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.

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 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!

Aug 25

Knitting confessions

This post is a link up which was initiated by Brandy from the blog Stitched up in Toronto. As she so well described this idea:

Like most things in the world, knitting has a set of rules and conventions. Sometimes, we knitters break them. This is my knitting confession.

I can already reveal that there are more than a few knitting conventions that I tend to break, but let’s start with one I am annoying myself the most with.

I am a lazy pattern reader

Phew, there I said it! A good knitter would probably happily receive their newly purchased pattern and first have a good read through, thinking ahead of things that might come. My style in general is that I skim through most of it, arrogantly thinking that there will be no surprises for my surely superb knitting skills, only to later on freak out because ‘this is not what I was expecting!!’.

storm

Also I will tend to read repeats only once, after that relying on my memory and finding out after a couple of repeats that it is not really looking like the picture in the pattern. One example being these Storm socks, where I had only lazily read the pattern and after finished the first sock finding it too deviated from what it should look like. Turned out I forgot one row of ribbing between the cable rows. Stupid and completely preventable.

And more recently I was happily starting the daisy stitch on my (almost finished!) New Girl skirt. Again I read the repeat once, after which I happily knitted on from memory. Few rows further along I noticed my blobs weren’t lining up, because I had AGAIN, memorised the pattern wronly. I guess I’ll never learn.

How about you, do you have any confessing to do?

May 3

Yarn Shop Day!

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.

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.

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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