Honestly, is anyone surprised?

I gave in. Oh yes I did.

A handy tip for the knitting whisky friend

Today, I realised something. I realised that the cardboard tube Laphroaig whisky comes in is perfect for storing my long knitting needles. It's exactly the right height and sturdy too. How come I never thought of this idea before?

Despite the title of this post, I'm no huge fan of whisky. I love, love, LOVE the smell (especially Laphroaig), but I can't stand the taste. Hubby and I have gotten into the habit of enjoying it together: I sniff the whisky, he drinks it. Peculiar perhaps, but hey, we're both happy with the arrangement. ;)

The showing off begins

It's time to show off a bit of what I made during the vacation! I finally took some photos and listed a new pair of armwarmers in my Etsy shop. These armwarmers are beige with black stripes, knitted from a soft wool on double-pointed needles. I'm quite pleased with how the ribbing shows up with a light colour like this.


In other news, I found the loveliest acrylic yarn today, in shades of white, beige, brown and gray. It's just soooo pretty and tempting. I know I shouldn't. What would I make with it? Don't I already have a tower of yarn, nearly collapsing from its own bulk?

*sigh*

Will I be able to resist? Well, if I won't, you'll find out through this blog soon enough.

Have a look at some more yarn

Long time no see! I'm back from my two-week vacation. It was great to have some relaxation, but it's good to be back with charged batteries too. :) Which are needed, as it turns out, for I have a couple of busy weeks ahead of me. I don't have the time to show off all the new knitted stuff immediately, but they'll trickle into this blog as I find a few moments here and there.

But first, here's what was waiting for me when I got back! A yarn package from Twisted Fibers with a whole three skeins - one a thick-and-thin cotton yarn in black, white, beige, blue and gray, and two soft cotton blends. I'm especially happy with the blue-brown one on the right, I love that combo.


I have plans for two of them already, but have trouble deciding what to do with the one in various brown shades on the left. Then again, right now I'm a bit too busy to get started with any of these, so I have time to plan. Oh well, these make a nice treat to look forward to once I've gotten everything done. =)

My kind of vacation

Brief update alert!

It seems I can't sit still on a vacation. In between gardening and socializing, I've been busy with the knitting needles too. The bats above are just a taste of what I've been making and more will be shown off once I get home and get better internet access. Exciting times, eh?

Of sharks and muffins

My sweet little Horace got a mention in Lime & Violet's Daily Chum, along with some other sea creatures. This is the second time he's been mentioned in a blog, he's become a popular little shark! And good thing he is, for I am of the firm belief that the world needs more friendly, snuggly sharks.

I'll have the listing for a finished Horace up in a little bit, but in the mean time his pattern is already available in my Etsy shop.

In other news, I've been busy in the "kitchen" again. This time I experimented with bananas and raspberries in muffin form, making up a recipe based on the one for carrot muffins. The carrot one used to be my favourite muffin recipe, but this new one is an awfully strong challenger. They're just oh so moist, a quality I appreciate in muffins. Plus they've got raspberries! And bananas! And make a whole 18!

As usual, the less you mix the batter, the better they'll be.

Banana-Raspberry Muffins (makes 18)

4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 eggs
2 ripe bananas
100 g raspberries (that's about 1 1/2-2 dl or 2/3 cup)

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add sliced bananas, raspberries and melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter into 18 muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes at 200°C (392°F).

Enjoy!

A day should have way more than 24 hours...

I got another Treasury! This time I went with a green theme, featuring some talented European artists and designers.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me, as we're leaving for a two week holiday soon. So much to get done first... I do hope I'll find some extra time here and there to finish up my current project before we go, though it didn't help that I already spent a big part of the morning frantically looking for the circular needles I need to finish it. In any case, I'll leave you with a little sneak peek. =)

A day of extremely fancy pizzas and fiery tango

Ahhhh, what a day yesterday. Starting with my armwarmers on the Etsy frontpage (*happy dance!*) and the sale of said armwarmers(*happy happy dance!*), then continuing with good food, drink, art and music during the Night of the Arts. The weather was rather awful, but we had a good time anyway and didn't get back until about midnight, at which point I crashed into bed immediately and slept like a rock (unlike my poor hubby, who still had a bit of work to do).

