Spring.. a time of intense knittyness

Hi hi! It's been a while... I didn't come back as I had promised in the fall. That's because life has been busy - learning a new language, working full time, and well... knitting. Yes, lots of knitting. But I feel inspired this evening to write a blog post, so here it is: projects I've completed in the last 6 months.

Josiah's cross stitch:

It took me an entire year to complete this, but I finally did it. It was worth it in the end and considering I was a novice cross-stitcher when I started, I'm pleased with the result.

Mug cozies:

I made two different mug cozies: one to go around the mug, and one that holds the mug. Unfortunately I don't have a picture handy of the finished product for the holding one. The pattern for the first one is the "We're just that Awesome mug cozy" which can be found on ravelry. I thought the diagonal stitch was finicky and didn't look that nice after all. The second one I sort of made up, but it was loosely based on this pattern. It was my first time not strictly following a pattern so that was pretty fun, and for a porcelain mug it is much more practical.

Irish Hiking Scarf:

Next up I worked on a cabled scarf for Andreas, for Christmas. This was a fun knit and it was my first time making cables.. ridiculously simple to do and I was fearful for no reason it turns out. Even though it was simple, it still took ages to finish as it's fairly thick and it had to be long enough for my husband to wear it the way he likes. Project page with more pictures and pattern here.

CanCans

These were so much fun that I was sad when I finished them. I frogged them the first time I started on DPNs; things went much better with circulars. I really like the fake cable motif and they fit perfectly. Project info and pictures here. Link to pattern here.

Monster pants (Monster byxor/bukse):

As you can see, they are still in progress. The pink bit there is going to be the monster mouth. These are knit top down and I'm doing them in size 1 year old. The pattern is from duBedåre on Ravelry, pattern here. Check out her super cute monster pants!

I actually am farther than in the photo above; I just did the increases for the legs. I can't find my 40 cm knitpro cable though, and since I only owned one set of 3mm needles for the knitpro circs, I went ahead and ordered two 40cm cables and another set of 3mm needles. I think I'll set these aside for a week while I wait for those to arrive. I'd rather wait and knit on the circulars than going ahead with DPNs.. I'm just not that comfortable on them. I end up with laddering and tend to have a too-tight gauge.

Other projects I'm working on but aren't far enough yet to give you a picture are:

• "Textured Blocks Baby Blanket" on ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/textured-blocks-baby-blanket
• Hermione's Everyday Socks also on ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hermiones-everyday-socks

Bonus pictures for this post:

My mother-in-law's cat, very silly. She likes me for some reason..

Three things I love: programming, knitting, and Andreas ;) On the right, a picture of me having just bound off my first CanCan on the train home.

Homemade pickles from our garden in the Netherlands, and a glimpse of the nature surrounding us here in Katrineholm.

In February we went skiing in Austria, Zell am See. A picture of us at the airport in Innsbruck, and a picture of us on the slopes in Zell am See. It was my first time skiing.

Random cuddling with Björn, whom I missed very much all autumn. I was happy to see him in January.

Our garden plot, where we will be planting this year, and the beginning of the garden - a bunch of newly planted seeds in our windowsill.

Other news:

I'm getting a sewing machine! I've been wanting one for over a year but we couldn't really afford it. I've been saving my pennies and I finally ordered a Bernette 15 (a review of the features here). It will arrive Friday and I'm so excited to try it out. I signed up for a apron swap on Rhonda's Down to Earth blog, which sort of prompted this entire purchase. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I signed up, but I guess I needed a little extra push to finally go out and buy the machine.

I will try to update soon. I promise.

Hiatus

Well hello dear knitting blog. It's been a while.

And that's because immigrated to Sweden! Land of potatoes, kaneelbullar (cinnamon rolls), and yarn in every store and supermarket. I had to prepare for the move and since then I've been extremely busy, working on my Swedish and starting my new job.

I've also promised myself not to knit a single stitch until I finish the cross-stitch I started last November for my nephew, Josiah. I'm about 95% done and I'm hoping if I work hard, that I can finish it next week. I've put in hundreds of hours and it is shaping up quite nicely. I will make a post showing that off once it's done, so you can expect to hear from me in a week or so, I hope!

Cheers!

Golden leaves hat

The day has come; I finished my first hat and I didn't even run out of yarn. It was a fun project from start to finish:

My friend Jessica showed me how to work with 4 DPNs. I was amazed - it always looked so complicated that I never dreamt I could do it myself.

