Round and round

Heeeellooo,

yesterday was a pretty nice day here in Northern Germany. Our summer was kind or rainy so far, so having a pretty nice day (mostly sunny, warm, some clouds) was a nice change. I took the opportunity to take some pictures of my current projects. Due to the light outside they are kind of overexposed but these will have to do.

Project No.1

Rivendellsocks by Janel Laidman
Yarn: Wollmeise 100% superwash in "Rittersporn"




The yarn is a tad darker than the pictures show. After turning the heel, the pattern is a pretty mindless rib, so it's round after round after round until you hit the point where you have to start the toe.

I might need the Lothlorien sock pattern too :)

Project No. 2
The Sarah blanket :)
It's for a friend, who will have a baby in autumn
Pattern: OpArt from Knitty
Yarn: Bernats Cottentots provided by Sarah (who in reality is not insane but really generous and I didn't mean insane in a bad way!)

Since I'm knitting this pattern in stockinette, it's just round after round with 2 increases every round, so each round is getting bigger and bigger ang bigger :) Perfect for the bus at the moment, not too big so far but I had to order needle tips since I did not own 4.5 mm needle tips ;) and one of my circs in that size is so stiff, that knitting with 2 circs wasn't fun.




As you can see, my cat Greebo shares my passion for yarn :) Although he esp. loves handdyed skeins of sock yarn.

Parting shot:

This one is for Maria. My new roses

1. Rouge Meilove (that is the name)

2. A miniature rose, that didn't have a name tag

Insanity

Sing along with me :) but instead of singing Xanadu, sing Insanity... in saaaanaaatiiiihihiiii

And that is what happend to Sarah :)
A while ago I send her two books, that I had twice or that I did not need anymore, some chocolate and 3 crappy uhm homemade stitchmarkers. 2 books,chocolate, stitchmarkers. Smallish package. Not a lot. I was happy to send her the books and she said, she would send me some dishcloth cotton.

With some I assumed 1 or 2 balls. Smallish package and 2 days ago I came home and there was a big box. I asked Heiko what he had ordered because I wasn't expecting a big parcel like that. He just said: No it's yours!

I stared blankly at him? HUH?

'It's from the UK' and off I was to get some scissors to open the biiig box and here's what Sarah send:



22 SKEINS OF YARN. THAT IS INSANE!

I immediately cast (casted? ) on for a baby blanket using the cottontots yarn in yellow and turquoise.

Thank you so much again Sarah!

A spikey armchair, summer clothes and WIPs

Since returning from the UK the weather has been a mixture of dry patches, some sun and a lot of rain. So enough time to get some things done in the house, like finally putting up some pictures in the living room, assembling a storage rack for the attic (and thus cleaning up the attic and throw things away) and starting to make a cover for our armchair.

Our two lovely, lively 3 yr old cats love jumping and running around the living room. This includes chaising each other and trying to get a grip on top of the armchair thus giving it a little "acupuncture". DH requested a cover for the top of the chair a while ago and today I started making a pattern.



The muslin fits pretty o.k., so tonight I'm going to cut out the cover from denim and also from fake leather, that I bought a couple of years ago online not knowing how thick it would be. It's too thick to sew thru with my standard Bernina sewing machine but I'm going to make pockets for the "leather" and just slip it in without sewing thru it.

Sewingwise this break was so productive (at least for me). Before leaving for England I finished this pair of shorts



The pattern is from the autumn/winter edition 2007 of the ottobre woman magazine in a size 40. It's Model no. 10 a bootcut jeans pattern that I cut off at knee height. As you can see, my upper legs are kind of short. The pattern fits pretty well, the wrinkles are due to the use of slightly stretchy denim. I just can't get rid of those wrinkles if I'm using a stretchdenim. If I would make the longer version I would need to alter the pattern for my lower legs, which are uhm bigger than size 40...
So this is 1.3 meter less stash.

Another stashreduction came with the making of burda No. 106 B from the 01/2009 of the burda magazine. I cut a size 38 at the top and a size 40 at the bottom to have room for my hips.
Fabric used: a cotton interlock that I bought last year at the Dutch fabric market in Hamburg.
Any other alterations: none, although from the pictures it seems that I might need a smallish FBA with this pattern. My V neck is not really a V, but I really like it this way.

I should have understitch the facing. Next time I will.

I added an iron-on transfer from Onion via shoponion.com. It seems that the floral print isn't available anymore but the quality of the iron-on transfers is great!



This won't be the last of this shirt that I make. It's different without beeing overly trendy. Very feminine!

Worn together I have a summer ensemble!



Knitting:

Here's a picure of Aliénor, my current WIP (I also have a pair of kids socks on the needles for my nephew Lukas but they are a) not very exicting and b) I'm not even finished with the toes and they are toe-up...)



I'm so close to finish it. Just a bit more plain stockinette and then the pattern part for sleeve no. 2... YAY. I so hope to finish the sweater this week! The pattern is awesome btw. It's the Aliénor pattern by Anna Larsson available via ravelry and I'm not saying this because I was a testknitter for the pattern. It's really flexible and nice looking!

UK Ravelry Day 2009 in Coventry

Hiho everybody,

I'm back from our vacation in the UK. We were visiting our friends in Leighton Buzzard and 10 days before the event I saw a thread about the UK ravelry meeting on ravelry. Of course, not knowing ANYTHING about the geography of England (except that I could point out a lot of different scottish isles like Arran and Isla...) I had to google where Coventry is. To my surprise it's just an hour away from Frank & Anne's home. So, of course I had to go!