Hubby and I went to this very nice pizza place for dinner. Verrrrrry nice. My pizza toppings consisted of smoked reindeer, pickled onions, mushrooms, leipäjuusto (I love the English name "Finnish squeaky cheese") and lingonberries.

It was truly the work of a mad pizza genius. So strange, yet so delicious. Genius!

Hubby's pizza certainly didn't pale in comparison, for his had spicy pork fillet strips, goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and pesto. Mmmmmmmmmm!

After plenty of wandering around art markets and galleries, the high point of the evening was listening to the fiery Argentinian tango of Astor Piazzolla, performed by Quinteto Fuego, while enjoying a cup of tea in the company of friends.

A proud sister presents Llama inc.

So my brother has a band and said band was playing here in Turku a couple of months ago. Woohoo!

A friend of theirs has put together a video of footage shot that night and posted it on Youtube. Double woohoo!

As hubby and I were at their gig (of course), you can see a bit of us at one point in the video. Less of a woohoo. Fortunately you can't see much more than hair. ;)

Without further ado I present to you: Llama inc! Dear little brother plays the bass and does backing vocals.



PS. The band knows how to spell, the maker of the video just got "Presence" wrong. ;)

The ACEO series is finished!

The knitted seasons ACEO series is done! Today I listed 'Winter White' in my Etsy shop, which features a wintry landscape, complete with a snowman. Like the others, it was knitted from a cotton-acrylic blend.

My husband said the snowman looked like a stack of snowballs when I asked him what he thought, yet he wasn't able to guess that it was a snowman. Hmpf. Sometimes I don't know about that man. ;)

I'm quite pleased with the whole series. It turned out just as I had pictured (hard-to-decipher snowmen and all), plus there was all the fun I had playing around with cables and bobbles in a miniature format. I already have a few new projects planned (and one started), using similar imagery but with more practical applications. Stay tuned for those. Thank you Celeste and Karen for your suggestions!

The Tiniest Littlest Dragon

After all those posts on news about my shop and showing off fun stuff I received in the mail, I think it's time for something of my own design again.


Meet the latest of my tiny little creatures, a dragon called Percival! He is a whole 4.5 cm (1.75 in) tall, with a wingspan of 7 cm (2.75 in). He was made from acrylic yarn with a mix of knitting and crochet.

I have a hard time deciding which I enjoy knitting more; cablework or tiny creatures. Each is challenging in their own way and require quite a bit of concentration. I may just have to go with both.

Oh, and one more thing. I got to use one of the raven stickers on a package for the first time today! Oh, the little joys in life.

Dinos! On a bike!

Today I have more fun things to show that the postman brought to me. It's dino buttons! Dinos on bikes!

As soon as I laid eyes on the cute little dino on Narchi's blog, I was in love. You may have guessed that I'm a dinosaur fan from previous dino posts on this blog, not to mention the amount of dinos in my shop. And really, can a dino get any cuter than this? So, you can imagine I got all giddy about a week ago when she told me I'd won three of these pins in her blog contest!

I have good news, for you too can get one (or several) of these fun pinback buttons for yourself from Narchi's Etsy shop. There are other dino-themed items available, such as stuffed dinosaurs for a good cause, but also many other designs. Go take a look, you won't be disappointed!

That was quick!

Yesterday I found out about a new site called indiepublic. It's a networking site for artists, designers, retailers, bloggers and fans of indie stuff. I signed up, filled out my profile and got a sale. That's right, I got a sale just a few minutes afterwards, because someone saw my avatar there and liked it. Awesome!


View my profile on Indiepublic


In other news, I finished that pair of fingerless gloves I mentioned earlier. I already have another pair planned, but it's just too damn hot to knit anything made of wool right now. I might try to make something fun with cables out of cotton instead.

(If you don't hear from me within the next few days, it'll be because I have melted into a puddle from this heat. Just so you know.)

