8 skeins of Järbo Garn Molly, in five different colours:

I very rarely buy acrylics, but these are for a very special project. I am going to make myself some stuffies! I found an amazing pattern on Ravelry the other day, to make Pikmins! If you've never played Pikmin on Nintendo, you've really missed something. I think you know that me and my husband are both gamers, but in truth I rarely play myself. I love watching him play though, so it's a hobby we have in common that way. But the Pikmin games I've actually played myself, and I love them. So now I'm going to make myself some Pikmins! They are crocheted, so they will probably take me ages to make!

Funny side note: The designer of the Pikmin pattern, Annie Johannson, actually lives in Linköping, and she knows who my husband is. It's a small world!

I've also gotten a new knitting book this week, Socktopus by Alice Yu. I like a lot of her patterns, and this book is very nice. A lot of the patterns are based on different TV shows that I actually watch, the one I love most is the Crowley socks pattern, based on the Lord of Hell on Supernatural.

And yesterday was our national day, so we had the day off from work. I spent most of the day at Klara and Micke's house in the sun, watching the new baby and having lunch. We've been having amazing weather this past week, and it was really nice to have a day off to enjoy it. Thomas is away on a conference this week, so he couldn't join us, but it was nice even so.

Today when I came home from work I had gotten the June shipment in the Cookie A sock club in the mail, and this skein is amazing!

It's Sweet Georgia Yarns Caxhluxe Fine (70 % merino/20 % cashmere/10 % nylon, 342 m/115 g), and the colourway is called Blood Orange. It really has the deep, red-orange colour of a Blood orange, and I'm surprised at how much I like it. Orange really isn't my colour, but this is such a deeply saturated colour. The patterns will be released on Monday, and I'm really excited to see them. However, I have to admit that I haven't been totally in love with any of the patterns so far this year. I think I'll probably not join in the club next year, even though I've enjoyed it this year. I've just found that I enjoy the clubs where I get indie dyer yarn instead, like the Mad Color Fiber Arts or Sheepy Time Knits yarn clubs I've been in this year too.

I have been knitting a little bit on the Parcel sweater too, I'm almost done with the back part, but I haven't gotten any new photos of it. I'm planning on starting on the front tonight, and hopefully finish the body some time this weekend. So you'll have to wait for photos until next time. I've also knit a lot on the vanilla socks I'm making with the Mind the Gap yarn, and the first sock is almost done, but you'll have to wait until next time with that one too. I've knit almost all of that on the breaks at work, and I'm kind of surprised at how fast it's going. 

Now I'm going to watch some podcasts and knit until I fall asleep. Sometimes it's nice to be home alone :)

/ Jenny

There will definitely not be three FO's in May!

But I'm ok with that. I finished the House Targaryen socks on Sunday, and I'm super happy with them!

Like I said last time, they are made with Fibernymph Dye Works Bedazzled yarn, and they are super soft. I wore them at work on Monday, and as most of my colleagues had seen them while they were in progress I got a lot of comments on them too.

As I finished the socks, I of course had to start a new mindless project, so I went upstairs to wind the Mind the Gap yarn from Trailing Clouds into a ball. I have never had such a tangly skein! It took me almost two hours to get a decent, centre-pull ball! Then on Monday I cast on, and I decided to make up my own pattern with some slipped stitch columns. The yarn just did not want to play with any kind of pattern. The fabric looked really loose, and it just wasn't nice. Finally I gave up, and on Tuesday morning I frogged the whole thing and started a plain vanilla sock instead.

I've knit a lot on it at work yesterday and today, and now I'm finally enjoying them. The stripes are really fun, and I think I'm almost ready to make a heel. I'll make an afterthought heel on these as well, so as not to disturb the striping.

I've also knit some on the Parcel sweater, and I'm just finished with the bust increases. I think it's almost time to divide for sleeves.

I'm enjoying this knit a lot, and I can't wait to wear the finished sweater. Although that will probably be a while, as summer is about to start. At least I hope it is, as we've been having completely dreary weather here for a couple of days now. It's way too cold to be June this weekend!

