It’s ridiculous…

I’m not dead yet! Just slightly woozy from the antibiotics I need to take for the next month… I’ve been doing stuff, but I just don’t have anything to show for it. Nor anything super exciting to tell – maybe in a couple of days, though. You see, I’m waiting for ELVIS!

I did the shoulder strap for my sweater bag, but I didn’t sew it up yet. It’s in the tumbler as of right now. And a slight colour difference, so I think I may throw a bit of dye after the bag itself. Contemplating getting some felting needles….

I have some cloths sitting around wrapped up with leaves.

I dyed some yarn, testing to see if I could get a faded denim look to it, I could, but the skeins are all jumbled up and in the very long process of being wound into balls by hand. But that’s something to play with in the future. And a nice scarf perhaps to match jeans?

I also dyed some silk hankies to use for my cold fingers. Going to knit them as is, not spin them, just pull them out. They’re a bit unclear in the colours due to my experiments into setting the dye. I can’t ever just do something by the book it seems, always have to add a bit of “what if”.

I did have some alpaca I wanted to use for mittens, but it happened to be perfect with another yarn for another project, so we’ll see if there’s enough for mitts when I’m done. Right now I’m having a bit of trouble understanding the instructions for the yoke… Or rather, how to keep track of it all without losing my place. I need something warm and cosy for winter days knitting, spinning and writing, so the summer cardigans are on hold.

I got my lace yarn  for the Sunberry dress all nicely dyed up quite a while ago, decided to do the entire 200 g although I won’t be using that much. It would be such a shame to be 10-20 g short! I’m thinking a matching shawl or shrug could work out, I always get cold very easily. Or if not, my mum has claimed it’s her favourite colour.

I actually wrote down the formula! Although I may dye the actual dress a bit darker when it’s done. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <- wave

And after writing this earlier, I’m now thinking of overdyeing the yarn anyway with the denim effect to get a slight, ever so tiny blueblack effect to the purple. Any opinions on that?

I HALF finished the collar on my ugly sweater, hoping that SW merino is softer than whatever the rest is. My first magic loop project btw.

As for painting, I didn’t even get started yet. But I persuaded the tall guy to perhaps rearrange the living room to leave me a bit of wall space for hanging canvas on! Just need to move some cords and stuff too. And negotiate the light I want overhead which is not overly pretty for a living room (first time he’s ever cared about that, WTF?) And I’ve looked into storage solutions, so I don’t have to cart my paints back and forth each time. I’m much more likely to do something if it’s all up and ready to go. Looks like a trip to IKEA…

And finally there’s my sweater project, I’ve spun the redbrown fiber, moving on to the grey and black asap. And I got more from World of Wool, so off we go, dyeing and spinning. It’s very squishy, more so than I thought it would be, compared to the Gotland I spun last year. I hope I can make all the yarn match this one in style and feel.

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Projektstatus september

Jeg laver en hel masse – men har bare ikke noget at vise frem. Skal i gang med næste farve shetland til Spindeforeningens sweater SAL, næsten færdig med at filte min sweatertaske som lige skal sys sammen og mÃ¥ske farves lidt og dekoreres? Har farvet silke som skal strikkes til fingerløse vanter uden spinding, bare trukket ud til en snor. Har leget lidt med farvning af garn og overvejer at give det lilla en lille tur mere.

Satser pÃ¥ nogen lidt mere inpirerende updates nÃ¥r jeg ikke længere er bimmelim af den antibiotikakur jeg skal tage den næste mÃ¥neds tid….

Det blev også et temmelig kort resume, den engelske udgave startede jeg egentlig for længe siden, men lige nu må I andre have detaljerne til gode.

Postman was good today

Brought me a batch of Shetland top from World of Wool for my sweater projects, some silk hankies and a set of extra-fine Valkyrie combs from The Whorl’s End. My homemade crude set with nails just doesn’t always cut it….

