Went missing - D word casually mentioned

So I did - I went missing.

My life suddenly took a lot of weird turns. So far this blog has been kept pretty much down to the knitting - my private life has been down to essentials like - we went on a holiday and I spend my time knitting. That kind of stuff.

I like it that way.
But since this blog has been largely abandoned for well over a year - I owe any occational reader an explanation. Which is what brings me to mention the D word. Well not that we were technically ever married - luckily so. But we did. Break up.

And oh yes, it was a good thing. It had been long time coming and my life is better in more ways now than I can count. But - again the basic fact about my current situation is that while there is a special someone in my life - very special indeed - I am living on my own with three kids ages 2, 4 and 6. And as you may be able to imagine it doesnt exactly allow for knitting time.

I guess I also did loose some of the obsession. But over the past months I have felt inspired to occationally pick up the needles again.

And so - to make up for time away I should at the very least post some pictures of stuff that has been finished somehow in the past well over a year. It's pretty pathetic I admit. But sharing seems only fair considering..
There would be my Lopi sweater. So far the project I have ever finished, that has earned me the most remarks. Its unexceptional, unfashionable, scratchy and when worn in moist weather it smells like a herd of icelandic sheep. I love it.

Especially the yarn deserves a few words. It's icelandic unspun. I used two strands and while it was fragile to work with the finished sweater is very sturdy. I love the smell of this wool. It smells alive. Tundra in your livingroom. The fibres are very long, leaving the finished sweater with a hairy halo as seen. It has character like no other wool I have worked with.

On to the next project. A complete opposite. This is a Flower Basket Shawl I knit for my mom in pure mongolian cashmere.

And then obviously a couple small projects here and there, that dont really deserve much attention.

Perambulates done

I finished my Perambulates. I love them! Not much else to say. I love the awesome Zen String yarn - the colorway is Reflection from the fall 07 sock club - and I love the simple yet beautiful, easy and fun to knit pattern.
I knit them on 2mm dpns at a tighter gauge than asked for - more like 8-9 sts pr inch than the 7,5 called for in the pattern.. Hopefully that will help them hold up better as they are 100% merino.
Here they are:

Now I really gotta cast on something more bulky..

Another stash game and knitting status

Time de-neglect my blog..

So there is another Wooly Wonder stashgame going. I have no hopes at all of getting a score worth mentioning - especially considering I tend to knit stuff from sockyarn these days and lets face it. Its SLOW! My 2,5 mms have been the only ones in use for quite a while..

I still never finished all the babyhats. They both need sewing or kitchener stitch - or even both. Instead I cast on another one.. in silk hoping my friend who has a wool allergy will use it for her yet to be born baby.. (hoping I wont mess up the sizing this time..)

FOs.. well time for a status. I sort of finished my Anemois. I still need to weave in the ends and the left thumb is a bit too short so I may have to bite the bullit and frog a few centimeters..
Anyway here they are:

And I finally cast on for Perambulates in lovely Zen String sockyarn from the fall sockclub of 2007. And I finished the first sock in a week or so (a sock record for me) - I havent had much time to knit the second one though, but here is the first one, in all its single-sockness:

I had a nice ravelry surprise today. Just for fun I tried looking up my only ever self-written-down pattern - a pattern for cabled newborn socks found elsewhere on the blog - and saw that two other people has actually knitten it!!! Wow - that is a good feeling.. Maybe I should perfect it a bit.. I guess adding a bigger size wouldnt hurt.. And I always thought something was wrong with the heel.. Ah well some day..

Its amazing - I have an FO!

I havent been all that on top of things when it comes to updating this blog.. sorry about that to those few people who actually read it..

I have finished the babyjacket. I mean F.I.N.I.S.H.E.D it! Buttons and all. I will let the pics speak for themselfes..

So what else is new? I am knitting babyhats. Am on the third in a row right now. The two first ones turned out too small so I am on the go again. I also cast on for socks for my 4 year old. I bought loads of yarn - recently around a kilo of icelandic Plötulopi - unspun icelandic wool. Plan is to knit myself an icelandic sweater, but havent decided whether to use two or three strands together yet.

