Back from a few days home

Beautiful...

What's going on?

I'm trying to motivate myself to finish all the wips strewn around my house. I thought if I put them all out there for people to see, that's going to be a big enough kick in the butt for me.

(If you want more details than just the picture offers, click and see)



Also I need another pair of mittens, and I'm going to make my mom a scarf.
At the moment I've come this far on those two items:

Partial revelation of the reluctant mango socks

From this:



into this:




reluctantMANGO's socks are done, but I'll leave it up to her to reveal them completely.

There are some other stuff flying across the Atlantic too, and I really hope she likes what she gets, and that the socks fit her foot.

Applause to those who can guess wich pattern I used from looking at those pictures.

Introducing Nanny Ogg to the blog

She's an old lady, has quite the will of her own, but I love her dearly for a lot of reasons.

This wheel was given to me by my godmother/paternal grandmother when I was about 14. She also taught me the basics of spinning, but I have forgotten it completely I'm afraid. The wheel was given to my gran by a fiance (or one wanting to become one) she once had. My grandad did not like seing it that much, so it was stashed away in the basement for ages (their entire marriage?), she had another wheel she used. A good guesstimate says she is about 65-70 years old.

I've signed up for spinning classes, starting at the end of this month. I'm very much looking forward to it, but I'm a bit unsure of how "Nanny Ogg" likes travelling with public transport. I've bought new carders a while a go too, my old ones added woody bits instead of carding them out of the wool.

I'm just rows (and a little bit of weaving and seaming and buttons) away from being done with the February baby cardigan from E.Z.'s Knitters Almanac. I hope to have pictures of that soon.

A very "not-pink" blanket

When some friends of mine found out they were having a girl they announced at the same time "No pink, please!". I understood that very well, they are not the pink kind of people, not the traditional pale pastel baby pink anyway. So I made this blanket for them. It was finished on Valentines day, and the baby was born the day after.







I got the inspiration for this from Cara at January One. I loved her idea for her blanket so much I just plain copied it pretty much down to yarn and colour choice, they are a bit different.

The yarn used is Rauma Finull. After I decided I was done knitting I put the blanket inside a zippered duvet cover and felted it slightly in my washing machine (normal detergent and cycle, medium temperature). I think that is what makes the blanket such a good blanket. Soft, warm, sturdy, machine-washable.

I hope little Henriette is going to love this blanket for years to come.

(I bought her a yellow onsie too, see; not pink!)

Look what I got in the mail yesterday. I think the picture speaks for itself, but you can click it to go to flickr and read more.

Upstream SP, lets just say I really like you...

Otis is done!

Finally, I decided Otis was finished yesterday. I sewed in the ties, then took them off again and decided that was the way it was supposed to be.

I prefer it like this

Or like this

Obligatory back shot

The pattern is Otis from Knitty, the yarn is Vamsegarn.

I've made a few changes to the pattern, but not many and no hard ones. The sleeves are longer, and the body is also lengthened with just over an inch. I've also run a piece of yarn through the seed stitch border in the back, because there was some very unflattering puckering going on. A tighter cast on would have been better, but a piece of yarn was better than to re-knit the entire back.

I'm quite pleased with this. It's my first grown up sweater. Washing and blocking has taken great care of the roughness of the yarn. I won't be afraid to use this for sweaters any more. I've been on look out for a yarn to use instead of Cascade 220, because I can't get that here, I think I've found it now. I've used this yarn many times before, but only for felted items.

The photos for this were originally supposed to be outdoors winter photos, because Otis is definately warm enough to be standing outside in. But then hubby could not find his photo skills anywhere, and I had to make do with the batroom and the self-timer on the camera. Sorry!

Now, I'm off to start my February Socktopia socks.

30!!!!!!!!!!

"Dirty thirty"
"Thirty is the new eighteen"

I'm going to have a great day!

That's all I have to say for now.
That, and oh, I love comments...

Frozen socks

From the wool/alpaca/poly. yarn pictured two post ago I've very quickly made these socks. The quality of the yarn makes the socks look like they are frozen.





The pattern is Cable Twist Socks from HipKnits, I used 3mm bamboo needles.

I've also balled the yarn I dyed the other day. So I can safely say I'm "armed" for February Socktopia.



I have a lace stitch pattern in mind and will make my own sock pattern out of this I think.

Did I need more sock yarn? Probably...

After knitting for a few hours yesterday my fingers were getting tired. I was home alone and thought I'd do messy things in the kithchen without hubby getting all flustered. He's the kind of guy who likes his kitchen tidy and with no yarn. (What kind of guy? Home-ec teacher kind of guy...)

So I thought I'd amuse myself with dyeing some yarn. I whipped my once 2.5 kilo cone of white superwash out of the stash and quickly wound 125 (?) grams onto my swift, tied it off and put it in luke warm water for an hour. Then I mixed Kool-aid and luke warm water in a pot and put the yarn in, gave it a little prod and then noticed the water was clear already. I've never had this happen before. The yarn sucked up the kool-aid before it was even on the stove.

I guess it's thirsty yarn... It's lovely too. I hope it goes with february socktopia in some way.

I'm nearly done with a lovely pair of alpaca/wool-poly socks (see post below). More on that this weekend.