Thursday, March 31, 2005

I quit working at my work today. Then the plan is to finish my dissertation and have a baby (hopefully in that order). I've been working on other projects last couple of months but due to my sick leave I was not able to finish them 100%. So I will be working a little longer but from home rather than the office. It should not take long as I am anxious to work on my thesis.

This week has been hectic, day and evening. Long hours and a lot of stress. No knitting but a little cross stitch has help me keep my sanity. I figured the craft I do in the evening calms my mind and helps me unwind. It is not enough all by itself. I also need exercise to combat the stress but have not been getting enough exercise lately (since Kamilla was born actually).

I am participating in a small secret stitch-a-long (leynisal) in my xstitch club. It works such that the participants get only a part of the pattern every week. This one is actually small enough so we get two parts per week. It is perfect for me now. Something to grab but no too time consuming. I have no idea how it will look like but now that we have 7 parts out of 10 already I have a good picture of how the end product will be.
I quit working at my work today. Then the plan is to finish my dissertation and have a baby (hopefully in that order). I've been working on other projects last couple of months but due to my sick leave I was not able to finish them 100%. So I will be working a little longer but from home rather than the office. It should not take long as I am anxious to work on my thesis.

This week has been hectic, day and evening. Long hours and a lot of stress. No knitting but a little cross stitch has help me keep my sanity. I figured the craft I do in the evening calms my mind and helps me unwind. It is not enough all by itself. I also need exercise to combat the stress but have not been getting enough exercise lately (since Kamilla was born actually).

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Post-Easter

Now Easter is ower and I am feeling much better. Back to work and everything. I've been working on the shawl lately and am almost finished. Only 2 more rows (to and fro) left and then the cast-off. This is how it's been for the last few days actually. It's been harder to make time to knit after I finished LOTR on CD!

The shawl has been a real pleasure to work on. I discovered that I really like lace knitting. It breaks up the monotony of normal knitting and I have never liked routines! I love working with a diagram (probably something to do with being an engineer) and to have the variation from one row to the next. The main part of the shawl is mostly stockinette (slétt prjón) knitted back and forth which meant I really got to exercise my purling (brugnar lykkjur). Normally I knit in the round so I only purl ribbings (stroff). My purling has gotten a lot faster (not better, was good enough before!). Even with the stockinette knitting there was a goal to aim at because at certain intervals was a yarn-over row (gatasnar skv. bókinni). That really inspired my to knit on. The book (Þríhyrnur og langsjöl) is very clear and everything is explained very well. All except for the cast-off. It is a crochet cast-off and I will have to get some help on that one when the time comes.

No picture but once it is blocked a picture will surely be published.

Update: The way I learned to purl is different from what I've seen in books and on TV (could never figure out what the women were doing with their hand back and front while knitting!). I saw a reference to this method as Norwegian purling (the link takes you to a .pdf file). I always thought there was just one way to knit but when I started to read about knitting more I discovered that there are several ways to knit!

Monday, March 21, 2005

Long time, no blog

Sorry for no posting lately. I had a little accident last week and have had limited ability to write on the computer. The accident wasn't serious at all but I did hurt my hip and am having problems with certain things, such as sitting up and carrying things. It has kept me from holding Kamilla and working on the computer. Now I've figured out a way to use a computer. I can sit in a reclining stair with a foot-rest and a pillow in my back. I've tryed this position out with knitting all weekend :o

Before the accident I had finished my Lizzie Kate. I also started the cresent dreams - Mirabilia picture. However, I found that the cross stitching was to hard on me (the position I sat in) and turned to knitting.



I knitted another pair of slippers, child size this time and a slightly different pattern. I'm not going to post a picture of them yet since I intend for them to be a present.

On Saturday I went out to buy yarn. I bought Dale garn for a baby outfit, not the one I talked about earlier but a sleeveless body suit from a Dale catalogue (nr. 152) (samfella). But then I went to the Handknitting store (Handprjónasambandið) and got some lace weight Icelandic yarn (eingirni). I've been wanting to knit a shawl in eingirni for a long time. I got a book from the library with old Icelandic lace shawls (Þríhyrnur og langsjöl) and chose one that was small and the main body not too difficult. The edges are lacy and more difficult (read: more fun to knit ;). I didn't want to go over my head and choose too difficult project but I wanted to do some more complicated knitting none the less. The shawl is on page 42 and is called Litla hyrna Huldu (Hulda's little shawl).

