The last post for a while

We're leaving tomorrow morning on a looooong vacation. We won't be back until after Christmas. First stop Singapore, then Sydney, and last Perth where my sister lives. Internet access will be patchy. Sis doesn't even have a home computer, only her husband's work laptop. Neither M nor me are sure how we will survive without internet for four weeks. I have packed lots of knitting...

I'm bringing my two ongoing socks, M's Jaywalker and the Sockret Pal sock. And material for three more pairs. I hope that it is enough, and that it's not way too much... But as I have probably said a hundred times by now, this trip involves five long plane rides.

Speaking of socks, I finished the Opal Silk socks! Camera is packed, so no pics, sorry. I put them on immediately and they feel really nice. I haven't washed them yet so we will see how they come out after that. I must admit that I am a bit scared about machine washing my handknit socks, I always do it by hand.

Now I have to go obsess some more over forgotten things to do and to pack! Over and out.

Sockret Package

My first package from my Sockret Pal arrived yesterday. Wheee!

There was a great Australian magazine called Yarn. I have heard of it and I was actually planning to try to find it on my trip there. There was chocolate filled with crunchy honeycomb (now mostly gone, I have to admit) Cute little stitch markers that spell out Y A R N (do I see a theme here?) And they match the actual yarn I also got.

Superwash merino/nylon from Scouts Handpainted Swag! Wow! The colour is called Stormsurge and I can see why. It's not quite as bright as on these pics (still no daylight when I'm home...) but several different grays and blues, love it!


I've been busy with my silk socks. The first ones finished.


Toe-up, Judy's magic cast-on, short row heel, stockinette.


I tried the tubular bind-off for the first time. Me like!


The second one is flying along, I'll reach the cuff in another inch or so. I want these finished before I leave on vacation, and that shouldn't be a problem. The problem is to decide what projects to *bring* on the trip.

I will bring the sock for my downstream Sockret Pal. The plan is to finish both of them while gone, and maybe mail them off too. I'll also bring M's Jaywalkers. They have been sadly neglected lately, but maybe I can finish them before Christmas. For myself I'm thinking Baudelaires, but I haven't decided on the yarn yet. I also want to bring something easy and plain for car journeys and the like. I don't know how much knitting is realistic, but I do have 5 long plane trips ahead, and some car trips. Plus general loafing of course :-) We'll see. And if anyone knows of any yarn or quilt stores in Sydney or around Perth that I mustn't miss, please tell me!

Bad blogger

I've been such a bad blogger lately I feel really bad about it :-( But things are rather hectic around here, and that will continue the next two weeks, and then, bliss, four weeks of vacation. In Australia. I'm really really looking forward to it.

First we're having a short stop-over in Singapore. Just two days and one night, mainly to break up the long trip for the kids. After that we go to Sydney for five days. We'll mainly stay in Sydney except for a one day trip to Blue Mountains. Then we fly over to the other side of the continent, to Perth where my sister lives with her husband and three boys. The only thing we have really planned is a rented cottage some 200 k south of Perth for a week. I'm thinking beach, trips to the beautiful forests down there, and not to forget, the wineries!

On the hectic front, E's birthday is coming up, and he had a party last Sunday for 12 little kids, I'm glad that's over! Well, the party wasn't bad at all, but the preparations cleaning of the house... And on Saturday we're having both sets of grandparents, two of M's siblings with families, and my grandmother over. At least the cleaning is mostly done. And they're not getting dinner.

And now for some knitting content! Socks! I'm knitting socks! The sock for my Sockret Pal is coming up great. I love the yarn and the pattern and I hope she will too. I've turned the heel on the first sock.

The pooling is hardly visible at all in normal light, and the little leaves are much more visible. Apparently I suck at photography. Or can I blame the lack of daylight around here these days? I'm amazed at my progress, because the yarn is on the thin side and my pal's feet are on the wide side I have 80 stitches on each row. I think they will fit her nicely.

I'm also knitting a pair of plain stockinette socks in an Opal wool/silk blend. And talking about fast... I knit the toe on Tuesday night so I would have something to knit on the train on Wednesday. I was on that train for maybe 90 minutes total, and I actually had to stop knitting in the end because I was afraid to make them to long. I turned the heel last night. Of course it helps that 56 stitches was enough for my foot. This really surprised me, I have a rather wide foot and the yarn isn't all that thick so I had to rip out a bit of the toe because it was getting way to wide for me.

