Breaking Cat

It’s a good thing that there was a deadline to the Mochimochi photo series contest, otherwise I probably would have spend another couple of weeks (or even months, who knows!) working on this project. So today was the day I set the deadline for myself to take all the pictures and upload my entry. It was a bit of a weird sunday, with sewing knitwork onto cardboard, making tiny desks and editing eyebrows. But here it is, weeks work full of brainstorming and lots and lots of knitting.

Breaking Cat! Just like Breaking Bad, but with catnip 🙂

The Mochimochi pattern featured are:
Stackable cats
 Gun shy
 Tiny pets
 Part of Cuter Polluters

Breaking Cat

Breaking Cat Breaking Cat Breaking Cat Breaking Cat Breaking Cat

Skirt weather!

Summer is almost upon, so it’s the perfect time to start with some breezy, summer-proof knits. It always seems like skirts are a bit under-appreciated in the knitting world, if you compare the 1400 patterns found on Ravelry for skirts, to the amount of patterns for example found for shawls (over 20,000) or cardigans (over 27,000). However there are some great skirt patterns out there, so here is a list of my top 5!

5. Isobel by Cia Abbott Bullemer

isobelskirt
What I like about this design the most is that it’s such a flattering skirt. Suitable to wear everyday and because it is a simple design it could easily be combined with other knitted clothing.

4. The Chelsea skirt by Cecily Glowik MacDonald

chelseaskirt
First of all, this is a free pattern, can you believe it?! The lace detail completes the skirt and gives a nice contrast with the tweed yarn. The row of buttons makes it just a little bit more quirky and casual.

3. Prairie skirt by Maude L. Baril

prairieskirt
There should be more patterns for stranded skirts. Despite the colourwork it is still a light garment and the cheerful colours also make it well suited for summer. I like this style a lot and would probably wear this almost every day.

2. Swing by Hanne Falkenberg

swing
I’ve seen this skirt in a couple of colour combinations already and like all of them. Wrap over skirts are practical and the design is simple and elegant.

1. New Girl by Allyson Dykhuizen

newgirl
I love love love this skirt. I am a fan of New Girl and Zooey Deschanel’s style in the series is very cute. I can totally imagine her wearing this. This pattern is listed very high in my queue right now, hoping to cast it on in June. And I already picked out my yarn for this project! Hopefully soon more on that.

Socks socks socks

tintern_abbey

My sock needles have been incredibly busy these last months. With so many tempting patterns out there and a reasonably sized sock yarn stash at my disposal, it sometimes is just too hard to control myself and not cast on yet another pair.

Usually it also doesn’t help that there is a sock knit along going on on Ravelry. So for the March challenge I cast on two pairs of socks. The first one is the gray pair of Tintern Abbey’s (pictured above, excuse my white pre-summer legs) in drops Fabel yarn. One of the challenge themes for the month March was architecture inspired socks, and as the name already gives away these socks are inspired by Tintern Abbey in Wales. This was actually my first time ever knitting socks toe-up. It was all a bit fiddly and I re-started the first sock a couple of times. The pattern called for Sherman toes and heels, and although I stuck to the toe I changed the heel to a fish lip kiss heel. I like that the sock looks so simple with only the lace part at the top, this way it really resembles the arches of the abbey.

storm

The second theme option for the knit along was nature inspired, so I went for the Storm pattern. I still had this yellow and gray Lana Grossa Meilenweit Bronx yarn lying around which is suited for a simple pattern. I aptly named my socks Thunderstorm and was happy to cast them on. Unfortunately the pattern gets very boring very fast (could’ve known that) and after finishing the first sock I realised I made a mistake in the pattern. Instead of two ribbed rounds after each cable round, I had only knit one, resulting in a different (less lovely) looking sock. But since the sock was already finished I decided to match the second sock. But it made me a lot less motivated to get these done and it was a lot of last minute work to still get them finished in time. In the end I am happy with how they turned out though, and the yellow is a nice addition to my hand knit sock drawer.

flockforyourfeet
Other than these two I still have three pairs that are currently in progress. First of all I’ve been working on these sheep socks (A Flock for your Feet pattern) for a long time now. The first time I cast these on was back in february but I ended up not liking the colour combinations. Quite happy with the colours now, but the progress is still a bit slow. Maybe May will see these finally finished (fingers crossed!).

lakeside
Also making some good progress with the Lakeside knee socks! And I’m really liking this yarn, it’s so soft! Finished the calf decreases on the first sock and the pattern is so easy and quick to knit, without it getting boring. I might end up with 10 pairs of these in all the colours of the rainbow.

araucania

And last but not least, for this months sock challenge I will knit a pair of The Scent of Lavender socks in this super pretty Araucania Ranco Multy yarn. Whenever I pick up this skein I just start squishing it instead of casting on. But I will cast on soon (I promise) and I’ll pretend that all these socks are the only WIPs I have lying around (subtly hides huge pile of other WIPs).

 

Yarn Shop Day!

wolwollewool4small
Twitter has been buzzing about it all week now and today the day finally arrived, yarn shop day! Although it seems more of a happening in the UK I wanted to try and also bring some of the joy of it to the Netherlands 🙂

Because I couldn’t say it any better myself, these are the three reasons posted on twitter for visiting your local yarn shop:
1. You get to squish & stroke the yarns in person!
2. The staff have a wealth of knowledge to share with you
3. You can meet other crafters – they are the best kind of ppl!

wolwollewoolsmall

Up until 6 months ago I was living in Copenhagen, which spoiled me yarn shop-wise. You could find a yarn shop literally on every corner, even in the desolated suburbs where I was living. Unfortunately the situation is a bit different in the Netherlands. Maybe it is because knitting is less popular over here, but there aren’t THAT many yarn shops, so it is often tempting and convenient to order yarn online.

wolwollewool2small
However, as mentioned in the reasons above, it is really nice to visit your local yarn shop! So today I headed out into the city of Maastricht and visited my LYS, Wol Wolle Wool (how cute is that big ball of pink yarn outside the shop?!) . A cosy little store in the heart of the city centre, with lots of lovely yarns ofcourse.

wolwollewool3small

And rest assured, I did not leave empty handed. I bought 2 skeins of lovely lace yarn from Lotus Yarns (Tibetan Cloud Fingering), made from 100% Tibetan Yak (also used in the beautiful shawl pictured above). And I know what I’m going to make with it, because it’s just in time to join the Game of Thrones Mystery Kal! First clue will be up tomorrow and I can’t wait to cast on.

tibetan cloud small tibetancloud2 small

So how about you, did you do anything special for yarn shop day? 🙂