Now I can straighten out that blue merino that I accidentally dyed with a bit too much detergent in it, causing some stickyness. I’ll see if I can’t sort it before blending with the other colours for my spinning project.

Nice surprise speedy delivery after a few days under the weather. But at least I’m making progress on my reversible sweater! Which means of course soon I’ll have not 2 sleeves to finish, but 4 once again and at least 3 project in line! I guess I need to recover from my sleeve syndrome

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Postmand Per på besøg

Fik lige en dejlig pakke med silk hankies og mere Shetlænder fra World of Wool til mine sweaterprojekter. Og sÃ¥ kom jeg lige til at bestille et par Extra-fine Valkyrie kamme fra The Whorl’s End

Jeg kom til at farve en tot merino med lidt for meget sæbe i, så det er en anelse filtet. Bare lidt, jeg håber kammene kan løsne det, så jeg kan blande med de andre farver jeg havde planlagt.

Skønt med lidt opmuntring efter et par flade dage på sofaen, men i det mindste har jeg nået lidt på min omvendesweater. Det betyder så bare, at i stedet for at mangle 2 ærmer, bliver der snart 4 igen, og jeg har mindst tre nye projekter i kø! Så jeg må se at komme mig over mit syndrom

UFO begone

Sat myself down for some prescribed quiet time and attacked my UFO pile in between reading. It’s sooo great to be able to cross out things on a to do list! And good to not run around trying to do ALL the things, just attack one at a time, never mind the others for the time being. I really, really must practise slow living since I probably won’t be able to master slow thinking…..

Didn’t manage to get done yet, even though I have several knitting projects just waiting, tempting…

So what do you do about sleeve syndrome?! As soon as I get there, I just lose all my steam. Knit summer tops you say? But I’m such an icicle, I need my heavy sweaters… I could do the sleeves first, but I tend to have length issues when I do. I need to set up some sort of reward system perhaps? I feel really silly working on one project, while my mind is all buzzing about another one that I’d rather be doing. Not very zen. I wanna be zen! So what do you do when one sleeve turns out too thin, the other too wide (not on the same garment thank goodness) and the body has stretched in width (on the garment that has too thin sleeve – but will the sleeve grow too?). You get REALLY bored!

This is just the very short immediate list. Oh boy, you should see the other one!

  • Sleeves on orange sweater
  • Sleeves on blue featherweight cardigan
  • Blue reverse sweater
  • Felted bag
  • New soft collar for ugly scratchy sweater

I felted the sweater, which I didn’t remember had no sleeves. I’d meant to use those sleeves for the shoulder strap. It also shrank A LOT. Well, that’s what felting does, stupid… So, now I have to knit some kind of strap, then felt THAT, before I have my bag. Which incidentally won’t be big enough for its intended use I think… Anyway, not the quick and dirty project I had in mind! For some reason, second hand stores here don’t have any wool sweaters, it’s all bleeping acrylics. I guess it’s a good thing though, I don’t need any storage space for felted items-to-be-turned-into-cool-stuff. I may just cut off the buttons and save those, you know. I know a cat or 3 who would love a new sweater.

I need a magic wand to finish these UFOs. And not one of those with a knob and a number on the end.

And now to go frog the too wide sleeve. In laceweight on 3 mm needles…. Wax on, wax off….. Yes, I did read that book up top. All looks so simple on paper, yes? Actually, maybe I’ll just keep knitting and accept what I get.

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Projektbunke-projekt

Så blev det lige tid til lidt stilletid, læs og strik, få has på nogen af de halvfærdige ting (så jeg kan starte 10 nye, ikke?). Jeg prøver at øve mig i at gøre få ting og gøre dem færdige frem for at rende mellem 25 forskellige projekter og få stress som jeg plejer. Jeg kan tilsyneladende ikke tænke langsomt, men måske jeg kan lære at opføre mig langsomt.

