Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Spring cleaning in my knitting basket

I want to start new projects. In addition to the ones listed a few days ago I also want to make a pair of two end knitted mittens. I want to work some more directly after the course to see if the (for me) new way of knitting will stick. I have the yarn so now I need to decide on a pattern and color combination.


But I do need to finish some of my projects.

I now start a challenge, spring cleaning. I should finish 5 UFO projects by Sunday, May 11.
Anyone up for it?


Here are my projects:

- Lords & Ladies, Rowan kid mohair cardigan (no picture)

- Blomsberry


- Icarus shawl:


- Chantel shawl:


- Eco cardigan (for N):

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Tvåändsstickning - Two-end knitting

This weekend was the last on HV school for this time. Two days dedicated to two-end knitting. This is something I have never tried before so I was looking forward to it.
  • It was fun!
  • It feels backward
  • It takes time for progress
  • My hand hurts (and the sholders as well...)
  • The yarn was very nice
  • I like the result
  • .....and I invested in yarn to try some more
The mitten(-like swatch) in progress is for a child (and there will only be one of this)

HV homework completed

I'm done with my pair of HV mittens! I even washed them, so now they are ready to use (hopefully not needed until the fall). The homework was to design and make your own pattern. It was difficult because I wanted to design the "best pattern" ever. What style? What color combination? what....?

At first I wanted something white with red embroderies but it turned out too tricky to turn the delicate pattern into knitting.

Then I looked at my knitting bag and decided to get a matching pair of mittens.

First a swatch and the first mitten:



Then number two is knitted:



Ready to be used :-)


Thursday, April 24, 2008

Itching for new projects

I have a pile of thing to complete but I want to start new projects!!!
Here are a few things I want to do:

- Geno, maybe with longer sleeves. The lace pattern on the front is so beautiful.


- Trench this is crochet on "level 3", so it might be too difficult, but I think it is very cool.



- Spook How can anyone resist Kid Silk Haze ?

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Odd mitten

N likes mittens and gloves and hats and... many other things :-)
Here she is trying out my mittens (pattern and yarn from Nysta).

We were out walking Saturday and she didn't want to have her own (bought!) mittens on so I let her have mine. She "dropped" them on the ground occationaly so I checked that she had both in the stroller. At least I thought I checked, but coming home one mitten was missing.
My misstake - but lucky for me good things comes in 3's:
- I get to knit myself a new pair
- My homework mittens from HV is getting ready
- Spring is here - no need for mittens

Monday, April 21, 2008

Happy - gift in the mail!

Awaiting me when I came home from work was a parcel, all the way from Thailand.

Riki, the great knitter I met in Bangkok had sent me a gift. N helped me to open. The two round things have actually nothingto do with knitting, unless your outdoors summer evenings :-) They are mosquito coil holders made out of old cookie boxes.

Riki sent me wonderful silk yarn and a stash of kool-aid. The yarn has a great structure, now I need to figure out a project worthy of the yarn. Since I've never dyed before (Kool-aid or other) I need to find myself a beginners project :-)


Tuesday, April 15, 2008

New book arrived!

T was nice and collected my parcel with books yesterday.
I'm looking forward for smiles and laughs reading "Things I learned from Knitting...." .

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Rare meeting through Ravelry

I wanted to know what yarn to look for so I took help by Ravelry and asked the knitters in Thailand for suggestions. Among the answers I got, Riki in Bangkok suggested a meeting. This is a rare occasion to meet fellow knitters and after some trouble we managed to meet on my last day in Bangkok. She took me to a department store (where I got my yarn) and we had a coffee to talk about knitting and life in general. We had a great time. In the picture we are comparing knitting techniques. We also compared knitting gadgets like bags, needles, stitchmarkers and more. Riki had the coolest headsfree lamp to clip to the ear.



Thank you Riki for taking time to meet me together with T&N!

Monday, April 7, 2008

Icarus on the beach

Here I am with the start of Icarus.


I knitted when & where possible. Here in a minivan between resorts.

It was of course nicer to knit on the beach, in the sun. I ended up making the Icarus shawl 2 reports bigger than the decription. That's what I got for asking T if he thought I should make it bigger. (I only asked twice!).

Now only blocking remains and then I can start using it.


Thank you so much Christine for the nice yarn gift and Marianne for helping me with the pattern.


Back home from Thailand

I took the knitting goodie bag, T&N and went for 2 months to Thailand! We had a great time - N learned to walk, how to eat sand and how to flirt with the kitchen staff to get bananas.

I wanted to find some local yarn, natural fiber if possible but all I found was acrylic heaven. Here is one picture from a top end department store in Bangkok - all acrylic & expensive.

I found some very typical (and very acrylic) Thai yarn for 3.60 SEK (18 Bath) a skein. It contains 19 grams, no info about the number of meters. It is a bad picture, the pink is VERY bright.