The winds are shifting

or something like that.

I actually stitch today! I started on the border of Woodland Grace, while the girls were sleeping today and while watching Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason for the first time as well. So I didn't get as much done as I could have but nonetheless, this is a big step. I haven't stitch since on the Grace (or anything) since April. Since the beginning of the year I have only worked on the Grace and the French Village.

I've been feeling the stitching comming over me lately. I've been reading stitching blogs with a renewed interest and looking at Mirabilia and Teresa Wentzler pieces with envy. I don't own any Mirabilia designs, except for Crescent Dreams (very fitting because the street I live on it called Crescent Drive), but I have couple of TW's designs, Celestial Dragon and Egyptian Sampler.

The other day, while I was shopping at JoAnn's, I even saw a small design that I WANTED to buy. I didn't buy it but it was the first time in a long time I even wanted to by a stitching kit.

Perhaps, this time, I can actually do both stitching an knitting at the same time? That would be nice, since I have quite a lot of stitching projects to finish but I don't want to give up knitting.

Same ol' same ol' or what?

I've been going to bed early a lot lately so knitting has been scarce.

I did start to make swatches for my eingirni sweater. I plan to make a raglan sweater from 1 ply Icelandic wool. My step-mother and step-sister have made them before. I think I'll do it on 4mm needles and the yarn is steel gray. Very cool.

My Icelandic online knitting group adopted a feature from my stitching group, an UFO day. UFO stands for unfinished object and on an UFO day you take up an project that has been laying on the sidelines and work on it. It gives you motivation to finish projects that have been left behind, sitting at the bottom of the knitting basket.

Today is one of those days (every Thursday is) and I finished couple of bibs and a wash-cloth. This things had been sitting in my knitting canvas bag for couple of weeks now and I finally made time to finish them. I would have taken a picture but couldn't find my camera.

So stay tuned for pictures ;)

Contemplating

My knitting has slowed down a little this week because I've been contemplating (hugleiða, áforma). I've been contemplating on two projects or projects to be. One is the slippers I promised Clint long time ago. While I was on my shopping spree in Europris, I bought bulky wool that looked perfect for felting.

This week I was about to start the slippers when I notice that the wool I bought was a little thicker than the wool it was intended for.

So what to do?

I backed out of the project for the time being and let my brain munch on the problem.

Couple of days later I come down with the solution. I knit the slippers with the intended needles (7mm) instead of what the pattern calles for (5.5 mm) but go down two sizes.

Did someone say swatching?

No way! These are mere slippers we're talking about. If they don't fit Clint, they'll fit someone else, I'm sure.

The other problem comes with photos! It is my varigation on the Log Cabin knitted blanked.



The photo to the left shows the first half of the Tunisian Crochet row, made with afghan hooks (extra long with a stopper on the other end) and a selection of afghan hooks I own (thanks mom).

The photo to the right shows a completed Tunisian Crochet row.

It looks georgeous. At least I think so. So what's the problem?

It curles up a lot so it is not so easy to work with. I think I'll rather do a log cabin with garter stitch (garðarprjón). Furthermore, I have no idea about how to orginize the colors for the blanket. It's made out of leftover yarn from a discontinued granny square blanket and other leftover yarn plus some gray yarn (light to dark gray). The other yarn is reds, blues, greens and yellows (I guess little bit of everything.

I don't know how to organize it. One solution is to have every other row colors and every other gray?

I still like the idea of a tunisian crochet blanket. But maybe rather something like this: MoeZ afghans. Especially baby blankets with cute motives.

What to do? What to do?

I'm a libra. What that means is that I have greatest difficulty making up my mind. I have no idea what I am going to do with these washrags. I am gearing towards giving them as gifts, well most of them.

One thing I really love about them is to mix and match different colors. Especially the bold colors. I could never do that with a garment. I also have quite a few options to choose from. I counted the skeins I had in either Peaches'n creme and Sugar'n Cream, and I have more than 30! My mom bought me most of them when she was here and then I bought some more when Michaels was having a $1/skein sale.

I made yet another one. I present you with Number six:

I'm on fire!

While Ása Sóley slept this morning I knitted a felted bowl from 'One Skein'. That's two designs I've knit from that book and there are more that I wouldn't mind knitting.



My daughter (who is 3*365-4 days old) saw the bowl in it's pre-felted shape and immediately identified it as a hat for her little sister. She was more than willing to model it.

I haven't felted them yet because I am going to knit Clint another slippers and felt it in the same load (I'm soooo frugal). His old ones were worn through. Now we have carpet so it should be easier on the slippers.

The book includes instructions for felting in a top-loading washing machine. I would just have thrown it in with a normal load like I normally do but I'm thinking about trying this. Especially since I don't know top-loading machines at all.

But first, one more ball band dishcloth.

Dilemma

I am in no doubt that blogging has enriched my knitting, both by giving me access to what other knitters are doing and being inspired by them and also by inspiring me to actually finish knitted items so I can post it on my blog and not fall too far behind on my posts.

However, while I'm blogging I'm not knitting! That's a problem. I usually only knit in the evenings and that's also usually when I blog as well. Sometimes it takes me days to actually get around to blogging because I'm too skimpy on my knitting time. Sorry guys.

I made a subalbum in my 2006 knitting album for things knitted from Mason-Dixon knitting. In that album you will find e.g. this:

I like the multicolored dishrag but I will not make any more. You can see the reason why in the photo to the left. In the photo to the right you see the dishrag that inpired the multicolored one. Only problem was that the yellow color didn't match the yellow from the varigated yarn and of course the seemingly endless amount of ends to be crafted.



There are some other dishrags:




And some close-ups of the dishrags:




Can you tell yet that I'm fascinated by them? They are very fun to knit. Easy but entertaining. The last detail is my last attempt at trying to catch how loud those two colors acutally are in real life. That rag was inspired by the two colors that dominated every florist window in Iceland during my stay there in June.

I've also made some bibs but haven't finished the details yet. They got their picture taken despite their uncompletness (funny word I just made up).



The last one is the petal bib from 'One Skein' like I mentioned in my last post. It is made from 50% cotton and 50% polyester and is super-soft. I think it will be most useful as drooling bib (slefsmekkur) and not food bib.

Rags for various purposes

So do you want to know what I've been doing lately.



Couple of more washrags/facecloths.

I've also made some bibs (smekkir). I made couple from Mason Dixon and one from One Skein.

The bib from Mason Dixon is super easy and the bib from One Skein is super difficult. Super difficult but a lot of fun and a quick knit. And I think I can even make two from 1 50 g skein.