Zombie Monster Pants

I know.. I suck at keeping this blog updated. I guess I'm just not a true blogger at heart. Or maybe it's that I don't have enough time for the 1,001 things that Andreas and I do on a weekly basis. Either way, I figure it's still fun to post from time to time.

Lately we've been very busy with the garden. Everything is growing nicely, even though it's been a rainy colder summer. Nothing like Holland of course, but not exactly perfect growing weather either. Andreas is building a greenhouse from scratch, which will hopefully be ready in another month or so. We won't get much use out of it this year, but next year will be nice.

When we aren't in the garden, we've been taking long bicycle rides and hunting for mushrooms in the woods. So far we've only found a few large edibles, but the famed golden yellow chanterelles are poking their squishy hats up already. In another week or so I expect we'll have our first batch of these beauties, and then we'll be simmering them into some delightful dish or another.

The rest of my time I spend learning Swedish, programming, running (I'm training for a 10k race a month from now), reading Swedish books, cooking, cleaning, more Swedish, applying for jobs, feeling sorry for myself and lack of money, scheming on ways to make money, and bothering Andreas ;)

On the knitting front, I've accomplished two projects. The first is a soft, washable baby blanket for my friend Prathiba, who is about to deliver a beautiful baby girl any day now.

The blanket:

The pattern was really simple, using single, double, and triple yarns overs which were later dropped to achieve the cool effect you see. It got a little repetitive at the end but I was so excited about finishing and giving the gift that I made it through it. The pattern is from Pickles, a Norwegian yarn company who has some patterns for free. You can find it here: http://www.pickles.no/breezy-winter-baby-blanket/ 


Funnily enough I used similar colors to their example but that is a coincidence. I asked Prathiba to pick out some colors she liked from Cascade 220 Superwash (the yarn I used) and then I came up with these three colors). The orange-ish one you see is actually pink but I'm a horrible picture taker. In any case, the baby shower is Saturday so that will be fun.










Besides that, I finally finished the monster pants (now called 'Zombie Monster Pants'.. you'll see why shortly). I took the plunge and figured out how to duplicate stitch. A friend of mine from my knitting group suggested I use a thicker yarn so I first started by trying to use some white worsted weight yarn that I had on hand. That was a disaster though, so I reverted back to the white yarn in the same brand and size (Drop Baby Merino) that I used for the pants themselves. Some of the green and pink shows through a little bit but for a first time, I'm satisfied. 


Here they are!

These are going in a tightly sealed box for a while yet, but I look forward to the day when we have a little cute butt and legs in these things, walking and crawling around. :) 




What's next? I'm learning how to crochet, so that is fun. Nothing serious yet, just learning the basic stitches. An added twist is I'm learning it both in Swedish and English, since you know, just learning something in one language isn't challenging enough! ;) I also want to start again on the Dane shawl, that tricky tricky piece of work. I know I can do it though! And there is the baby blanket I was making for myself, which I really should just finish already so it's out of the way. And I really want to knit a pair of socks. There's also that skein of yarn I bought to make Andreas a matching winter hat to go with his scarf....