Welcome 2011

Happy New Year!!!

I wish everyone a great start to the new year, may all your new years resolutions come true, except the ones that are not good for you. ;)

On Monday I will start blogging again after this very nice and calming vacation, though I have no idea how not to work, so while I have not spun anything I have knitted like crazy, new sweater on the way. :)

★ Christmas ★

God Jul!

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a calm and cosy christmas, and that you are enjoying lots of your favourite Christmas treats, this is mine; Cappuccino and a Lussekatt (a sweet bun, flavoured with saffron, shaped as a "cat?!").

Limelight

Some beautiful but sold yarns that never got their time in the limelight.

Blackboard

Under the Sea

Stained Glass

Ballet Slipper

Doomsday Winter

Aha, the doomsday winter is upon us again. And I don't understand why everyone is so surprised.  I was knitting long johns and buying a great big jacket long before anyone else understood.  I am not going to freeze in surprise any more winters. 

Wicked Witch of the West

My "knitted two at a time" socks are finished. I am very happy with the result and immediately started another pair in the same way, with the same pattern and a totally different yarn. A friend on Ravelry said that they reminded her of "Wicked, the life and times of the wicked witch of the west", a great book (and a musical, I understand) depicting the life and doings of the wicked witch of the west from "The Wizard of Oz". I have literally (ha ha) just finished that book a few days ago, what a coincidence, and I obviously had to name the socks after it. As we all know, Elphaba is as green as these socks. ;)

At my door

I love when the new wool arrives, and suddenly it has started arriving at my door from a truck instead of in my mail box, interesting, I have not started paying more postage or anything.  

When it has arrived I pour it all out on the kitchen table, then I divide the tops into more manageable pieces, 25 grams, and the happy puzzling begins. :)

Church Chairs

I have had a kitchen chair problem forever, never had a really good kitchen chair. I know what I like and Ikea just cant provide it! But my local church second hand store can!

I scored six of these very nice, heavy, well made and sturdy chairs from the seventies. I am very happy with my new comfy and broad chairs. :) 

(And yes I have played with Photoshop) 

 Crappy (but very beautiful) Ikea chair that just kept falling apart, now up for some kind of remaking, and probably new life outside.

Yarn Thursday

The batch for this week:

Synthetic Flavours

 Horror Movie 

 Frozen Vegetables (3ply)

 Camp Fire

 Storm

Still Hats!

Ok, hat number four: 

Can you actually have too many hats? Well, this one is in the very, very warm category, as in -10 to -20 degrees C, which I actually need living in Sweden. 

This is Alveare by Woolly Wormhead.

 I love the little ball at the end here, it is hollow! I was thinking of making a whole batch of them for christmas decorating.

Hats!

I think I have a hat knitting addiction. This is my third hat this year! Well, they all seem to have some minor flaw, not comfortable enough, not warm enough, makes funny things with my hair, so there is always a reason to knit another one. This is the first bigger thing I have knitted of my own hand spun yarn (Friday Studios), and also the first thing for me. I must say it is very nice to knit with, really I am not just saying that. :) 

 It is Grantham by Kristen Orme, a slouchy hat with earflaps, an adorable knot at the top.

This is the yarn before it became a hat, you never know what a yarn will look like all knitted up. Positive surprises.

Christmas Candy

I made some yummy christmas candy. That is a true christmas tradition, eating slobby and not very good home made candy. There always seems to be marzipan in them, I hate marzipan! But these little ones were actually very tasty! It is dried apricots dipped in orange infused dark chocolate. The apricots makes it a quite light snack and the orange enhance the fruity flavours, and chocolate, well you have to have chocolate. (the almond sliver is purely decorative.) The recipe said to use white chocolate infused with lemon, but I thought that would go in the to sweet and slobbery christmas candy category. This is my version.

100 g chocolate, preferably dark and fancy
250 g dried apricots, preferably organic
The zest of half an orange, organic if possible here to
The decoration of your choise.

Melt the chocolate, mix it with the orange zest and dip in the apricots to cover them in chocolate, put them on some parchment paper or something else suitable, let them set in the fridge, eat and enjoy!

Two at a time

This is a "sock blank", I bought it from Sock Blanks, from Sidney on etsy, it is sock yarn machine knitted into a rectangle, like a short scarf, with two strands of yarn held together. It is then dyed, in this case in this fantastic green and black pattern. With this you knit socks just by unraveling the edge. It is a marvellous invention!

 The two strands gets dyed together but one sits in front of the other so they become slightly different. The loops absorb the dye differently in different stages and produces a lovely mottled or spotty effect.

 With this I am knitting two socks at a time! This is my first (well, my first serious) try at this and it is going great. The fact that I don't have to keep track of two balls of yarn is helping tremendously and is making the experience very pleasurable. There seems to be a slight spiralling effect in the colours right now, I cant wait to see what happens when I get to the brighter green parts.

 The strands I am knitting with is this lovely "telephone cord" of curliness. Here you can see the colours and the colour changes better.

By the way, I am using the ultimate sock pattern. I got this from my mother in-law and also accidentally found it in a pamphlet I bought on sale. It is a "Svarta Fåret" "Regia" pattern and it is simply called Sockor (socks in Swedish) and can be found in "Regiahäfte nr 2". I know it is fun to knit socks with all kinds of patterns and colours, I have been there to, but for comfort and wearability, this is the sock!

Never ever...

...An outside market in wintertime again!!!

It was really nice to talk to people and I did sell a little, enough to make a profit anyway, but the main thing for me is that somebody wants my yarn. But it was way, way, way to cold! The energy just drains out of you in those temperatures. I think etsy is my native market. I got better during the second day at talking people in though, but I still feel like I am invading their space. 

 Don't I look happy, it is -10 degrees C and I am wearing everything I own. I am very, very glad I invested in that jacket and the furry boots.

 It was a cosy place to hold a christmas market though, we got a really good spot and they even built us these nice little roofs.

 We stood next to a nice man selling locally "collected" honey. There is such a difference, you should always buy honey from a small bee keeper, the taste is vastly superior. Sadly I don't use honey that much so it takes me a while to make salad dressing out of a whole jar.

The high point for the children was of course the pony rides. The parents had to drag the children away, horses and children equally sad from the separation. 

Oh, by the way, blame or praise Ola for the pictures, I was busy selling. He was a tremendous help during the weekend.

Onesies for adults

Oh! I would love one of those to lounge around in! :)

Sweatpants and hoodie in one! A bit expensive though, but they must be oh so comfortable.

Wool delivery

Yarns to be. :)

Gepardi

Finally my Gepardi is hanging on the wall. I just love this print, it is Theresa Moorhouse's "Sininen Gepardi" (Blue Cheetah) for Marimekko.

I mounted it by sewing two canals, one up and one down, and placing a round wooden rod in them. I placed little loops in the ends of the upper one and little hooks on the walls to hang it in. A'la the seventies. :) This way I can easily take it down and wash and iron it. 

I have a gepardi cheetah guarding my kitchen. :) 

 There is a gap in the colours here because I had to merge two pictures together. I could just not back away far enough to get the whole picture. :)