Habitat

Hello to my abundant readers ;)

I hope you are all having nice Saturdays. Mine is decent enough; so far today I've been through an incredibly tiring workout and a large mug of coffee. I am soon going to make a gigantic omelette and in the meantime I am playing Wordfeud with my mother and listening to Belle and Sebastian. Nice relaxing Saturday, and in the evening I am going to a friend's birthday party, so it looks like I may have to bake some brownies.

But of course, the reason I'm writing, is that I finished yet another project (I'm on fire, it seems). A few weeks ago I caved in and bought two skeins of madelinetosh dk weight, after a very long time of not buying internet yarn! I quickly decided that one of the skeins must turn into the Habitat hat. I knew that this yarn would translate excellently into cables, and the colour was so pretty I needed to wear it on my head (if that makes sense)..I have needed a green hat for a long time. I'm a green junkie! It's just the nicest colour in the wooooooorld... or at least the nicest colour that goes with my colouring.

So, I made this hat in record speed. It was just so fun to knit! And today, since it is Saturday, I was able to have a photoshoot with myself (I'm not a fun model to shoot, though) outside. Just armlength pictures, and I stupidly hoped for some decent portraits, but sadly I suffer from Permanent Bitchface, so no such luck. ;) Here are the pictures, anyway.







Well, thanks for reading. Keep having nice Saturdays :)

Socks.

I recently finished my Noro knock-off socks, so I thought I might show my reader(s)! I also decided to take better pictures of my newest Jaywalker socks, so there will be a bonus.

The wall in my room is perfect for socks, really. I just have to lie in bed and wave my feet in the air. An activity I quite enjoy, actually.

Anyway.

Anyway.

Anyway...

As I wrote in my last post, I knit these new socks with a yarn from Garnstudio called Drops Delight, and I unfortunately don't think I will buy it again. It is, sadly, too fuzzy, and a bit itchy, too uneven...quite like Noro itself, actually, nudge nudge wink wink.

HowEVER, they are pretty, and they totally enabled my friend to get the yarn and make Noro striped socks herself.

I just hope they will be the kind that felt instead of get holey.

Here they are:



As you can see I got the pooling in the right sock, but I thought the effect was quite nice. In that skein there was also a knot and a join which completely messed up the colourway. Typical...in the end, though, they turned out well, and I'm happy that because I did them toe-up, I used up every last bit of the yarn. Props to me.

And here are my newest Jaywalker socks. I made them before Christmas. The toe has become a bit coloured by my shoes. They're made from my beloved Lorna's Laces - colourways Blackberry and Firefly. I quite like them - Lorna's Laces make the best socks ever!!




And now, since I'm done with my socks for now, I'm working a bit on a super green Wollmeise sweater, but I ordered yarns from the internets for the first time in forever, so I'm eagerly awaiting it. I'm quite excited about the projects, just wait and see!

I am still knitting

Hi everyone!

As usual, I became super bad at blogging. But now I have stopped writing in my livejournal, so maybe I will use this more?

I did finish all the Christmas presents in time, and people were just head over heels with their presents, naturally. I knit a pair of jaywalker socks (REALLY!?) and now I am knitting noro striped socks in noro knockoff yarn from Drops.



This sock has since been finished, I just need to cast on for the second one!

The yarn is, of course, very pretty, but I have my doubts about its durability. Sure, it's got 25 % polyamid and is supposedly superwash, but it's just so FUZZY. It's no Lorna's laces or Opal, surely...she said, before she had even worn them.

However, the yarn was quite affordable at 30 kroner/50 grams, and starting at the toe I got a mid-calf-ish sock. With 70 stitches all the way. Will sttart the second sock soon, really! But I have serious second sock syndrome.


Anyway, it feels strangely nice to be back at uni and get some structure in my days... (also chemical structures, am I right?! Sorry..) I have new and exciting subjects that just make me so happy even though they're not that funny - but they are NOT ENGINEERING SUBJECTS !!! which is the only thing I care about. Right now.

OKay, that's all, will be back with more knitting soon, hopefully.

Super-duper awesome gloves

Hello! I should in theory be updating this blog a bit more often, but THE TRUTH IS, I actually did finish something before this, and it was a stole, and it was brown. However, I haven't have an opportunity to block it, because I live in a cupboard (almost). And I can't show anything I haven't blocked (it is lace). So that is sad. I'm going home for a few days in November, so I will block it then.

Okay, so, since last time I updated, I have done lots of some fun things. In a list form:

- had sushi workshop with my lovely friends:


Also, notice Ingri's brilliant owl sweater. She made that!



Oh my god, best night EVER, it was really delicious, fun to make yourself, and we had so much leftover we had sushi at lunch at school the next day. Going to the Asia shop was an experience too.

- went to see Antony and the Johnsons and the Norwegian radio orchestra in concert, which was magical and and WOW, one of the best concerts ever. <3 Antony

- saw Knauskoret 3.33 times in concert. They are just the best (also, my little brother sings, so I'm biased.)

Anyway, except from that, I haven't really done anything, except from trying to be a good student and a (physically) stronger person.

OKAY, to the FUN STUFF, I guess, I have finished a pair of gloves, and they were surprisingly painless and fun to knit, so I'm planning to knit a whole other bunch. These have been done for a while, I have just been slow at blocking and taking pictures and all that...

