Oopsie daisy, hi.

Wow, I am terrible at blogging...! And what's worse, lately I'm kind of terrible at knitting, too.

Some finished objects:

Peacock socks are done!

I need to work on my sock modelling skillz.

Pescovegetarian beanie in Sulka – this yarn just does not photograph well. It's so very very beautiful in real life and in pictures it just looks... flat. Really pleased with the beanie though, think I'll get a lot of wear out of it this winter.

Went yarn shopping at Marias garn on Saturday and got some goodies:

Left picture is without flash, which gives a better idea of the colour, and right is with flash, which gives a better idea of the lustre. Pretty pretty pretty; am turning it into one of these.

... I am only human.

Tallinn loot

Just got back from a weekend in Tallinn. Came home with the following, without even being close to breaking the budget:

3x50 meters of Katia Sulka in a lovely dark steel blue (picture does not do it justice); 60% merino, 20% alpaca, 20% silk; softer than a baby's bottom.

Katia Glaciar in gold and purple (Pride of Portree, anyone...?) that my sister picked out for an iPhone cover.

And last but not least, 3x1400 meters of laceweight 100% Alpaca in a dusky blue, dark green, and dark purple.

What's not to love?

So my mother and sister have been making fun of me for "making one and then starting something else"; meaning that I made one sock, then started... well, something else that was also part of a pair; finished it, and... moved on to something else.

SSS, says I. And also that they're being a bit unfair, because

a) I am well into that second sock, thank you, it's just that I knit it while travelling to and from work (hurrah for patterns that are easy to remember!) and not necessarily at home in front of the TV, and

b) the "something else" was a stranded colourwork thing and I kind of HATED how it turned out and now I don't even want to LOOK at it, never mind starting on its mate.

I'm really not very good at colourwork. At all. I don't have much experience and I always think it's going to be more fun than it is and then I end up tangling stuff and pulling some floats way too tight so it ends up looking weird and just... ick. Needs more practice. I probably will rescue the one I finished, and make the other one as well... some day. Not now. Now? Now I'm doing this:

It's green. It's lace. It's Malabrigo.

You can never have too many socks

I seem to be suffering from a very rare form of learning disability which manifests itself in my complete and utter inability to learn how to do Kitchener stitch by heart. I can perform the mechanics of it just fine, but I cannot for the life of me remember how to do it without looking at the instructions. Very odd. It's not like it's a super complicated procedure, and yet I need to keep instructions (Knitty has excellent ones here) in front of me througout the whole procedure... or I will have forgotten how to do it by the time I get to the end of the toe of a sock. Ridiculous. Someone should send me to grafting camp.

This is fresh on my mind because of the following:

(Cat optional, but it's his birthday, so...)

One down, one to go. SSS, here I come. The second sock (or glove, or mitten, or sleeve, or – you get the picture) just isn't as much fun. What to do, what to do? I'm not a big fan of magic loop – I can do it just fine, it's just that I am twice as fast on DPNs, and, well, I'm impatient – so tempting as two socks on one circ sounds... I don't think it's for me.

When I knit my Jaywalkers last year, I did them both on separate pairs of DPNs at the same time – ten rounds on one, ten rounds on the other, turn one heel, turn the other... you get the picture. This worked very well for me and I ended up with two practically perfectly identical socks:


Since then I've replaced all my cheap metal needles and now use KnitPicks Harmony Wood (interchangeables and DPNs) nearly exclusively. Maybe I should invest in a second pair of 2.5mm DPNs? Not like it will break the bank...

... but on the other hand, I did the same thing with my Clessidras, and they ended up vastly different in gauge. So much, in fact, that I have yet to wear them even once. Ouch. Loads of work down the drain there. No idea how I managed it, either. Very strange.

I blame wrackspurts.

Knitting backwards

In my last (first!) entry I mentioned how I'm working on a pair of socks, and I just got to the heel flap of the first one. Now, heel flaps are kind of boring, as it were; so I thought I'd make it a bit more interesting and practice something new while at it.

So, my latest endeavour is to learn to knit backwards. (Knitty has a really good tutorial here for those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept.) Being a continental knitter, I throw with my right hand when knitting backwards, and surprisingly... it's going pretty well. By well I mean it still takes twice as long as it does when I purl, but hey, that's to be expected. I'm finding a LOT easier than I found throwing the "normal" way when I've tried... even if I do keep stabbing myself in the pad of my index finger a bit.

Now all that remains to be seen is whether I can learn how to k2tog and all that fun stuff backwards, and if so, hello never purling again unless doing ribbing! That does sound rather appealing, I must say.

(Oh, and sort of unrelated? Turning a heel is still like magic to me. Ah, the simple joys in life..!)

Hallo!

So I FINALLY created this thing... after, oh, at least six months of talking about it. In fact, I remember discussing it with my sister whilst on a ski lift, so it must have been that long ago. Yikes. Okay.

I guess I should intro myself, as it were. I'm Tove, I'm in my early 20s, and I live just outside Stockholm, Sweden. I first started knitting two summers ago (2007) and fell HARD. It was rather surprising for everyone, since a) I have been known to have the patience of a cranky, food deprived two year old and b) the last time I tried knitting was for a mandatory project in fifth grade that my mother ended up finishing for me so I wouldn't fail class. Sad but true. It was a garter stitch scarf, too, so I didn't even know how to purl before my grandma sat me down two years ago and taught me. Yay, grandma (who is very crafty and kind of awesome at everything that has to do with handiwork).

Anyway, after that it was all.... downhill sounds wrong. Uphill? I knit because I find it relaxing, it takes my mind off things, and, working with computers all day long, gives me something that's actually THERE which I have MADE and for some reason, I like that.

Now, before I start rambling, as I am wont to do, I'm going to wrap this up with a selection of FO's, since, well, that's what it's all about, isn't it?

My very first finished object(s). Thrummed mittens in wool/acrylic blend, with merino roving for the thrums. They're SUPER warm and kind of enormous, but my mother liked them enough to request a pair for herself, so...

First socks. Don't know what I was thinking when I bought that yarn, really...




These, though, I love and still wear nearly daily in winter. Yay for sock yarn gloves!



Then I discovered cables.




And made a pair of Jaywalkers that I am slowly loving to death.


Then I made a very, very, VERY warm cardigan out of chunky 100% wool purple stuff. It's VERY warm. I save it for the coldest of days. (Did I mention I live in Sweden, though? It gets cold.)


Then.... the lace bug struck. Oh dear.

That's pretty much where I am right now... current project (I tend to be a rather monogamous knitter) is Flutter-by socks (Ravelry link) for which I am currently deciding whether to rip the heel and redo it or not. Decisions, decisions...

(Oh, and I can be found as tovels on Ravelry. Inventive, I know.)