Finally, today I got a very nice package in the mail, from Garnkorgen. I had ordered it myself, so it wasn't a surprise, but it's still nice to get yarn in the mail. I got two skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash, in the colourway Dark Teal:

It's 100 % superwash wool, 200 m/100 g, and I'm going to make a baby cocoon for my friend who just had her first baby boy. I was originally going to make it from some leftovers from my stash, but it turns out that I don't really have a lot of superwash yarn in my stash. And Cascade is pretty cheap, and I know that it's soft and nice, so that's what I got.

I also got one more skein of undyed sock yarn, this time Shoppel-Wolle Admiral Stränge:

It's 75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon, 420 m/100 g. As it doesn't have the bamboo in it that my last undyed yarn had, this is a lot softer and nicer. I'm not going to dye it up immediately, but maybe during my summer vacation. That doesn't happen until the end of July though, so it will probably marinate in the stash for a while.

Oh, and on June 29th this blog is turning four years old! I'll be back before then, but I'm just giving you a heads-up that there will be celebrations and give-aways! Stay tuned!

/ Jenny

It's been a long week

I don't know if I'm coming down with a cold or something, but I've been feeling unusually tired this past week. Mostly, when I get home from work, I just fall asleep on the couch, so there has been very little knitting done. But I have some stuff to show you.

Last weekend I went home to my parents to help with tending their woods. About a year ago my grandfather suffered  a small stroke, and he is getting more and more senile since then. He still recognizes us all, and he is involved in conversations, it's just that he moves around very very slowly, and some stuff has disappeared for him. He's still more or less himself, but he can't take care of his land any longer, so my parents do that for him now. And last weekend it was time to plant new fir plants in the woods, and they asked if me and my sister would help. And we did. It was VERY hard work, and it was incredibly warm the whole weekend too, but we managed to get most of the plants in the ground.

I also finished the first of my House Targaryen socks while I was at home:

It is knit in Fibernymh Dye Works Bedazzled yarn, and I really like it. I offered to give the pair to my mom instead of the ugly and uncomfortable Carousel socks I finished a while ago, but when I told her that she needed to hand wash them, she opted out. I think I'll give her the Gördes socks instead, once they're finished. I have turned the heel on the first one, but I didn't bother to take a new photo of it as there is so little change since last time.

I have worked a little bit on my Parcel sweater too, but not enough there either to bother with a new photo. So far this year I've managed to finish three projects each month, but May might look like it will be less. I've only managed one project so far (the Carousel socks), and if I want to finish two more I really need to pick up my pace! Ideally I would love to finish the sweater, but I know I won't make that in a week. I think I'll aim at finishing the stripy socks and call it a day. Maybe I'll try to finish four projects next month...?

At the beginning of this week I got two very nice packages in the mail too. The first was the May shipment of the 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon sock club from The Knitting Goddess. 

The yarn is 4 ply sock yarn (75 % superwash merino/25 % nylon, 425 m/100g), and the colourway is called Knit Me. I believe the inspiration comes from the Alice in Wonderland movie, and I have to admit that I find the colour a little boring. But that's ok, I have loved the other four skeins I've got in the club, and I think it's almost impossible to love all twelve skeins. The pattern that came with the yarn is called Vorpal, and they are pretty. Vorpal is apparently the sword that Alice uses to slay the Jabberwocky, if you were wondering (I was, and I had to google it!).

The other package I got contained books, the most important one being "NOS4A2" by Joe Hill. He is the son of Stephen King, and in my eyes he is almost as good as his father. I have read all his books so far (there are only four), and his comic book Locke & Key is the best comic I have ever read (possibly it shares the first place spot with Sandman by Neil Gaiman). And that book might also have something to do with why I haven't written here in a while. I finished it the other day, and it was super good!

The package included some other fiction, and also one knitting book. Or rather, a knitting box. I got The Little Box of Socks, by Charlene Schurch and Beth Parrott. It contains 20 patterns that are all printed on individual cards that you can easily bring with you in a knitting bag. The box has lots of patterns that will go very well with variegated and self-striping yarn, and I like it a lot.