I got my hands on a really cool Sandness patten-booklet with original norwegian pattens for pants, sweaters etc - all in wonderful stranded patterns, knit in the round with steeks for sleeves and neck.. They had a sale at my LYS - found it in a box on the floor among bunches of 80es magazines with ugly box-shaped sweaterpatterns..

So in short I am slowly finishing things up and starting new ones. The next project that I should get done are my DPs Boyfriend socks.. Silly guy decided he wanted them longer then I had made the first one so will have to unravel the edge of sock 1 and add a couple of inches.. boooring..
Anyway here is the recent hat I finished in sockclub yarn from Middle Earth Yarns:

Yeah - I now its too small.. thats why I cast on for another one..

..in peruvian baby cashmere :-) Yum!

3 excuses not to knit

Been away for 4 weeks. No remarkable knitting progress in that time..
If I brought my knitting? That was a stupid question. Ofcourse I did.
I brought several of my newer sock-club yarns as well as some alpaca for a babyhat. I also brought the boyfriend socks that I am knitting my DP from OPAL.
How far did I get?
I knit around half a sock in 4 weeks!!! How is it possible??
Well I like to blame my lack of progress on three factors (bad excuses if you like..) :

1: Mosquitoes
There are tons of them in Thailand. And they really seem to love me. And I react SO badly to them. I swell up and get all red and itchy. In the evenings when the kids were sleeping I would try to sit on our porch and knit, and they would attack me in large numbers despite repellents etc. I was so distracted that every time I pulled out my knitting I would end up poking my bites with the needles instead.. smart girl I am..

2. Bad lighting
The light on our porch was bad. And I am knitting with black yarn. Cables. Maybe not the hardest pattern to follow ever, but difficult enough to turn a shortrow heel in the dark.. I ended up doing that one in our smelly, moist bungalow bathroom.. Anyway it gets frustrating to knit cables in the dark..

3. Exhaustion
Often when the kids finally went to sleep in the evening I would be so tired I just passed out on the bed clothes, contact lenses and all..

So not much knitting done at all..

Also - I really find knitting cables annoying and unrelaxing. Definately not my favourite type of knitting.. I think my next project will be something rib... Easy and relaxing without totally boring me to death..

Babyjacket complete frustration

I cannot believe it. The drops babyjacket is cursed - I tell you CURSED! The day that thing is truely finished something utterly horrible is going to happen - something so horrible that powers beyond my understanding have sought to delay the finish of the jacket using ubelievably simple but effective tricks.
First there was the gauge trick.
I was done. Almost completely done - only needed the buttonholerow, the neckrow and sewing on the buttons. And that would be it. I held up my work to admire my doing. 5 months of work. 5 MONTHS! For a babyjacket! Ok - I hadnt been working on it every day exactly - but ever so often I had pulled it from the back and knit a couple of centimeters. And now it was DONE - almost. But as I stopped to admire the final piece I realised that I had knit the entire right front on a way larger gauge than the other front. Truth was brutal and harsh and impossible to miss. I had to frog one six'th of my jacket and reknit it at a tighter gauge.
I ate that one - and the next day the frogging began.
And I knit it again.
Until it was done. Again. And then was the sleeve-trick.
Almost done but the finishing. I went on to seam the underarms. And weave in all the ends. And knit the neckline. And I held up my work to FINALLY admire the finished babyjacket. Knit in sockyarn on 2,5 mm needles. 5 months or work - and then some.
And I see it.
The sleeves.
OH NO - the sleeves. How could this happen? I have been SO CAREFUL. I have payed such attention to detail - and now this.
The sleeves are not equal in length. Not at all equal...
The right sleeve is about 5 cms longer than the left. That means one sleeve is about 15-20% longer than the other sleeve. And that is visible. Very visible..

