Finishing mode

Ever since I finished the shawl I've been in a finishing mode. It's mostly finishing the pillow cushion I mentioned. It has taken longer than I thought and it is a lot of trial and error since I'm really just making it up as I go. It's closed to finished, but I need a bigger pillow for the cover. I had bought a pillow in the same size as the front, but the back adds to it's size, which I hadn't realized.

I was knitting Saarties booties, but I lost my stitch markers and I can't do the pattern without them. It was weird how they just disappeared. I looked for some at Walmart today but they have too much crap yarn to carry stitch markers it seems.

I did get some of Walmart's crappy yarn however. I needed it for Clint's afghan. It's Homespun (Lion Brand). I had run out of yarn. I only got two skeins to begin with and I'm just buying it as I go along. It's garter stitch afghan, so it's nice and easy knitting for taking around.

What else do I got? (looking around). A start of the baby jacket from the first knit-a-long we had (we being Garnaflækja). I kept having problems with it, kept having to rip back and eventually I was at a point where I had no idea what I did wrong or how to fix it. I did rip back again but haven't been in the mood to continue. I think one of the problem is the yarn. It's Rowan All Season Cotton. I'm recycling it. It used to be Ása's sweater but I was way out of gauge. I tried to make a hat but a children's hat turned out too big for me! That yarn is just nothing but problem!

Oh yeah. I did finish something today. A very orange dishcloth I started in May. I know I started it early in May since it was part of the monthly dishcloth kal.

This post seems to be part of my WIP clean up. Categorizing what I'm working on. I hope you'll bare with me for this one. It will be funny tomorrow.

Work post

I'm at work at the moment. Work on a Sunday! Yes, things are piling up and I can't get any work done on the weekdays because I'm too busy working! I'm working on not one but two proposals and at the same time there are two research projects starting in the lab. So I'm busy in the lab in the day time. Funny how everything is happening at once.



I took a little break and looked up prjonablogg (knitting blog) on google and found some Icelandic knitting blogs I wasn't aware of before and I stumbled opon my own blog from September 2004. If you scroll down you see that sock in the picture above. This is the first sock from the first pair of socks I ever knit. In September 2004. Since then I've knit 4 pairs. Out of these 5 pairs, 3 are for my kids and 2 for me. I guess I'm not a big sock knitter. Three of these pairs where made with circulars and what's stopping me now is that I need better 2.5 mm circulars. The ones I have right now are old (probably 20 - 30 years old), nicked from my mom's pile of needles and the yarn always snags on the join between the cable and the needle. What's stopping me from getting better circulars? I don't know.

Me segir kindin (Bah says the sheep)

Have you seen Yarn Harlot's post from yesterday? I haven't noticed any back-talking amongs knitting bloggers, have you? I have to admit I don't frequent a lot of knitting blogs these days. Mostly just those in my side bar to the right. I do think I've heard something about this before, but never noticed it.

The pillow is growing slowly. Especially today since my girls got a hold of the project and got the threads so tangled up that I'm still unraveling it. It must have taken them forever to do this to begin with. I wonder what their father was doing in the mean time? Probably having a quiet and peaceful time. ;)

Correction and moving on

I was wrong in the last post. The temperature is not in the 80's it's in the 90's (around 35C) and it's too hot to even hold the shawl, let a lone wear it!



Right now I'm working on the pillow above which I started last winter. Currently I'm working on the back. And it's taking much longer than I thought it would. Maybe since I'm using a new technique (well new to me anyways), Tunisian Crochet.

Wearable Garment

Here is one of me modeling in it - with pajama pants on :)



After this I folded it with gift tissue paper and put it in the closet. After all the temperature is in the 80's (30+°C) and not much use for wool shawl at the moment.

p.s. Those leather masks behind me where made by my Aunt Signý :)

Large Rectangle Shawle with Diamond Center

I finished my rectangle shawl. I learned how to knit edging around corners and I got better every corner. By the last one I really got the hang of it - and then it was over. The end of the edging even lined perfectly up with the cast-on edge. I can´t believe it. I'd been nervous about it the entire time I was knitting the edge.

The center pattern was very easey to remember and pleasant to knit. The edge pattern was more complicated and it took two tries and 10 repeats before I had it memorized. First I got about 4 repeats up before I had to rip it all back and start over.

This morning I crafted the edge ends and put away the whole 4 ends that were left. Although this project took 5 skeins of Kambgarn (on 4.5 mm needles for the center and 4 mm for the edging), since it was wool I spliced the new skein to the old when I ran out. As a result I only had two ends for the center part and two ends for the edging to weave in.

Before I could block it I had to wash it. I used too much shampoo, see:



Then I blocked it on our bed and it went fine, despite Kamilla helping me (he he). I had enough pins, which I'm thankful for.



Kamilla thinks the shawl is for laying on and can't wait to try it out.

There is a close up:

My poor neglegted blog

I have some making up to do regarding this blog.

Last Thursday I went to the knitting club at the only knitting store in the area - The Spinning Turtle in Nelsonville, OH. I almost forgot though and only remembered at the last moment. I rushed up there and caught the last half an hour or so. The ladies there where a lot of fun (well of course they were, they are knitters after all) and today I went again. Again I could only stay for half an hour, because Clint and the kids where there in Nelsonville checking out some houses.

