Hot and Bothered

It is very hot here, and has been for a week or so. 30 degrees C, blazing sun, little or no wind. I am melting.

Lots of things have happened since my last post.
My sister and her family arrived from Australia bearing gifts and some stuff I ordered and had delivered to their house to save on shipping. 5 balls of this:


Bendigo Mills Rustic 8-ply in Damson. M picked this for a sweater. I want to make Cobblestone. It is a bit thinner than the original yarn so I'll have to rework the pattern a bit, or simply make a larger size. We'll see. There was also 5 balls of Bendigo Mills Colonial 8-ply in Oatmeal for me.


Not sure what kind of sweater I want yet. Maybe a cabled cardigan.
I am starting to run out of stash space. I used to have mainly sock and lace yarn, now I also have four sweater worths of yarn that takes up much more space. I have to reorganise my space a bit. Clear up the mess.

The day after sister arrived M and I got married. Just a small ceremony at the court house with four witnesses and the two older kids. No pics because they are still on dad's camera. We had a party a few days after at the Cottage. Lots of cooking and baking in advance, a hired tent on the lawn, and a great time was had by all. And nice presents :-)
After that we relaxed as hard as we could with six kids in the house and so-so weather. I managed to knit quite a lot though. Whispering Pines has grown quite a lot.


I am halfway through the last small chart before the knitted on edging begins. I'm eager to see it finished. And to see how big it turns out.

There has also been sock knitting. Two finished pairs, no less. Pillars of Fire in Wollmeise from The Loopy Ewe sock club.



Nice yarn (but a little splitty), great colourway and a great pattern that was easy to memorise. A good toe-up heel-flap-and-gusset pattern too.

I also finished a pair of plain socks in a fun selfstriping yarn from sKNITches, Syncopation in Dragontooth.


Maybe not really my colours but they are fun, and I love the base yarn and the dye job. More details on both pairs on Ravelry (apologies to those of you not on Ravelry yet, but I don't have time for great details on both places and Ravelry is a great place and you really should check it out anyway)

I have started two new pairs, but no pics of those yet. I have decided to try to always have a plain pair on the needles and keep it downstairs at the TV, and a more complicated pair upstairs. So now I have started a plain pair for M in Duet sock yarn and a lacy pair for H.

I got a package in the mail! From my Hemlis 4-pal, look!


Great smelling tea (that I will try when the weather cools off!), yummy chocolate, a fun card, and look at the yarn! Three balls of Sarek from Marks & Kattens. A bulky wool yarn I haven't seen before. Maybe mittens? And 500 meters wool/silk lace weight, Elegant from Teetee in a beautiful plum colour. I have to find a pretty lace pattern for this!
Thank you so much for the great package, Ulrica! It made my day.

I finally managed to block the Brambles scarf I made from my own handspun.


I am very happy with it. It is heavy and soft with a great drape. It is also rather short but I can fasten it with one of my new shawl pins.


I found these through the Knitspot fan group on Ravelry, they are from Knitcellaneous.

Process or Product?

Am I a process knitter or a product knitter? I think about it sometimes, but I honestly don't know. I have seen discussions here and there and those people seem to Know that they are one or the other, never in between. No questions or doubts.

I, on the other hand, feel very in between. I *love* the process. Dreaming about things to knit. Choosing pattern and yarn. Knitting, knitting. Admiring the fabric flowing off my needles. The fact that I am creating something from nothing. The colour, the texture of the fabric. Process knitter.

But I would never knit something that I didn't like, didn't want to wear. I *want* that shawl, that sweater, those socks, that's why I knit them. If I didn't want the finished item, why would I finish it? Product knitter.

So I am in between. Both. And for me there is nothing else to be.

I am knit, knit, knitting on Whispering Pines. I finished chart H yesterday and I *love* it. Have I said that before? Well, I do. I don't have any new pictures of it though. As I said, it is getting hard to photograph.

Sheri started a new KAL with a yarn discount, and I fell for it. I mean, Dream In Color Baby, how could I not? I got two lovely skeins of Petal Shower


and two equally lovely skeins of Night Watch.


Night Watch is becoming Adamas.


Here it is after one repeat of the main chart. I have knit two more repeats since then. They are nice and quick compared to the 400+ stitches per row of Whispering Pines...

I feel that I have to ration my Adamas knitting so I don't abandon Whispering Pines. "Knit so and so much on Whispering Pines, then you can knit one repeat on Adamas" I'm not sure how many repeats I will do. I want it to be BIG. The original is 72" (180 cm) across and 36" (90 cm) down with "real" lace weight yarn and 14 pattern repeats. DIC Baby is thicker, halfway to fingering, so mine will definitely be bigger at 14 repeats. I have twice the yardage that the pattern calls for too, so we'll see where I end up. I love how the fabric is coming out, drapey and squishy at the same time. And the colour is to die for! Blues and purples, mmm.

Dream In Color is a bit tricky to buy on the 'net. You never know what colour you will get. They have no dye lots, but I think they should have, because they differ very much from batch to batch. For instance, I got one skein of Gothic Rose for accent on my EPS sweater. A lovely colour, blackish plum. After that KAL you got 20% off Classy so I got four more skeins thinking that I would make a sweater with the first one. No go, they aren't remotely the same colour.

These are brown, with just a hint of plum. In fact, the colour is almost the same as the single skein of Cocoa Kiss I got ages ago.

I think it will work if I stripe it in, or use it for ribbing. I am a bit miffed anyway, because brown is not really my thing and the first Gothic Rose I have is so yummy, I would very much have wanted a sweater in it.