Nov 10

Blog hop!

It’s time for a little blog hop! I got tagged by Kat Riddell of The Wayward Knitter blog to answer a couple of questions, so here are my answers 🙂

1) What am I working on?

So this question at first freaked me out a little bit, because in my head it feels like I’m working on literally everything. But then I took a deep breath and counted my WIPs. It turns out I only have 8 WIPs! Which I don’t think is THAT much as two of them are very near completion (Rainbow Wanderer, here is proof of one sock done and sock #2 is past the heel; and Two at a Time Toe up, almost at the cuff!) and this number even includes things like the Beekeeper’s Quilt, which actually doesn’t count. So what am I working on mostly? I think that’d be the Tiller scarf I blogged about last weekend, it’s such a pleasure to knit even a couple of rows every night.

rainbowwanderer
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

This is such a hard question to answer. In a way I don’t feel like my work necessarily differs a lot from others. I just kind of do whatever feels right and hope that it will lead to a nice end result 🙂

3) Why do I write/create what I do?

Not to make this into a sob story or anything, but I have a very clear vision of at least why I write what I write. And the reason is simple, there is no one in my life that really knits. Sure maybe one or two people will make an odd scarf or hat when winter comes, but they don’t feel particularly passionate about it or anything. I could never share my thoughts with them on the level that I’d like to, and I’ve come to find that the online knitting community is so warm and loving (and chatty!). It’s just nice to reach out to other people about something you enjoy so intensely and know that they understand what you’re feeling. And the same goes for the downs that inevitably happen with knitting sometimes as well. There’s people out there that know what you’re going through and actually feel your pain when you share that you’ve had to rip out an entire project.

And the reason why I knit what I knit is even simpler, the peace of mind it can give me in an otherwise hectic world. The sense of accomplishment you feel when learning a new technique or simply creating something awesome. And as an excuse to buy pretty yarns of course.

4) How does my writing/creative process work?

I enjoy reading other blogs, checking instagram, pinterest or twitter to see what other people are creating. It really inspires me, and whenever I see a pattern I like I get into a frenzy to find that perfect yarn that would complete this project (that always has to be knit immediately). Then it takes me ages to actually complete the project, but once it does I try to take some pretty pictures of it and post it up here, on the blog 😉

Next I tag Pia from Noget Uldent!

Nov 8

Lo and behold!

Tiller2

I might be mistaken here, but this looks an awful lot like a cable project.. You might remember from an earlier knitting confession that I have a crippling fear of knitting cables (slight exaggeration here), and I’ve decided to treat myself with full on exposure therapy (very irresponsible, do not try this at home children!).

Pattern: Tiller by Julie Hoover
Yarn: Rowan Silky Tweed in mardigras (unfortunately discontinued 🙁 )

Tiller

And I am enjoying this project SO much. In the first place because I cannot even remember the last straight scarf that I’ve knit. It must’ve been in the beginning days of my knitting, back when I was proud to even hold a needle at all and marvelled at acrylic yarns in offensive variegated colours. But it is so calming to just do pattern repeats until you run out of yarn, not having to worry about shaping or heels or whatnot.

Tiller3

For now I’m still working with a cable needle, which isn’t annoying me as much as I thought it would. I like how the yarn is working up with this pattern and I imagine this is going to be a super comfy and warm scarf to help me through the winter. Also this has given me the confidence to set myself the goal to knit a full on cable fest of a sweater in 2015. Yay knitting!

 

Nov 5

A tiny song to fill the silence

It’s been a bit silent around here, basically due to the fact that stuff happened. With stuff I mean mainly me first being busy, then getting sick, and ultimately still being sick right now. The vision of being comfy sick whilst knitting is unfortunately an illusion and I’ve spend most of my time lying on the couch making sad noises. But there is light at the end of the tunnel and I’m starting to feel like my old self again. Regular blogging and knitting will be resumed soon, but to fill the silence in the meantime I just wanted to leave you with this teeny tiny song about knitting by Swedish/Icelandic duo My Bubba. I had the pleasure of hearing this song live a couple of weeks ago and their voices are truly magical. If you don’t know them yet be sure to check them out!