The shawl was more tempting and I've been knitting that. I got 3 shades of red but the main body of the shawl is white. I've been having fun knitting it so far.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Kriss og kross

Er ekki enn byrjuð á ungbarnafötunum, kannski eins gott því Sigrún frænka fann blað með ungbarnafötum sem eru bæði mjög falleg og fyrir minni börn. Mig langaði nefnilega að prjóna á nýfædd en uppskriftin sem ég var búin að finna hjá Hafrúnu var bara frá 6 mán (og ég er nú ekki þekkt fyrir að eignast nein tröllabörn !!! ha ha ha). Annars þarf ég að skoða blaðið hennar Sigrúnar betur. Ég var búin að sjá það áður en þarf að athuga flækjustigið. Nenni ekki að prjóna of flókið og tímafrekt mynstur. Það er líka á frönsku en það er nú hægt að redda því. Þó ég hafi búið í Frakklandi er ekki þar með sagt að ég sé klár á prjóna-frönsku. Þessi listi ætti að redda því.

Still not started on the baby outfit, might change the pattern since my aunt found a magazine she had with baby outfits. It is French so we'll see how well I can understand the pattern. I do speak French (lived in France for a year) but I don't know the knitting jargon :o This list should help though!

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Choices, choices

Hvað finnst ykkur lesendum góðum um að ég bloggi á ensku hér. Ég hef verið að prófa mig áfram með hvort tveggja (þið getið áfram kommentað á íslensku - öll komment vel þegin).

I have to make a lot of choices now. That is not a favorite thing for me to do. You see, I am a Libra. Libras have to weigh every option, back and forth.

Do I write in English, Icelandic or both? (Comments welcomed). That is one of the choices. The other is what to make the baby outfit out of.

The pattern calls for Mandarin Petit but gives SISU as substitute. MP is 100% Egyptian cotton and SISU is 80% wool (20% nylon). I like to work with natural fibers, especially wool. I've used SISU quite some in the past and it is very nice to work with (made socks and blankets). I could also use Lanett (100% wool) and today I though of Kambgarn (100% Icelandic wool). All these have apprx. the same gauge (prjónfestu). All this yarn (except for Kambgarn) is imported by Tinna and they have some (limited) info.

Lanett is my least favorite, I've used it for the Helmet-hat and it unplied too much (the plies came to easily untangled - þræðirnir fóru of auðveldlega í sundur)

I've been wanting to try Kambgarn for some time but didn't think of a project yet. Maybe this could be it?

MP is cotton and I think the sweater and the pants would look good in cotton, perhaps better than in wool?

SISU is the recommended substitute - but not the only - why not become a little adventurous? Plus, it is only 80% wool and these garments don't need a lot of extra support from the nylon (not like socks and the blankets (vagnteppi).

So what should I do? I would appreciate comments to help me decide. I have already come up with one solution, to use cotton for the sweater/pants and wool for the hat/booties! Wool is much more practical for those items anyhow. But will the outfit still look like one outfit (not from two different outfits)?

As you can see I am making this far more difficult than I have to!

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Slippers

Finally pictures of Clint's (DH) slippers. He wears them all the time :)

Fyrst before:


Then after:



Now all that is really missing is a picture of the colors! They come out well together. Black on the bottom, then navy blue and white on the top. They seem a little loose on the top but they fit very well. They were washed twice because in the first wash one of the heel was accidentally inverted causing the heel to stick out afterwards since it hardly felted at all!

Monday, March 07, 2005

Weekend update

Been working on the Lizzie Kate picture on the weekend. Have now finished the top half (the house/grass/tree). The tree is beautiful, simple but beautiful. It was fun seeing it come to life. This piece will be linked to LOTR in my mind because I've been listening to the BBC version I borrowed from a friend.

I didn't finish the first mitten of the Norwegian mitten as I planned for the weekend. I still have the thumb to finish. Only the thumb! I couldn't even get started on it, I was too excited about the Lizzie Kate picture :o !!!

Friday, March 04, 2005

Friday on my mind

Arg, I pressed the wrong button earlier and deleted my message. So here is the shorter version.

Clint's slippers were done for his birthday but one of the heal was inverted during felting and didn't felt as much as the rest. To be fixed and photos after the fact!
(this text was about 5x longer in the lost post)



My next goal is to go on with the neglected Norwegian mittens and then do a baby outfit for the new baby. I found a pattern at my friend Hafrún's (see picture, click on it for bigger picture). Her son has an oufit after this pattern and it is beautiful and not too complicated to make ;)

Cross stitch wise I am little by little finishing the August SAL but mostly stitching the Lizzie Kate picture. It goes slowly because I'm working slowly and fixing every cross that is not to my liking. I'm not used to stitch like this, maybe this is some maternal hormone thing sneaking up on me :o My Silkweaver fabric came but is at the customs. I'll get it after the weekend.