Raven stickers!

Look at what the postman brought today!


Yup, it's my very own stickers! Designed by my husband and made by the friendly and helpful BitsyCreations. Go visit her shop now, she's awesome!

Then go buy something from me so I can put these to good use, i.e. plaster them all over packages. ;)

Oh MY! *faints*

My monster hat is on the Etsy front page! And I'm in a whole three treasuries! Oh my! :D I've never been in three at once. Thank you revontulitikku, tortillagirl and BINAGEYER!

It's been an amazing few days as far as my little shop is concerned. Reaching 100 sales, front page feature, blog feature, treasuries... Thank you all, especially my wonderful customers!




But lest you think it's all fluff and bunnies, I have a confession to make. I have been cursed with evil cookies. Evil, evil cookies. Just look at how evil they are.


Sure, they may look like perfectly innocent big peanut-chocolate cookies, but do not be fooled. Before you know it you have eaten four of these tempting things and are suffering from an aching tummy. At that point you may try to say "no more!", but it will be in vain. Ten minutes later you'll find yourself munching on the fifth, despite your tummyache. Oh yes.

Such eeeevil oh-so-good cookies!

Time for a happy dance!

So yesterday I reached my 100th sale on Etsy, got featured in the PlushYou! blog and today I was included in a treasury by fellow Finnish Etsy seller revontulitikku. Oh my! It's time for a happy dance! A triple happy dance!

My 100th sold item was the knitting pattern for Salvador the Seahorse. I redid the photos for Salvador and am now much happier with how the listings look.

Now that I have my lightbox and a bit of extra time, I've been redoing a lot of my creature photos and plan to redo them all in a similar way to get a more unified look to the listings and my whole shop. It's a lot of work, but I think it'll be worth it.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to do that happy dance. Have a great weekend, all!

It's muffin time again!

So I made some muffins again, on hubby's request at about 11:30 pm last night. Oh, the things I do for that man. I decided on white chocolate muffins, but couldn't find a suitable recipe, so I made one up.

The idea here is to chop the white choco into quite big chunks (say 1x1 cm or about 1/2 x 1/2 in), so that they melt into white choco puddles inside the muffins. As usual, the less you mix the batter, the better.

White Chocolate Muffins

3 eggs
1 1/2 dl (2/3 cup) sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 1/2 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100 g (3 1/2 oz) roughly chopped white chocolate

Melt the butter, let it cool a bit. Whisk eggs and sugar, then add lemon juice and melted butter. Mix together flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar, then fold them to the wet ingredients. Fold in the roughly chopped white chocolate. Divide the batter into 12 muffin cups and bake for about 18 minutes at 175°C (~350°F). Let them cool down before serving.

Some kind of icing would be perfect for these, but I couldn't find anything that sounded right. Ideas or suggestions, anyone?

Continuing the ACEO series

The knitted ACEO series is coming along nicely! Spring with its flowers and Autumn with grapes are now available in my Etsy shop. The only one left is Winter and that one should be ready for listing next week.

These have been fun to make, I must say. I do enjoy creating these images, but I've been considering making them into something with a more practical use. Small pouches or bags perhaps?

*ponders and plans*

Adding to the Stash

What could be more fun for a yarn addict than to visit a yarn store. Here are my latest additions to the Stash, my teetering tower of plastic boxes full of yarn.

These are lovely big balls (ahem), each about 10 cm (4 in) across and over 20 cm (8 in) long, in red, orange, black and variegated mossy greens. The sun is hiding and these are too big to fit in my lightbox, so the red yarn isn't as deep, dark and delicious in the photo as in reality, nor is the orange as bright as it should be. I'm all set for my autumn projects now, methinks.

Sadly, said teetering tower was brought to the limit of its teeterings by these additions, so I will have to use some up soon. Or just buy another box to add on top.

I'll spend most of my evening tonight knitting another pair of fingerless gloves, in black, red and whatever colour strikes my fancy. It's not like I'm much good for anything else, since I seem to have injured my back somehow. Ouchie.