This time I brought some knitting stuff for 'Show and tell'. I brought Clint's boyfriend sweater. The one I knit him and sent to CA. It's a traditional Icelandic Lopi sweater and the second sweater I ever made.

I also brought the EZ February Baby Jacket - this one here:



I also brought the rest of the plate of unspun yarn I used to make it to show them. Marty (the owner) told me this kind of yarn was called a pensil roving and she had the idea that you could use it for easy (or easier) spinning.

I uploaded some more photos like this one of the Tychus hat we knit as a KAL at Garnaflækja:



I also uploaded a photo of one of the strips (nr. 2 out of 3) of my blanket I'm making.



If you click on the photo and go back to the flickr site you can tell by the notes on the photo where I went wrong. What I did was to knit one row too much before changing colors at one point. It shouldn´t be too hard to fix, just a little snip and some crafting.

Dear Diary

Not much knitting done yesterday too, even if I was dying to continue with the stole. You can blame the proposal I'm working on due Thursday. Yesterday it all came together though so I expect to be able to knit more tonight.

Thanks Cassie for the explanation on blanket vs. afghan.

The memory card is found (probably a week ago) and still no photos. Shame on me. I guess I can pick the no daylight excuse, but I wouldn't. There was daylight on Sunday, plus the evenings are getting increasingly brighter.

Dear Diary

I didn't knit at all yesterday. To compensate, I brought some knitting to work. Not that I can actually knit at work, but I left my keys at work yesterday so I had to wait for someone to come to work so I could come in. I managed couple of rows on my afghan/blanket.

Can someone explain to me what is the difference between a afghan and a blanket?

Back in the saddle

I didn't knit Thursday, Friday nor Saturday. Finally Sunday I got a little knitting time and boy was it good. I didn't realize I was so dependent on knitting :o I was preparing 'Asa's birthday party on Saturday, she just turned 2. When I got back to it I picked up the Victorian shawl. I am knitting the edges and going around the corners, which isn't terribly complicated but still not obvious. I was a little off turning the first corner and fixed it on the short side (or so I thought) but it didn't match. When I picked it up again I desided just to stop thinking about it and knit on. Turns out I wasn't off at all. It fitted perfectly. Now I'm happily knitting down the other long end of the shawl.

As you've noticed I've only been talking about knitting lately, not stitching. I was very active stitching for the first 3 months of the year but then April came around and I dropped it altogether. I've been trying for a little while to get back into it. I even had a plan to stitch at least one length of thread per day. That didn't last long - one evening perhaps. My problem was that my orginization was out of whack. In the beginning I had my threads in a zip lock bag and that didn't work so well, especially with the larger projects since the colors kept adding on as the project continued (it's a year long SAL). I bought rings to put the thread on but they didn't work. One had a broken lock they weren't big enought for all the thread. So finally I got another box for the thread. I have 5 big ones that I use to store the thread and 1 small one for WIPs but it's being used for a UFO. So yesterday I brought that box out and put the thread for these two working projects in it. After I had knit for a while I picked up one of the project and made some improvement on that. You know what? Of course I had to knock the thing over when I stood up and I had thread all over the floor :( What can you do.

The 'stash' may seem small to some people (no names he he) but I usually just buy what I need for my current project and it stresses me to have yarn for other projects that I'm not even contemplating making. So I don't want to have it grow. It is comfortable being able to grab yarn and start knitting, and not having to go out and buy it first. I probably will end up with a stash of simple wool that can be used for smaller projects (mittens, hats etc) but I like to use what I have. I guess I'm also kind of a thrifty person. I don't like owning books either. It's probably the same mechanism behind that as the yarn. I only keep books that are really special to me for some reason. Most books I rent at the library or give away when I'm done reading them.

Stash or not?

I keep thinking I don't really have a stash. I hardly ever buy yarn, but have gotten big amounts of yarn from Iceland from time to time. One time about year ago when I returned to the US from Iceland and then a bunch the other day when my stepmom came for a visit. So while putting the baby to sleep (she's not really a baby anymore, she turned 2 yesterday) I thought I take a stock of what I have. Turns out I have more then I thought. Here is a list of projects I have yarn for - only 'virgin' wool. This excludes WIPs, leftover yarn and odd skeins of yarn.

• 1x baby sweater (like the 5 hour baby sweater)
  
• 2x shawls (from eingirni, Icelandic 1 ply wool)
  
• 1x mittens for Clint
  
• 1x slippers for Clint
  
• 2 pair socks
  
• 1x crochet sweater for me
  
• 1x tank top/skirt for Ása (baby cotton)
  
• 16+ washcloths, facecloths, bibs etc. (things that take less than a skein of kitchen cotton
  
• 3x denim bibs
  
• 1x pedal bib
  

The list is a lot longer than I had assumed. But still not too long. I could do this in a half a year, providing I'm spending at least 2 hours a day knitting. It'll be interesting to see at the end of the year how many projects are left on the list.