They are man-mittens, but they're kind of small (ie they fit my hands perfectly), so I don't know who will get them yet (but they will be a present). The pattern is from the Rauma Selbustrikk booklet. I really like this design.

These gloves got me through a whole lot of lectures in chemical reaction engineering (ugh) and statistics AND biochemistry and distillation and whatnot, all of the newest Futurama episodes, the new Big Bang theory episodes, even a visit from my parents. It's nice to have something to do whilst you're doing nothing. Here they are:





And of course, standard mitten pose:



That's all for now! Hopefully I'll have something new to show soon.

Jaywalker socks

...Of course it had to be the Jaywalker socks. Truthfully, I am a very conservative sock knitter, and I prefer simple socks. I guess. My feet also tend to attack anything that traps them with malice, and a tightly knit pair of Jaywalker socks in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock seem to be sturdy enough.

As far as sock yarns go: I LOVE this yarn. It's great. It's soft but not fluffy, it's sturdy and the colour is gorgeous. In the past, I have been extremely unsuccessful with 100 % wool socks. Suddenly there are more holes than there is fabric, but Lorna's Laces holds up! I would say it "wears like iron", but iron doesn't wear very well (what can I say, that expression annoys me), so I'll say it wears like copper or aluminium instead. The signs of wear and tear (felting) just strengthens it. Thumbs up!

The colour is, of course, also fantastic. I have decided to keep the socks to myself, to be completely selfish. Purple items stay with me, and that's that.

Hopefully I will get some more socks for me, me, me! eventually, I will just have to raid my stash for wool/nylon blends. Right now I'm chugging along with my self-imposed challenge (which is 12.5 % completed, and I'm keeping up with it!), knitting a Wollmeise Seascape Shawl for my mother. It will be quite different from the one in the pattern, as it's fingering weight, non-fuzzy and in shades of brown. I think it will be nice, though.

Back to the socks, here is a picture:



I have found that it is a good angle for socks... the ceiling is probably the only surface in this flat that is NOT messy. Har har.

organisation

I haven't been active on ravelry for ages, but now that I'm knitting again, I've visited the site more often. I was getting a lot of ravelry love, too, which is very nice. 244 people love my Little Birds Pullover, that makes me strangely giddy.

Anyhow, I don't know for how long ravelry has had the organize function. I'm guessing it's been there quite a while, but only just now I have decided to make use of it. I organised all my 130 projects into stuff for: heads, feet, shoulders, hands, stuff with sleeves. I also made some technique categories for lace and stranded colourwork, and I'm going to make one for cables as well. Ysolda designs was the last category. Yeah, 20 % of all my knittings were from Ysolda's patterns, so I guess she deserved a category of her own.

Also, recently, I got new batteries for my camera's flash - and proceeded with taking a myriad of self portraits. I did it wearing a bunch of hats, though, so I can update some of my project pictures soon. I only had 12 hats here in Trondheim, but with my ravelry organisation I can see I have made 31 (although two are bows for my hair and there is an abundance of gifts amongst the hats). Hats also had the highest completion rate, with no frogs and no hibernations. I'm guessing stuff with sleeves has the lowest completion rate; I didn't add all the frogs and hibernations to THAT one... stuff for hands was also pretty bad - 6 out of 32 were either in hibernation or frogged. That doesn't include all the mittens I have started but don't have on ravelry. It's the second sock syndrome, but with mittens.

Anyway; this was a very geeky post, and with no pictures either. The good news are, I'm almost 75 % done with the socks I'm knitting. When I complete them, I'll be 12.5 % done with my challenge, and then I'll get to decide what I'm knitting next! I'm leaning towards a pair of Selbu gloves for my older brother, even though gloves are an exercise of my patience. (But they turn out so pretty!) Also, the last time I was at my LYS, they had really, really short DPNs - they can't have been more than ten centimetres, but they appear to be ideal for that fiddly finger knitting. I might have to get a set of those!

It's nice to feel like a knitwear factory again. It's been too long. ;-)

alle fugler små de er

For det første så er jeg ekstremt dårlig til å strikkeblogge! Kanskje det er fordi jeg strikker så lite.

Var ferdig med både sokker og votter og befant meg sjøl i et søkk, sånn oppfinnsomhetsmessig. Visste ikke hva jeg skulle gjøre. Begynte på ca fem nye prosjekter, rakk opp igjen, osv. I tillegg var tilværelsen ganske teit. Men! Ragnhild strikka genser, og det var ganske inspirerende, så da begynte jeg også. Med det mest kløende garnet noensinne. Sauene på Shetlandsøyene har gjerne stikkende ull.

Uansett - veldig fornøyd! Beste genseren ever, liksom. Og den veier sannsynligvis mindre enn 300 gram. What's not to love! Mønsteret er en modifisert Little Birds av Ysolda Teague, som er veldig fin dersom man har nette og yndige feminine skuldre, men ikke veldig fin dersom man har svære maskuline skuldre. Som jeg har, i en slags omvendt pæreform. Men en ganske figurnær genser med u-hals fungerer bra. Så da blei det dét.



Flink til å posere, da.