As final words of wisdom I can say it's a spectacularly bad idea to do a water change to one of your fish tanks using the ol' bucket method with a sore back. Big big ouchie.

Of Posters and Treasuries

I love shiny new toys. The latest one that has distracted me from all those important things that need doing is the Poster Sketch tool at Etsy. It's intended for a poster contest, but clever Etsyans have figured out another use for it. So without further ado, here's the poster I made from my own items:


In other news, I wandered into the Etsy Treasury this afternoon and to my surprise, there was an empty spot for a new list waiting for me. I grabbed it of course, but since I didn't have a theme thought out this time, I went with a few of my favourites.


I hope you enjoy, just don't buy them from under my nose please. ;)

Say hello to Salvador!

One morning this week I woke up and had a need to knit a seahorse. Yeah, I'm a bit strange like that. When I'm in one of those moods there's no point wondering why I need to make one right there and then; I may as well just take advantage of it. So I did make one. And it was wayyyyy fun.

Salvador was made in one piece, not counting the fins, so there was a lot of shaping to do. I have to say it was a challenge, but I'm happy with how he turned out. All in all, very satisfying. :)

Salvador is now available in my Etsy shop! You can even choose a different colour if you like.

On the topic of seahorses, I spent some time googling them to find some good reference photos. Hence I'm able to give you this little tidbit: the smallest seahorse is Denise's pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus denise), measuring only 16 mm or 0.63 inches long. Now that would be a real challenge. ;)

Mmmmmmm, muffins!

I'm taking a break from the yarn and spent the past two days writing up some new knitting/crochet patterns. The new ones aren't listed yet, but will be within the next week or so.

Aaaanyway, after all that writing I really felt like making something substantial. Didn't feel like knitting, so I turned to the kitchen. Well, not so much a kitchen as a tiny closet with an oven in it, but I digress. I dug up this old favourite carrot muffin recipe of mine and made a whole dozen.


I was going to take a photo after adding the yummy yummy nut-nougat icing, but the muffins mysteriously disappeared before I had a chance. Real fast too.

I thought I'd share the recipe, in case you'd like some amazing disappearing muffins of your own.

Carrot Muffins (makes 12)

This is the first recipe I've written down in English, so please excuse any funny wording. It's a very simple one, but that just means you make muffins more often, which to me is a great big plus. The more carrots you put in, the juicier they are. The less you mix the batter, the better they'll be.

4-5 dl (~2 cups) finely grated carrots (that's about 4-6 carrots)
4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 eggs

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add grated carrots and melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter into 12 muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes at 200°C (392°F).

Let them cool down completely before attempting to apply any icing. This time I just used nut-nougat spread from a jar, but something involving cream cheese and icing sugar is also a good bet.

Happy baking!

"Perfect Children for a less than perfect world"

You know what you need? A land shark. Yup, that's right. A land shark.


I stumbled upon this Etsy shop last night, while browsing just for fun. I don't know how many times I've read the description of this cool creature, but it cracks me up every time.

If you're in dire need of some unbelievable critters, head on over to the Perfect Children Etsy shop and browse around. Say hello to Crusher and the Big White Grr while you're there.

"Oh MY!"

Meet Francis Raven

I love knitting ravens. Oh yes I do.

Meet tiny Francis Raven, younger brother of Ferdinand and Frederick. Francis shares not only his brothers' looks, but their love of chocolate chip cookies as well.

I just can't stop making these little guys and they seem to just get tinier and tinier. Little Francis here breaks the record with his whole 4.5 cm (1.75 in). Tiny creatures is what I started out with when learning to knit all those oh so many years ago and making them is still one of my favourite things to do. Hence the name of this blog and my shop, I suppose.


Want a tiny Francis of your own? My shop is just a click away!

Preparing for autumn

Remember that lovely yarn hubby got me for my birthday?

The cabled pair of gloves I visualised from the soft green merino wool were finished quite some time ago, but I forgot to take photos to show them off. I went out of my way to make the most detailed and perfectly fitted pair of gloves I have ever knitted and I'm glad to say they fit me like, um, a glove. Most glove manufacturers seem to think my little finger and thumb are abnormally long, so it's a fun change to have gloves where all the fingers are long enough.


