Tuesday, January 30, 2007

No snow

The snow is all but gone. It snowed on Friday morning, but as temps rose it turned into rain. Today it has been raining all day, gray and boring. The kids are of course disappointed but at least they got a few days of winter. Who knows if there will be more of it this year.

But look what I've got! Goodies from Sarah's Yarns.


The red yarn is JaggerSpun Superfine Merino in Raspberry, the others are JaggerSpun Zephyr wool/silk in Steel, Blueberry and White. There is 1260 yards of each. Now I just have to decide what to make... I am thinking about using the Steel for a Casino shawl and the Blueberry for Mountain Peaks. But Victorian Lace Today is somewhere in the mail so I hope to find something fantastic in that one too. We'll see. But I'm itching for a lace project!

I finished the second pair of Baby Tiger socks. They will be gifted tomorrow, I do hope that the kid hasn't grown too much...


I finished the first Baudelaire. I love it! The yarn is Fleece Artist and it behaves just as I like varegiated yarns to behave: absolutely no pooling or striping, just random bits of colour.



M has been complaining about his Jaywalkers being on hold. The reason is that I find them really boring... So I started another pair for him, a simple toe-up ribbed sock in 6 ply yarn, nice and fast :-) Only 48 stitches to the round, the foot is already done. I also tried a new toe, the Round Toe from Sensational Knitted Socks. I love it and will definitely use it more.


M's new socks are also a tryout for my new Brittany Birch short sock needles. They are only 5 inches long and look absolutely tiny compared to my other ones that are all 8 inches long. But the Brittany's are very nice to work with, the perfect length for my hands. I imagine that they are on the short side for someone with larger hands though.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Snow!

When we opened the door to leave for work and daycare yesterday, it was snowing! Totally unexpected, though they *had* forecast freezing temps. Good thing that M changed to winter tyres on the car on Sunday! Usually we do it in November or so but this "winter" it hasn't been necessary until now. Weird weather!
This morning it was -7 (Celsius of course) and the kids brought their sleds to daycare, totally happy :-) They better enjoy it while it lasts, above zero temps and rain is predicted shortly :-/

I fixed the bad grafting of the first baby tiger sock and started the second one, cuff is almost done. I'll do my best to finish them before Friday, I want to give them away before baby gets to big...

And I didn't get any packages today either. I want my yarn!!! *pout*

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Catch-up

Sorry for not blogging for ages and ages but I've been so tired lately. I've gone to bed much earlier than usual and haven't had any time left for blogging. I'll try to do better!

This last week I have been commuting by train, about an hour and half every day, so I've been knitting up a storm! I finally finished my Sockret Pal socks. On Monday they where just the cuff and two eight-row repeats on the leg of the second sock. On Thursday they where done! I'm very happy with them, and I do hope they will fit my pal and that she'll like them. I will show them when she has got them and I have revealed myself to her.

After that I started a pair of Baudelaire for me, in Fleece Artist. Yum! They are very quick compared to the Sockret socks, as they had 80 stitches to the round and these have only 60. So I'm already past the heel of the first sock. Of course the patterns would be more visible in a solid yarn, but it's nice this way too I think. And I just love the yarn!


Sorry about the crappy picture, I have a new camera and I apparently haven't learned how to use it yet.

I've also made a pair of little Tiger socks. They where intended for the baby of a friend, but when I tried them on a baby of another friend I realized that they are too small for him so I've started a larger pair. The first one is done. Almost anyway, the grafting of the toe went bad so I have to fix that. Of course the yarn is black just there so it's hard to see... Here are the small socks:

Yarn: Opal Rainforest Tiger, 36 stitches on 2.25 mm needles. Top down with short-row heel.

Here's some pictures of the great stuff my own Sockret Pal sent me:

A pattern booklet from her guild, a handmade journal, sock yarn and a mysterious box. The box contained this:

More sock yarn and a 12" Addi! She dyed the green-white-pink yarn herself, it'll be fun to see how it knits up!

Mom and I are going on a quilting class next month. I've been in quite a slump with quilting lately so classes are a great way of actually getting something done. The upcoming class is a sort of stack and whack that makes a kind of stars. You need a fabric with a really large repeat. Six repeats are put on top of each other and then you cut triangles. The identical triangles are sewn into hexagons. Then you fill in the blanks with contrasting triangles. The effect is great and one of the fun parts is that you just can't know how your hexagons will turn out :-) I have two fabrics to choose from. One has black background with blue dragons and orange flames, the other one also has black background with butterflies, flowers and leaves all over. Decisions, decisions.

I recently found out that there's going to be a textile fair (quilting and knitting and more) in a town an hour away from here in a couple of months. Fun, because my town is hopeless when it comes to both quilt and yarn stores. So I usually shop the internet, but once in a while it's nice to actually see and feel the stuff before you buy it. And of course it's much easier to match colours and such. So I'm looking forward to that.

I'm also looking forward to the post! I got some book money for Christmas so I ordered three books from Amazon. Good prices but bad shipping time :-/ I also made a test order of lace weight from Sarah's Yarns, I'm very excited about that, Jaggerspun Zephyr. I'm thinking of making the Mountain Peaks shawl and the Casino shawl. I miss having a large lace project on the needles.
I also ordered some Cascade 220 for this cardigan and matching felted slippers. It was ages ago that I made a grown up sized sweater of any sort, so that'll be fun too. I've had the slipper pattern for some time but haven't tried it yet. I simply haven't found any suitable yarn (see above rant about the lack of yarn shops here...) So I'm watching the mailbox...

Now I'm off to watch the Mythbusters Pirate special :-)