Then Thursday was my birthday (I turned 33, so nothing very special), and on Wednesday my sister came here to help me bake some cakes to bring to work, and we spent most of the afternoon baking and chatting. She gave me the Gilmore Girls DVD box (which I had put on my wishlist), and we watched the first episode while we had dinner. I still love that show! And the cakes turned out really good, chocolate covered with raspberry mousse.

On Thursday morning Thomas gave me some gifts too, mainly some more books that I had wanted, by three different Swedish horror writers (John Ajvide Lindqvist, Frida Arwen Rosesund, and Mikael Strömberg). And believe it or not, he actually got me some knitting! I got a Knit Kit, with "Everything you need to knit your own Boot Cuffs". The designer, Louise Butt, is on Ravelry, but this particular design isn't. There are some other fun kits there though!

I think the yarn that comes with the kit is really cheap acrylic, but I love that he actually got me something knitting related! I'll have to knit them pretty soon I think, as I think they seem pretty fun. And fast! The kit includes two skeins of the yarn, a pair of straight 5 mm plastic needles, instructions for knitting and the pattern, and a HUGE tapestry needle.

As Thomas was working late on Thursday, we didn't really do anything special, so we're planning on going out for dinner tonight instead. I think we'll go to a Japanese restaurant, if I can be bothered to actually shower and put on clothes today :)

/ Jenny

Socks and Yarn

Yeah, the title of this post is really unimaginative, but at least it tells you what it will be about. I got my last order of Fibernymph Dye Works yarn yesterday, and it is sooo cool!

This is her Bounce base (80 % superwash merino/20 % nylon), and the colourway is called Rainbow Riot. It is so much fun! It is striped in yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, teal and green, and I can't wait to cast this on. I think it needs to be just plain vanilla socks, and that will be a bit challenging for me as I find that kind of boring to make. But I think any pattern will take away from the awesome stripes, so I just have to bite the bullet on this one!

I also cast on a new pair of socks during the weekend, as I needed a mindless pattern for work. I chose my Fibernymph Dye Works Bedazzled yarn, in the colourway Leprechaun Socks, and the pattern House Targaryen socks.

They are looking really nice so far, and I'm already almost halfway through the foot on the first sock. It's flying off the needles, even if I'm trying to just knit on it at work. I'm really enjoying the yarn, and this is my first time knitting with a sparkling yarn too. I'm not completely sold on that, but it's ok, and the socks look kind of cool with the sparkly stuff. I love the feel of the yarn though, it's super soft but still feels like it's durable.

Other than that I've mostly knit on the Parcel sweater, and I've just started to increase again after the waist decreases. I haven't gotten any new photos of it yet, as there isn't too much visible difference from the last time I showed it, but it's getting there. I actually knit up a whole skein of yarn on Sunday! It's a fun knit, the cables keep it interesting. I'm just a little bit sad that I probably won't get much use from it until next winter.

This coming weekend I'll be going home to visit my parents, I'm going to help them with some planting and stuff, so I might not be back here until next week. I doubt that I'll have very much progress to show off before I leave on Friday. I haven't been home for quite some time, so that will be nice. I'm leaving Thomas here with the cats, but my sister will be going with me instead.

Oh, this past weekend she and I went for a small shopping trip, and I bought myself a very pretty dress. Isn't it cute?

I'm planning on using it mostly as an every day dress, I have way too many dress-up dresses already. Since I started knitting, I seem to spend less and less money on clothes and more and more on yarn...

/ Jenny

It's been a whole week!

I have been so good with posting regularly this year, I'm kind of surprised that I've let a whole week go by without! I have just been busy with work, and had a lot of other stuff to do too, so I've been a bit too tired in the evenings to feel inspired to write. But today I have the day off (it's another national holiday today. We have a lot of those in the spring), and nothing special planned, so I thought I would update you all!

First of all, I'm getting new glasses. I have had a lot of headaches in the evenings lately, and usually when I get like that it means that my eyes have changed again. They do that about once every fourth or fifth year, and then it's time to get a new prescription. I've been trying out new frames for about a week now, and I've finally decided. I'm getting one regular pair and one pair of sunglasses. 