All that shaping means these gloves don't want to lay flat. When I first showed them to hubby, he remarked that they have a certain disembodied look to them. So not only are they perfectly fitted, soft and warm, they're a bit creepy too!

While knitting is great fun, there's one thing I don't much like: weaving in the loose ends. I can't think of anything more dull than that. So the main problem with knitting gloves is that they have a bazillion loose ends to weave in. Combine that with my perfectionist nature and all I can say is ugh! I could feel myself getting older and older as I was struggling to get them all tucked in neatly.

In the end though, I'd say it was worth it. The only problem is that now I feel kinda guilty for wishing it was autumn already, so I could start using them.

By the way, that ball of yarn you see is what is left after both gloves. I wonder what I can do with the rest...

Oh so soft!

These are soft. Oh so soft. Soft soft soft.


I would say more, but I'm busy stroking the soft leftover yarn from these fingerless gloves.

Did I mention they're soft?

My love of surface textures continues

I finally got around to something I have wanted to do for a while - knitted ACEOs with a focus on surface texture. Today I listed the first in a small series of the four seasons in my shop: Summer Yellow.


Basically I just started knitting with an image in mind and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

The other three will follow within the next week or so!

Wohoo! A treasury list!

Managed to grab one again! Looks like this Friday 13th ain't all bad. This list is all about items I wish I could touch, not just see.


The Treasury lists only last a few days and this one has already gone, but I grabbed a screenshot this time.

I am the proud owner of the world's ugliest lightbox

I was browsing the Etsy forums when I noticed this article on building a lightbox that some kind soul had linked to in a thread. I had nothing better to do last night, so I decided to give it a try.

Armed with a hobby knife, scissors, tissue paper and tape, I attacked a poor empty cardboard box I found. The article I linked to has much better instructions than I could give, so suffice to say that after about 30 minutes of cutting, taping, cutting and more taping, I had produced the world's ugliest lightbox.

Working with paper has never been my strong side. The box measures 47 x 32 x 26 cm (about 18.5 x 12.5 x 10 in), so it should be big enough for most of my stuff. Inside I put last year's calendar upside down (the biggest white sheet of paper I had at home), which is ok for now.

So, does it work?

Well, I took some test photos today, as it's a very cloudy day and thus sucks for product photos. Suitable lights were nowhere to be found at home, so I thought I'd try the lamp from one of my aquariums as the light source. While the amount of light was better than before, the purplish fluorescent tubes that were in the lamp were about the worst choice I could have made. The colour balance was awful, but was at least easily corrected in Photoshop for these shots. I imagine once I get my hands on some daylight tubes, the result will be much better (and the aquarium will look better too).

So in summary:
Total amount of money spent: $0
Injuries: Surprisingly, none!
Bottom line: It's a promising project, but needs more work and I need to work on how to use my camera for the best results. Stay tuned for more experiments.

(By the way, the fingerless gloves in the photo are available in my shop.)

Deep magenta is still an excellent colour

Remember my ode to deep magenta and the shawl I was working on? Well, it's now finished and listed in my shop! I'm very pleased with how it turned out, if I may say so myself. The cotton is just SO soft and great to work with; I wish I had more of it in this colour.


In other news, my missing favourite knitting needle has been found. Yay! It was inside one of the boxes under my bed. To get in there, it must have somehow jumped over the stack of papers placed in front of the box. Crazy.

Bad monster! BAD!

So I lost one of my favourite knitting needles. I was putting a set away into this bag which houses several of them, when two of my faves fell out. One fell on the floor and the other rolled under the bed. I picked up the first one, but when I went to get the one under the bed, it was gone.

I saw exactly where the needle went and it wasn't rolling very fast either. I don't even keep much under the bed, just a stack of papers and some boxes. Yet the needle is nowhere to be found. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that some mischievous beastie lives under the bed.