Det er ikke helt lykkedes mig at blive færdig endnu, selvom jeg har adskillige strikkeopgaver som ligger og frister! Jeg ved ikke helt hvad der sker, men så snart jeg når til ærmerne, længes jeg bare efter nye projekter. Hvilket er skørt, for ærmer tager jo ingen tid i forhold til kroppen, få dem dog overstået! Og hvad sker der så? Jo, selvfølgelig bliver det ene ærme for smalt og det andet for bredt (dog ikke på samme trøje), i min iver for at blive færdig. Og så tager ærmer pludselig meget lang tid, især med mønsterstrik som man er blevet rigtig, rigtig træt af. Nogen som har en tryllestav til låns? (ikke en af dem med numre på) Ja, og selvfølgelig er kroppen på det smalle ærme vokset i bredde helt af sig selv, men kan man forvente at ærmet også gør det?!

  • Ærmer til orange sweater
  • Ærmer til blÃ¥ cardigan
  • BlÃ¥ omvendt sweater
  • Filtet taske af sweater
  • Strikke ny blød halskant til kradsende, grim, men varm trøje

Dette er den meget korte liste – I skulle bare se den lange… Mht. at filte en taske, ja, jeg havde overset at der ingen ærmer var pÃ¥ trøjen, de skulle have været brugt til skulderstroppen. SÃ¥ nu skal jeg pludselig til at lave en skulderstrop af noget andet, det tager lige mere tid end beregnet. Eller ogsÃ¥ klipper jeg bare knapperne af og gemmer til noget andet og giver trøjen til kattene.

NÃ¥, det blev sÃ¥ til en rapport om, hvordan man IKKE bliver færdig med sine UFOer… I gang med at trevle ærme – i lacegarn pÃ¥ pind 3. Zen, tænk zen…. wax on, wax off.

Hm. Måske få projekter slet ikke giver mindre stress end mange?

Vidste du, at man kan kommentere min blog uden at være wordpress medlem? Bare udfyld navn er nok. Det er så hyggeligt med dialog fremfor monolog!

Sweater SAL 1

I’m participating in a sweater spin-along with the Danish Spinners, a somewhat long project for most of us since we all pretty much try to do 100 projects at a time….

Originally I just wanted to spin these 4 chunks of Shetland wool, dye the white and the others as is. But… I couldn’t really get started on the browns… I also didn’t want to knit a stranded sweater. I’ve had various ideas how to design a pattern using the 4 shades without making it look like Fair Isle, but… Continue reading “Sweater SAL 1”

Where’s my summer at?

Finally got as far as finishing the bodies of two spring/summer garments, for cool weather since frankly it’s been spring into autumn so far.  🙁 What happened to sitting in the garden, in the shade dead hedge (oh wait, the hedge all died, no shade), cool drinks, Ravelry on the laptop, piles of yarn and fiber, solar dyeing in glass jars to my heart’s content?

So anyway, here’s where I’m at and I’m very pleased with Mimi’s ability to help me with shaping a sweater along the way. No more trying to see my own back in a mirror and getting my measurements totally mucked up. I’m quite into getting sweaters that are not tents but not super clingy either, testing various methods to learn.

The orange thing is a cotton/alpaca blend, (Linky in Danish for those not on Ravelry) a bit splitty to work with (loose ply, many threads) but very nice to the touch. I hope the zigzag  of increases and decreases will help it not droop or lose shape. Pattern is by Marianne Isager knit from the top down. I need to either boil-shrink the castoff or do it again, but otherwise I’m quite happy. The blue cardigan is knitted with Wollmeise lace yarn, only 125g to the body! (edge needs a bit of blocking to lose the ruffles).

Both will get half or 3/4 sleeves. Eventually. No, really, I’ll get on it. Maybe the forecast for July is all a fake and this nastiness will continue for all eternity ;)  Tomorrow is forecast lovely temps of 25 C AND strong winds. You just can’t win it seems?! *mutter* I didn’t make the curtains for my pavilion yet (and half our hedge died, remember), another dead hedgeso I guess knitting outside will be a bit of a nuisance.

Maybe I’ll cook up some silly blog posts instead. Beware…