I'm not all that thrilled with the colours and pattern of this yarn, but it is so comfy! The colours are a bit more muted in real life. But is a nice sock anyway. I have not quite decided what to do with the leg. I think I'll do a short bit of stockinette and then a k2, p2 rib or something.

I tried a new way of picking up the wraps on the short row heel this time. I've always used Wendy's method but I haven't liked the look of the picked up wraps all that much. Then Lolly posted a link to a great tutorial of another way to pick up those wraps. So I tried it. It was *very* fiddly but it looks *very* nice. Maybe it gets easier next time. The idea is to pick up the wraps from the right side of the fabric, and to do it from the bottom up. Do check it out!

Halloween

Up until about five or maybe ten years ago Halloween didn't exist in Sweden. The someone realised that you could make money from it and introduced it here. I don't have to buy the pumpkins, no problem there. The thing that aggravates me is the confusion about what date it should be celebrated. In the US Halloween is October 31, right? That's All Hallows Eve or something. Here that's a moving holiday, which means that the actual church holiday is on the first Saturday of November or something like that. This means that we've had costumed kids banging on the door for a week now! Argh! And only one group actually arrived on Tuesday. Also they seems to believe that they are allowed to mess with our mailbox if they don't get goodies on the wrong day.
OK, rant mode off!

Knitting content:
I've made some hats for the kids. First a Shining Star hat for H:


It's the 'child' size, but I removed a couple of repeats to make it shorter. It's plenty big for her, maybe I should have done the 'toddler' size. But she likes it and she will grow :-)
I just love it from above!

I've also made a Pirate hat for E, for his birthday. He turns five in two weeks time. Of course it seems like he was born only yesterday.

Isn't it great? All the kids at daycare are really into pirates these days, so I think he'll like it. I took out one row of skulls, I hope it fits. I'm not blocking it until he's tried it on.
Anyway it's really warm and probably windproof too. It can stand all by itself...
It's great from above as well:
I used leftover Peer Gynt for both hats, so they where practically free (except the cost of the Shining Star pattern of course)

Day off

Today I have the day off. I'm not allowed to work because of the 24-7 standby last week. I do get paid :-) The kids are at daycare in the morning, I'll pick them up after lunch. M is home sick but he feels a bit bad about invading my free morning so he keeps quiet and away from me.

Autumn is finally here. It was very late in coming this year, but now it's cold and frosty and actually a tiny bit of snow. Beautiful weather today, I'm taking a walk in a bit! With my baby iPod and the Lime & Violet podcast I found the other day. I've listened to the first few episodes and they are *hilarious* Totally nuts and great fun to listen to!

I'm enjoying my handknit wolly socks very much in this weather. They are slim enough for my ordinary shoes and warm enough that I don't have to break out the boots just yet. And fun when I look at my feet :-) I'm wearing the RPM today, still in love with them. But I'm glad that I made the leg longer, for they do fall down the leg a bit. Probably a combination of the spiralling ribbing pattern and that my ankles are rather slimmer than my feet.

I got a bag of yarn from Astrid's the other day, sockyarns and my first Noro!

I started a Harlot Scarf with the Noro and the colour transitions are very nice the first 4 inches. Then there's a knot that makes the yarn jump from deep pink to bright green!


*Not* nice :-( What do I do? I'm thinking of winding the skein in to a ball and try to make the colour changes better.

I'm trying to decide what socks to knit for my Sockret Pal. I have the perfect yarn, Opal Smoke in browns and tans (I just got it from Astrid, see pic above) Not my preferred colours but very nice. But what pattern to make? I'm thinking some not too open lace would be nice, Fir Cone maybe. I swatched Mrs Montague but, nah, not this time.

I'm getting aggravated with the Dragon socks. I don't know if it's visible in the picture, but the second sock keep coming out smaller than the first (this is the second try) and I'm positive that I use the same needles *and* this time I've really made an effort to knit loosely. Grr.

I probably have to frog them and start over with larger needles. Other than that, I like the absolutely non-pooling of this yarn (Fleece Artist), just random little bits of different colours. Very pretty.