So far this beastie has been content with just a sock or two now and then, perhaps some hairclips. That I don't mind so much, those are easy to find in shops. But when it comes to my fave knitting needles... You've just made an enemy, bed monster. >:(

I've been naughty again...

I promised myself (and hubby) not to buy any more yarn until I'd used up half of my huge stash. I was doing pretty well until I walked past a local yarn shop and saw that they had a big sale. There was no way I could stop myself from going in to have a look. Nor was there any way I could walk out empty-handed.


In my defense, I was able to control myself enough to only walk out with this beige mohair blend. I've been wanting to get my hands on some nice mohair for ages, so when I saw these last three in the shop for a ridiculously low price, I had to get them.

Now, what should I make with this... So hard to decide! Any suggestions?

I love wool and I'm not ashamed to admit it

Wool seems to divide people into those who love it and those who hate it. I love the stuff and use it whenever possible. All my winter accessories and sweaters have some amount of wool in them. Before you decide I'm crazy or have no sensation in my skin, let me explain why I love wool.

The most common argument against wool is that it's itchy, scratchy, icky to wear! Well, it is and it isn't. Some of it is - the cheap kind is the horrible scratchy stuff. Because it's cheap, it's what is more commonly used and seen (felt?) in non-handmade items, and I imagine that's where the impression of "wool = itchy" comes from. I can't stand that stuff either. Also, cheaper wools may have been treated with harsh chemicals, which irritate sensitive skin. But all wool isn't like that - soft, high quality wool is something different altogether and this is the stuff I love. In between the extremes are all kinds of levels of soft/itchy that you may or may not like depending on how sensitive your skin is.

Now, think about wool from a hand knitter's perspective. When knitting, you feel the yarn all the time while you work - would you want use itchy stuff that irritates your skin? Or would you go for the soft fiber that is a delight to knit with? Hardly a difficult choice, I'd say. ;) The same goes for hand spinners. Besides, why spend time and effort knitting something from yarn that's too icky to wear once the item is finished?

Another aspect of wool that I appreciate is that it keeps you warm but 'breathes', which it has in common with other natural fibers. This is a combination I have yet to find in synthetic yarns. The few sweaters I've made from acrylic have made me all hot and sweaty, and not in a good way.

So, that's my opinion on wool and why I like to wear it. If you've never laid your hands on any soft wool then don't take my word for it; see if you can find some high quality, soft yarn (handmade, perhaps?) to feel - I think you'll be surprised!

*steps down from soapbox*

Yum yum, cables!

Cables are pretty much my most favorite thing to knit, ever. One evening I sat down with a couple of balls of cotton yarn and ended up making three headbands in one go, making up the pattern for each as I made them. I must have had major cable withdrawal.


The blue one with a pattern resembling pea pods is already for sale in my shop and the red slim one will be as soon as I get myself to write a description. The red triangular one on the left with a bit of lace knitting is for my mother, assuming she likes it.

One of these days I'll make one or two for myself too.

I'm back and a great time was had by all!

Two weeks went by way too fast and we are now back home. During that time we celebrated a great wedding and a nearly equally great midsummer, while I ate about 18 liters of icecream and got addicted to weeding my parents' garden. Who knew weeding could be so much fun? More to the point, who knew I would find weeding so much fun?

Due to the previously mentioned activities and a few more besides, I didn't get much knitting done. I did make a jacket out of the pile of yarn I showed previously in this blog, which turned out to be just the right thing to wear. Not too hot during the sunny day, but still warm enough for the somewhat chilly night. However, I decided to do the top later, as my mother miraculoucly made both a skirt and a top out of a piece of fabric that was meant to be too small for even the skirt, according to the pattern specifications.

Anyway, it turns out the only fairly decent photo of me in the jacket is this one, sans my head as I can be shy at times.


Finally, I have to show this sunset photo, taken from the car at about 4 am as we were driving back home after the wedding. Sadly it doesn't quite show in the photo, but it was a beautiful sunset to end a beautiful day.

He really loves me!