These frames are just the ones that you get to borrow from the optician to try out, mine will of course not have all those stickers on. And please excuse the goofy phone photos, I was home alone and couldn't ask Thomas to help me :)

I haven't been doing a ton of knitting, but I did finish the Carousel socks the other day.

They were fun to knit, but I really don't like the yarn. My sister said that all the dark colours looked sad and morose, and I agree. The pale lilac (which looks almost white in the photos) isn't happy enough to brighten the socks up. Plus, all those picked up stitches that run around all the spiralling makes the sock pretty uncomfortable to walk on. And I managed to get one sock a little bit too large, and the other one a little bit too small! So I think I'll knit another, nicer pair for my mother instead, and these will just end up in the pile of socks I don't wear much (that pile is fortunately very small). They were very cool to knit though, I had a lot of fun, and the technique was very smart.

I also got some yarn in the mail yesterday, the May shipment in the Hunger Games yarn club from Friday Studios.

The yarn is the Monday base (75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon), and the colourway is called Girl on Fire. I love this one too, and I'm so glad I joined this club! We also got some lip balm (Which is called TrackerJack Anti Venom!) and some stickers, and I love that we get a little bit of extras with every shipment. 

I hope Frida starts a new club once this one is finished!

I'm also still waiting for my first shipment in the next round of the Doctor Who club from Mad Color Fiber Arts, but apparently there had been a mix-up and she had missed my order. The yarn is coming, but it might take a little bit longer. I don't mind though, Heather was sooo nice about it and sent me a very apologetic message on Ravelry, and I completely understand that mistakes happen. We're all human, and as long as the mistake is fixed (and with such a nice message to go with is), it's fine. Just makes me want to buy more from the shop, as you can't beat good customer service!

And since we last spoke, I have actually knit a lot on my Gördes socks!

I'm almost done with the first leg, I think I might start the heel flap today. I love how these are turning out, the yarn (Shibui Knits sock yarn) is very nice to work with and the pattern is a lot of fun. Especially now that I'm getting used to the chart symbols. I wonder if they would fit my mom? I'm going home to visit next weekend, but I doubt they will be finished by then. But maybe the first one will, so she can at least try them on. I thin she would wear these a lot more than the Carousel ones.

I've also knit a bit on the Parcel sweater, and it's coming along nicely. I've done half of the waist decreases, and I really want to finish this one soon. I like knitting with the yarn (Drops Garnstudio Lima), but I also find myself in the mood for some Wollmeise DK again. But I don't like having two sweaters going at the same time, so I need to finish this one first.

Other than that the past week has been filled with work, and a lot of stupid stomach issues. I'm hoping that it is slowly getting better though, so cross your fingers for that! Last weekend Thomas' brother Adam moved to a new apartment, so all of the five brothers were in town to help. We went out for dinner on Saturday evening, which was really nice. My sister joined us too, and it is really nice to spend time with her. Since we moved from Linköping we really don't see each other as often, and at the end of the summer she is moving away too, to get closer to her work. It's still only a two hour drive away, but I'm still a little bit sad about it. It will be good for her though!

Now I think it's time for breakfast, and then I think I'll go outside before the predicted rain gets here. I'll try not to let a whole week go by before I post again!

/ Jenny

Back to our regular schedule!

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week was fun and awesome as always, and I'm really glad I managed to participate all week last week! Mimi over at EskiMimi Makes is an awesome person, and her blog is one of the prettiest I know. It's so cool of her to organize this event each year, and I be even bigger next year, when it's the fifth anniversary.

Yesterday was something which is called Valborgsmässoafton (according to my dictionary, it's translated into Walpurgis Night, which is a German term originally), which is celebrated in the northern parts of Europe. I think that in "heathen times", this was a rite to celebrate the spring equinox, but once the Christians arrived and started baptising people, it got mashed up with the celebration of Saint Valborg (which is the swedification of the name Walpurgis). Now we just light big bonfires and have fireworks. It's supposed to be to frighten away all the witches that fly away on their brooms to celebrate with the devil. In the western part of Sweden, where I come from originally, we don't really celebrate Valborg much, but we have the fires and fireworks on Easter instead. Here in the eastern part of Sweden, Valborg is celebrated much more, and is unfortunately intimately connected with teen drunkenness. Well, actually, that part we have in western Sweden as well..

