Happy New Year

The girls are sick so this is what I'm doing on New Years - bloging. I decided not to make a list of what I want to do. I will leave it open. Only thing is I want to finish my WIPs, especially the French Village. I also want to start a big project. I want to make more ornaments too. I'm getting hooked on those.

Another year coming around the corner

I've been working on my stitching projects finally. I've been doing things for other people lately and missed doing things for myself. I've been working on my UFO project, French Village (25% done) and the band sampler (working on the 3rd band) this week. I wish I could show you the upgraded pictures but they are trapped on my camera for now.

I think ÁS woke up. She had a stomac flue yesterday. Poor thing. I have to blog about next year some other time.

Post Xmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. Kamilla is discovering Christmas for the first time and just loved opening packages, and she didn't really care who the belonged to as long as they where opened. I was reading the tags and handing out the presents and she would sometimes go behind me and grab a gift. We were me, Clint and the girls and my mother. Here in Iceland Christmas starts on 6 PM on Christmas Eve. We ate light-smoked lamb and it was delicious. And after dinner we opened our presents. Normally we clean up after dinner first and eat desert but since the girls are so young we wanted to open the presents before they fell asleep.

Now I have uploaded some pictures. This is the birthday present for my friend, who turned 30 in December. It is a Lizzie Kate design worked on the recommended fabric, Cafe Mocha linen.



Here is the only Christmas present I made by hand. It is a scarf I made for my Grandmother Laufey. It is crochet in Merino (Jaeger yarn) and has Biggy Print yarn (Rowen) woven in, also merino. I've never wanted to do a scarf before. This one is different because it is crochet not knitted and maybe I'm just getting more mature.



Now I want to clear out as many WIP's as possible. I got the silk thread I needed for the TW piece and did the little bit that was left. Now I have to add the beads and I have them ready. In the new year I want to concentrate more on big patterns and delicate patterns. I got some patterns from Golden Kite. I've been lurking on their webpage for over a year and now they had an offer I couldn't refuse. I spent twice the amount of money I had planned but got four patterns instead, 1,2,3,4. The first two I bought and the next two I got for free. I don't plan to do them all. At least not in the nearest future. I joined an internet group for people who like to do big projects and it is very inspirational.

Christmas around the corner

In the 10 days or so Ása Sóley has started waking up in the evenings. I had the luxury of having a little baby that went to sleep at 20 PM but then all of a sudden she decided just to take a nap early in the evenings and stay awake most or all af the evening. This has reduced my knitting time considerably. I did manage to finish the birthday present in time but barely and I ended up framing it myself. I haven't uploaded the picture of it on my computer yet. It'll come.

Now Christmas knitting. I will be able to finish a scarve that I'm making for my grandmother Laufey. It is a very simple and elegant scarf. It's the first scarf I've made since my scarf fiasco in school. Actually it is not knitted but chrochet in a net and a nice yarn is woven in the net. Here is the pattern (in Icelandic but you can see the picture). The Canto yarn is not sold any more, not in Hagkaup at least. I went to another store who is a speciality knitting store, Storkurinn (the stork). They carry Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Jaeger, Noro and such. So I got Biggy Print to weave in the net of Jaeger yarn. Both Merino. I am going to have to make one for myself!

I also have couple of mittens on the needles. I finally learned to make mittens ;) and now I think it's so easy.

Couple of finishes over the weekend

I finished couple of WIPs over the weekend. I don't know if it's called a WIP (Work In Process) if you actually finished making the thing but have the finishing left (frágangur).

I blocked the doily (dúlla) I made way back:



and gave it to my grandmother, who turned 88 years old yesterday. She is in a hospital and it looks nice in her room with decorations sitting on top. It gives the room a little more personal touch (don't get me wrong, she has a nice private room to begin with).

I enjoyed making this doily. Every row was different, so a lot of variation which I enjoy. Then after the blocking the piece transformes itself into a very beautiful (IMHO) doily. It's been a while since I finished it, maybe 3-4 months but I didn't want to block because I didn't know how to store it. It wouldn't be safe from the hands of the 2 year old if it was out and how do you store a thing like that in closets or boxes?

I also finished a hat:



Funny how I look like an old women on the photo. This is my comment on it on the pbase site:

"This is a lopi hat I knitted once with leftover yarn for my uncle (I had made him a sweater). I never got around to giving it to him. Well, yes once but then he was off to a warmer climate so the hat remained with me. As it was too large for me I ended up washing it and it felted. If it sortof in a charleston fasion as it curls up on the ends. I sewed in these little flowers to give it a little more fancy look and I really like the way it turnes out. I, however don't particulary like the way I look like I was 100 years old on the picture nor that the hat stings somewhat, unless it is really cold."

My craft time has somewhat been cut back as little miss Ása Sóley has decided to be a party queen and stay up late. Gone are the tranquil evenings starting at 8 PM. She is actually very quite and plays and has fun so I get some time for knitting and stitching, I'm thankful for that. I'm hoping that this is just a phase!

Stitching blogger's question of the week

I finally signed up for the sbq. So every Wednesday a new question is posted an a bunch of stitching bloggers answere it.

Today's "Stitching Blogger's Question" was suggested by Zohrah (http://xstitch.free.fr/zohrah13/) and is:

Have you done any charity stitching, been in one, or would like to organize one?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blondelibrarian.net/stitching/archives/2005/12/stitching-for-charity/

I have not done it and actually never been aware of such a thing with the except in a magazine. There has not been orginized charity stitching here in Iceland that I know of. I don't know if I would participate. I really depends on my schedule. I don't think I would be organizing one in the nearest future but I can see myself organizing one later on for a cause that would hit home with me.

Knitty is out!

Can you believe what they have - blue jeans for babies! I've been wanting to try the Rowan Denim yarn. I even found a cute denim dress pattern (skokkur). But this beats everything.

After blogging yesterday the christmas-gift-making spirit came over me. Finally. Usually it is a lot sooner. I have it all planned out. Well maybe not all but if all else fails I'll always have the 1 hour scarf!

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Right now I'm working on 4 WIPs. One is a knitted item and is the hat I showed you a picture of in last blog (which Linda correctly guessed). It is an on-line pattern (in Icelandic) in Regia sock yarn, 6 ply (as it is the only one sold in Iceland that I know of - at least in Hagkaup) in passion colorway. I'm making this hat for Kamilla, although I don't know why. This child has more hats than she can use! I might give it to someone. I'm using up left-over yarn from when I made my first (and only sofar) socks.

For cross stitching I have 3 projects current. One is a present and you will get pictures in about 2 weeks. One is my band sampler - it's such a joy to stitch. Both the silk yarn and the variety of stitches make it very interesting. I just wish I had more stitching time. Finally, I've picked up the Crescent Moon by Mirabilia and started the bead work. I'm making this pattern for Kamilla and I also want to make one for Ása Sóley. I've been looking at the other Little Stitches patterns and have started to lean towards this one. Although it is called newborn joy I doubt that it will be in the working for a while.