I received a package a few days ago - a birthday present my husband had ordered. This is what it contained:


Both are 100% wonderfully soft merino wool in delicious colours. The variegated green one is hand-dyed and it makes me envision a cabled pair of gloves and a matching neat hat. The other one is both handspun and -dyed, and for the moment I'm content with just stroking it and enjoying the softness while I await inspiration.

If you like the look of these yarns, take a peek at the Etsy shop that sold them, appropriately named HandSpunandDyedToo.etsy.com.

Thank you hubby! :D

Over the hills and far away...

Where am I going?
To visit my parents.

How long for?
A whole two weeks.

What will I be doing?
Going to a wedding and catching up with old friends, but mostly just lie on the grass while eating icecream and watching the strawberries grow. Hopefully they'll grow big enough during my visit that they can disappear into my tummy.


I'm one of those strange people who feel that vacations are for doing absolutely nothing. Or perhaps more correctly, what other people might consider 'nothing': lie on the beach or in the garden while reading, knitting, eating icecream... Aaaaaahhhh.

Planning and going on trips to foreign lands, thinking up all sorts of stuff one 'must' do now while there's free time and setting up schedules for when to do them - all that's wayyyy too stressy. I do enjoy doing those things from time to time, it's just not what I consider proper for relaxing and charging my batteries during a Real Vacation.

These two weeks will be my Real Vacation. Joy. :D So, I only have one single major event planned: attending a wedding. I have my outfit all planned, now all that's needed is making it. (This part is fun and is thus not considered at odds with the concept of a Real Vacation.) I have about one week to turn this...



...into a fancy top and fancy little jacket with lace and cables. Fortunately I chose bulky yarn and fortunately the train ride to my parents is about 5 hours long.

Wish me luck, boys and girls.

I came to a realization...

Magenta is really an excellent colour. Seriously.

No, I'm not talking about the horrible magenta that makes your eyes bleed when you stumble across it among the wide webs of the internet. (Especially when combined with yellow or turquoise. *shudder*)

I'm talking about the deep, rich, delicious magenta I'm using to knit a shawl. I've had this slightly shiny cotton yarn for ages, not knowing what to do with it. I'm not even sure how I got it in the first place. There it has sat and waited for years, until a week ago, I had a terrible need to knit a shawl.

Yes, that's right. I needed to knit a shawl. One can get addicted to anything, it seems.

So anyway, I started knitting this shawl in my own design. For such a bold colour, I chose to use bold lines. This thing will be awesome. Just you wait and see. Until then, here's a preview:


Excellent, I tell you.

EXCELLENT

Yum Yum, Yarn!

Monday morning gave a nice surprise, for here's what I received in the mail yesterday:


100 % natural silvery-black alpaca. Sooo soft, it was a real pleasure winding the skeins into balls. =) This lovely stuff can be found at Stick Chick Designs on Etsy, a shop full of all kinds of natural, undyed fibers. Go take a look!

The big question is, how do I decide what to make with this? Whatever it'll be, it'll be alllll mine!

Knotwork knitting is fun!

I thought I'd give knotwork knitting another try. I tried it for a sweater a long time ago and liked the result, but that's about it. This time however, I found I LOVE doing it. It's not too difficult, but it demands concentration and focus - a combination I, oddly enough, find very relaxing.

I made several items once I got started, here's one of them:


I designed the pattern myself, inspired by Celtic and Viking knotwork, and used cotton yarn. The bag is just big enough to hold a standard DVD-case. It closes with a zipper, which would have been a simple thing to add, had I not managed to sew it on the wrong way around at first. :D

Other recent knotwork items include a belt and a headband. They're all unique, because it's more fun trying new pattern ideas. I imagine there will be more knotwork in the future.

I just love red and black together

So I've been knitting again. I must say it's the perfect way to spend a long, boring train ride. This is the result of the latest 5 hour train ride:

They're for sale, but I don't know how long it'll be before I break down and take them for myself. Consider yourself warned.

By the way, I recently realized fingerless gloves would be the perfect accessory for a windy picnic. I just wish I had realized this before going on said windy picnic.