Oct 26

Yarn Appreciation

GraffitiOverlay

So I don’t have any FOs to show you this week, nor any impressive progress on my many WIPs. But what I can show you is physical evidence of my lack of self control.

GraffitiOverlay2 GraffitiOverlay3

To be honest, I did have a pretty though week at work. My mind did not have the patience to do some actual knitting, but I thought I deserved a little shopping therapy to cheer myself up. And no kind of shopping cheers me up as much as yarn shopping. The skein in those first pictures there is sock yarn from Spun Right Round and it is just breathtakingly beautiful! Those spots of colours are so intense. I really have a hard time deciding what kind of sock pattern I’ll use this for though. I don’t want to do a plain stockinette sock but the pattern should be simple enough to make the yarn pop. Or maybe the yarn wants to be a hat, so it can be shown off more often?

ECY

And then there’s this pretty skein of Eden Cottage Yarn Tempo 4ply in the colour Copper Bucket. I wanted a sock yarn in an autumnal colour for some nice lace socks. I’ve admired ECY yarns and the beautiful colours for a long time, and now there’s finally a store in the Netherlands that sells it. So no more excuses and it was time to try out this yarn.

malabrigo malabrigo2

And I couldn’t just leave it at that could I? Yes my bank account is pretty empty right now, but I did need a lot of cheering up. So this is some lovely Malabrigo sock yarn in the colour Primavera. I’m planning to turn this into a nice pair of fingerless mitts and maybe a headband if I have leftovers.

MalabrigoSM

And then some more Malabrigo, this time Silky Merino to make myself a hat! Because hat weather has arrived and I haven’t made a hat yet (disgraceful!).

So that’s what I’ve been up to! Looking at all those lovely colours, the occasional squish. I’m considering putting an emergency skein of yarn into my desk drawer at work, just to have a relaxing squish when things get stressful.

Do you ever indulge in yarn shopping to cheer yourself up?

Oct 17

One row forward, two rows back

Sperry

Do you ever have one of those projects where you feel like it is just impossible to make progress? Well I’m right in the middle of one of those at the moment, and it’s pretty frustrating. After finishing the Wilshire shawl I was so excited to cast on some new things. But I’ve only started one new project, without too much to show for it.

The Sperry sweater is one of those projects that’s been in my queue for quite a while and I’ve had the yarn lying around for months as well. The construction looked easy enough and then just loads of stockinette and some stripes, how hard can it be?! But I’ve just been falling from one obvious mistake into the other. The pattern instructions are also a bit of a mess, since there are no paragraphs at all (the horror!) and I’ve been so focused on just reading through it and trying to not mess it up that I’ve made an epic mistake.. I twisted while joining in the round (I’ve put the evidence for this behind this link, I don’t want to involuntarily upset some knitters with these horror pictures). Rip rip rip. And even after that, a little M1 mistake here, a horrible colour switch there. And every time again I’m just rip rip ripping it out.

At least now I’ve come to the point where I’m about ready to separate the sleeves and after that it really should be easy going (right?!). I’m actually thinking of putting a lifeline in it right now, unheard of! And now all kinds of horror scenarios are spooking through my head. Like the fact that a lot of ravelry project notes warn for the neckline ending up too wide, and me thinking that wouldn’t be a problem because I like a wide neckline. But now actually seeing it maybe I should’ve taking the advice. And then there’s the thing of me only doing a kind of gauge swatch, so who knows what size this will end up as. Oh well, I’m going to keep my optimism hat on for now and soldier on. Even if it ends up with a huge neckline and in a tiny size, I’ll just have to find that one friend with a slightly shifted shoulder to waist ratio and then they’ll have a wonderful christmas gift.