And today, the day after Valborg, we have the day off. It's a national Union day, and when socialism took it's hold of the country in the beginning of the last century, this was a day for demonstrations. It still is, to a big extent, and there are often May 1st walks in many cities, to protest against different stuff. I have never taken part in any, but it's nice to have the day off from work. It's supposed to get pretty warm today too (around 15 Centigrades), so Thomas has planned to barbecue. I plan on sitting in the sun knitting, and possibly do a little bit of gardening.

And speaking of gardening: In January we got connected to the communal sewage system (we had our own well before that), which meant that we got the hole garden dug up. Since then it's been either snowy and cold (so we couldn't see the ugliness), or wet and incredibly muddy (so we couldn't start fixing it). Now it's starting to dry up, and hopefully the digger guys will come back to help us fix it (we're just waiting for an estimate, to see how much it will cost us). I can't wait to have a pretty lawn again!

Ok, on to the knitting! I've actually been doing stuff this past week, I've just been too tired after work to make double blog posts. I haven't finished any more stuff since the last time, but I have started something. As I was writing about the Carousel socks, I decided that those needed to be my May striping project. I cast on early last week, and I've already finished the first one!

It is knit with Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett yarn (75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon, 210 m/50 g), in the colourway Exotic Pool  04453. I'm not too sure that I like the colours knit up, but they are ok I guess. I love knitting these socks though, the design is pretty ingenious! They are turning out just a little bit long in the foot, so I'm going to give them to my mom when I see her next. She saw the photo of the socks from the pattern that I posted last week and really liked them, so I think she'll be happy. Although mine are nowhere near as nice as the pattern ones!

I also got some yarn in the mail this week. I finally got my Fibernymph Dyeworks yarn that I ordered a while ago (and there might be one more skein coming...), and I am very happy with it. Both skeins are in the Bedazzled base (75 % superwash merino/20 % nylon/5 % stellina, 401 m/100 g), the first one is in the colourway Leprechaun socks:

Can you tell why I love this skein! I'm a sucker for green, and this skein just screamed my name. The next colourway is Froot Loops, and it is just so much fun:

The stripes in this skein are just so silly and awesome! I'm very, very pleased that I managed to get both of these skeins, as it is really difficult to catch any at the updates. I think one of these might be the next stripy socks, if I don't decide to start with the Friday Studios Hunger Games yarn I got a couple of weeks ago. Me and Tammi over at Life and Yarn or Yarn and Life have been talking about a KAL with this yarn, so that might start soon.

I also happened to see that Garnkorgen had finally gotten a new shipment of MadelineTosh yarns last weekend (I get their news on Facebook. Which might be a bad idea...), so I also got four skeins of Vintage (100 % merino, 183 m/aprox. 100 g), in the colourway Copper Penny:

I'm thinking of making a February Fitted Pullover with this, but I haven't really decided yet. As I think I might have miscalculated a little bit, I'm not sure if I'll have enough for a full sweater, so I'm actually contemplating getting another skein or two. I actually have a birthday coming up at the end of May, so maybe I'll wish for some yarn money. As if I need more yarn...

This past weekend I picked up my Parcel sweater again, it has been neglected for quite a while now. I made it past the bottom ribbing, and I have just started the waist decreases.

It's made with Garnstudio Drops Lima yarn (65 % wool/25 % alpaca) in DK weight, and I really like it. I was afraid that the alpaca would make it too fuzzy to see the cables, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. As I haven't gotten back to my Gördes socks yet, the sweater will probably become my evening knitting for a while.

Now I think it's time for breakfast, and I think I'll go outside and eat as the sun is shining. Let's hope spring is here to stay this time!

/ Jenny