Here are some impressions:

And then there was rain. Lots of rain...
and lots of people

some with giant crochet hooks


But let's start at the beginning. On the ravelry board for the UK ravelry day was a carsharing thread and Sarah Jane offered a carride from the Leigthon Buzzard area and we agreed to drive together (better she agreed to pick me up at Tesco).

If you read her blog entry, you can see, that she was a little nervous if we would get along well but that was no problem at all. I was more nervous about her husband joining us and gave DH all the infos about the two I had. SMILE. SO NOT NECESSARY. Both are awesome people and Chris, Sarahs husband, and I had too much fun making up our own comments on the fashion show. (So me... the lady next to me was so annoyed but since I couldn't understand a thing.... But I wasn't mean all the time. Really I wasn't)


There were tons of really nice people and after having been shown how to knit English style and the fashion show, Chris and I looked for a pub or so for some lunch. Maybe we should have figured out, that we both eat vegetarian since we went to a very strange Fish 'n Chips store where the vegetarian sandwiches were awefull :)

After that experience it was time for the Meg Swansen talk, that I had booked and Sarah and I met to go together. The talk was very nice although I had the feeling, that a lot of people were too shy to ask questions (not me :) who would have guessed that). And afterwards I headed for my "dye with natural dyes" class. It was dyeing with natural extracts, so no dyepots bubbling on a stove or so. I would have love that. Dyeing with natural dye extract is a lot like dyeing with accid dyes....

There also was a bit of shopping for me:
the natural dye studio, merino and tencel sock yarn
John Arbon Alpaka. So soft. I also got some sock yarn (undyed) and some brown. I think I'm ready to try out some fair isle. GASP.
A book with lovely vintage designs. I already know at least 1 sweater I'm going to make in the near future. (got to get some of my stash transformed into garments!) And I bought "The opinionated Knitter" from Elizabeth Zimmermann but somehow I already own most of the patterns. I'm not sure if I will keep the book.
The Knitting Godess, Blue face leicester sock yarn.

It was a great day despite the rain! I met great people (esp. Sarah & Chris), learned new things and bought lovely stuff.

Santa Socke Part XIV (Teil 14 sozusagen)

Halli-hallo allerseits,

hier spricht mal wieder Eure Santa Socke. (Besser schreibt)

Bitte entschuldigt meine lange Abwesenheit aus dem Blog. Nach meiner Ankunft hier in Kiel und meiner Fertigstellung (JUCHUUU) brauchte ich erstmal ein paar Wochen Ruhe von meiner anstrengenden Reise und dann meinte tini, sie müsste erstmal Bilder bestellen, bevor wir das Buch für Liane machen können und dann kam tini immer wieder was dazwischen, ihr kennt das ja :) Nun sind die Bilder schon seit Ende April hier und noch immer nichts. Jetzt habe ich tini in Ihrem Urlaub so lange getrietzt, bis sie anfing die Sachen für das Buch fertig zu stellen und ich habe gemerkt, dass ich Teil 14 meiner Geschichte noch gar nicht geschrieben hatte!

Hi everybody,

it's me again who's talking (better writing), your Santa Sock.

Please excuse my long abscence from the blog. After arriving in Kiel (and beeing completed.... YAY) I needed a few weeks rest from the exhausting journey and then tini thought, she needed to have the pitcures printed before we could get started on the book and then life happend, you know how that is :) Now the pictures are here since end of April and still no book. I vexed tini during her time off from work, until she started getting the things ready for the book and I noticed that I hadn't written part 14 of my story.

Ich bin von Ettlingen aus nach Bretten zu Maggiesocks gereist. Da Maggie auf Krücken war, gibts leider keine Fotos.

Maggie schrieb an tini:

Hallo Tini,

da ich ja leider keine Fotos liefern konnte, hier noch ein paar Einzelheiten für das Socken-Reise-Blog:

Socke musste auf uns warten, da wir erst aus dem Ägypten-Urlaub kamen. Leider bin ich dort über einen Obelisken gestolpert, sodass ich nun eine Schiene am linken Knöchel habe und mit Krücken umherhumpele. Aber Socke hat sich wohlgefühlt, durfte unsere Souvenirs angucken und meine neuen Leyburn Socks - fertiggestellt auf dem Nil - kennenlernen.
Bretten, die Melanchthonstadt, liegt übrigens im malerischen Kraichgau, viele sanftgeschwungene Hügel, Weinberge und dazwischen die Kleinstadt Bretten. Leider konnte Socke nicht zum Ereignis des Jahres dableiben … Ende Juni/Anfang Juli ist bei uns das grosse mittelalterliche Peter-und-Paul-Fest, wo die halbe Stadt umgebaut wird und die Eingeborenen sich in mittelalterliche Gewänder hüllen ….

Viele Grüsse
maggie

After beeing in Ettlingen I travelled to Bretten to visit Maggiesocks and to grow a little more. Maggie was on crutches, so she couldn't take any pictures. She wrote to tini about my visit:

Hi tini,

since I couldn't get any pictures here a few lines for the blog:

Santa Sock had to wait for us, since we were in Egypt when he arrived. Unfortunately I stumpled over an obilisk and sprayed my ankle. So it's crutches for me. Santa was very comfortable around here, he had a good look at all of our souvenirs and spend some time with my new Leyburn socks, which were finished on the Nile.

Bretten, which is also called Melanchton-town after it's most famous son Philipp Melanchthon, is in the midths of the picturesque Kraichgau with rolling hills and vineyards. Unfortunately Socke wasn't there to experience the event of the year, the Peter & Paul celebrations, where most of the inhabitants dress up in medivial clothing and having a big Renfaire.

So, und nun gehts wieder zurück ans Buch!