I just wanna sit down and cry and never ever see the bloody thing before my eyes again.. I am so FED UP with this thing. I want it over and done with. But I cannot possibly put it down like this. One thing is certain. I am NOT frogging the whole darn thing to the sleeve. No way. That would mean frogging the neck - after picking out the bound off edge. Picking out the bound off right front edge, the buttonrowpart, the 18 cms of front and the 18 cms of sleeve. That would set me back about 2 months or more. No way!
Now I am toying with other ideas.
Could I cut off the longer sleeve somehow? And then pick up stitches around it?
Or frog the neckline and then snip the thread somewhere just where the sleeve ends, frog the sleeve and reknit it? - Am guessing that would take me another 1-2 weeks or so. Guess I could live with that if it cant be any different .. sigh..
If ever I get back to loving knitting after this thing - then I deem knitting to be more than just another shortlived obsession of mine..

Mit in progress

Anemois, originally uploaded by Inca knits.

.. slowly so though..
Here it is - my Anemoi in progress! I knit a bit further than shown here. Just transferred the thumb stitches to waste yarn. I am slowly getting better at getting the tension right - though where it was probably too loose before it is almost too tight now.. difficult balance.
I still do it with yarn in both hands. I see it could probably speed up the process if I was less stubborn and transferred both strands of yarn to my left hand, but I really do enjoy alternating between the left hand pick and the right hand wrap.. And since it is also about the process I think I will stick with the double handed way of doing it for now..

(S)Mitten

Ok - I admit it. I am easily distracted and easily seduced.. (when it comes to knitting at least) I read about someone wanting to cast on for Anemoi Mittens and I dont know what happened but I felt sudden inspiration, bought the pattern without thinking twice and by evening I had made a trip to a nearby LYS and cast on for mitten number 1..
So did I finish any UFOs? Nope - that was optimistic to even imagine.. I added a WIP to the list, and abandoned most other knitting to do corrugated ribbing on 5 needles. Probably the hardest knit stuff I have done to date, but I got through 17 rounds of it and have moved on to the mitten itself, working from the chart. It requires all my attention and concentration to knit each and every round, but it is looking good so far. My only real concern being whether I chose some boring colors? I loved them at the LYS but working with them now I miss some red or purple inthere..

Knitting childrens socks

I am knitting socks for my friends kids. I am enjoying these small projects as they give me the chance to dive into my sockyarn stash without comitting to a full pair of adult socks.

The first pair are done. Not sure what I think.. The yarn is Adorn sockyarn from Three Irish Girls in the colorway Quinn. I do think these colors are really cheerful and I like how the yarn stripes up.

I have also started a second pair of childrens socks. Babysocks size 1 year or so. These I think are turning out really pretty. The yarn is awesome and I absolutely adore the colorway.

This yarn is sockyarn from Middle Earth Yarns 75% wool and 25% polyamide. The colorway is Heather Fields. I am really excited about this yarn - the colors are fresh, cheerful and elegant. Lovely yarn. I joined the Middle Earth Sock club (she may still have an open slot) and am starting to look forward to the first package.. (never mind its not till the end of September..)

Knitting thoughts

Knitting, knitting, knitting..
I have been trying to put in extra knitting time in the past week and it feels great. I seem to be thinking about knitting all the time. ALL THE TIME! Knitting and YARN, yarn, yarn.. (did I mention that I signed up for the Zen String sock club? And the Middle Earth Yarns sock club? - It will be a wonderful wooly autumn..)
I cant put words to the frustration that my projects are coming along so slowly. I dream big, and many dreams about wonderful projects, babythrows, lace shawls etc and it has taken me two days to finish up a childrens sock size 2 years.. (and that is just the first sock). But I am inspired at least. Dreaming about knitting is quite a good inspiration to actually get it done when awake. Wouldnt it be practical if I could knit in my sleep though?
I had to make a long drive today, and found myself constantly attracted to the second babysock on the DPNs right in the passenger seat beside me and cursed many times that driving and knitting dont go well together when you are the only one in the car (apart from a 6 month old baby that is..)