After the ribbing was done, I switched to my 60cm 4mm circular needles

Near the end I had to switch back to DPNs because the circular needles were too long. This looks (and was) a complicated mess!

Tada! The finished product. As you can see, it was way too warm to actually wear a hat.

What a weird picture of me, but I didn't feel like taking more.

Right after finishing my mini photo shoot, some hot air ballons passed directly over our neighborhood. I didn't think to take a picture until they were a distance away.

The hat was a relatively quick knit (I finished it in 5 days) and I feel very pleased at the end result. Not to mention the colors! Too bad it was the last skein of a discontinued yarn. Maybe I can find more online somewhere.

Next time, I'll be showing off some very nice yarn that my sister-in-law acquired for me, to make something adorable.

Oliver Octopus

First of all, my sincere apologies for my absence. I would of enjoyed nothing better than being able to post something at least once a week here for the last 3 weeks. Unfortunately, house renovations has taken up most of my free time. Knitting came to a complete halt until 2 days ago.

For those who haven't seen it, here's a picture of our living room, at our house warming party in 2009 (It's not a great picture but I can't find better ones at the moment).

Here is the living room after Andreas' paint job:

Looking towards the kitchen:

Front entry way:

It feels so awful and bare with the orange gone in the living room. It went very well with our brown furniture and made it feel like eternal autumn in our house. Autumn is my favorite season, so fine by me.

Regardless, I managed to get some knitting in this past weekend. Oliver Octopus is done and ready to make his debut. *drum roll*

I started on a new project yesterday, and luckily my knitting friend was here, because it turned out this hat was supposed to be knit in the round! Panic! Pleasure! I was about to uncover the secret of knitting in the round! I had to start over once but I've got the hang of it now (I think?). I must honestly say I have no idea if I'm knitting on the WS or RS but luckily it's just a simple K1, P1. This should turn out interesting... did I mention I only have 1 skein of this yarn, and it's discontinued, and I have no idea if I have enough for the hat? More details to follow later this week!

Weekend in Amsterdam = bigger stash

Last weekend Andreas and I headed down to Amsterdam to visit Andreas' brother who lives there. We had a very nice, relaxed weekend that included rummycube and homemade chai tea. But one of the highlights for me was getting to check out a new yarn shop.

Originally I had wanted to go to this shop called "Weldraad" but seeing as the metro line that went there was being repaired and the bus would take a long time, I had to 'settle' for "De afstap". De afstap was a beautiful yarn store which while tiny in square meters, was jam packed with yarn. They carried almost the entire rowan collection with a small selection of other high-end yarn. Fine by me! I had no idea that rowan made so many types of yarn.

New additions:

As you can see, I found quite a few nice things!

This outrageously red yarn is destined for a beautiful skirt

I love the texture and colors of this silky tweed. This will become a warm winter scarf for Andreas.

This wool is some of the softest that I've ever felt. It should make a nice hat for me.

This colorful yet refined felted tweed will become the cutest gloves I've ever owned - I'm sure of it.

100% baby alpaca for a set of very warm arm/wrist warmers. Nice for biking.

I can't wait to get started on all of these projects but first I have a few other things to finish. I'm currently working on Oliver Octopus, whom you'll be meeting in my next blog post. Oliver is a bit shy so it might be a couple of days, but who knows.

Edgar

Edgar is finished and is patiently awaiting fall weather so that I can adorn my neck with his beautiful colors. Although, with the type of summer that we've had, I could almost wear him now.

I just love the shape of the scarf. Amazingly, the technique to create such a shape is quite easy - just decreasing in the middle of each row (S1, K2tog, PSSO) every time on the right side. After so many rows, it naturally forms the shape you see above, and then you cast on stitches on both sides to start over again.

For the nice edge you slip 1 stitch purl-wise at the beginning of every row. The pattern can be found here: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall05/PATTedgar.html .

I made mine quite a bit longer than the longest amount of squares called for in the pattern (I kept going until I used up both skeins of my noro silk garden, minus a bit of the black colored bits), but of course with this sort of pattern it doesn't really matter how long or short you make it - whatever suits you best.

Cletus is cleverly clawing around...

... now that I've finished him! Check it out:

He was a lot of work to make because all of the claws and legs are seperately knitted and then sewed on to the body. Some of his legs were over stuffed because it was hard to get tiny pieces of stuffing into those tiny little legs. Those cute tiny little legs, I may add. I sewed the eyes on and then super-glued them. A few years from now we'll see if they withstand wear and tear.

This little guy gets to hang around until someone comes along to play with him. :) In the meantime he'll make a very cute addition to my desk.