Party party :)

Worked this morning, then we took the bus to Stockholm to visit Karna and Anders and their waffel party! The party has evolved beyond the waffels, via some red wine, into a full scale party! Lots of people, new and old friends and complete strangers. Linus finally fell asleep and we tucked him in on a pile of blankets on the host's bedroom floor. It'll be interesting to see how he'll handle sleeping around a lot of people!

No crafting today, but last night I made a necklace, a bracelet and a pair of earrings for Karna, she had her birthday yesterday :) She was happy with her gifts :) Feels really good when your friends appreciate handmade gifts!

Was at my LYS today looking for yarn for a hat for me. It'll be a beanie and I want it black with plum stripes to match the Deep Purple- Smoke on the water mittens. But no plum yarn in the entire LYS!! I'll try to locate som here in Stockholm tomorrow, or I'll just order some online.

Got my Ribbed spring-y socks knitting in the bag, but am a bit hesitant whether to take it out or not. The party perople might think I'm a real geek or they may be offended (you never know what make people upset...). Well well, DH and Anders are playing cards, so I might just take it out and sit and watch them :)

All for now. No pictures today.

Weekly update

My once daily blog has become more weekly. Not really intentional, but because of the usual lack of time due to parenting, accepting too many embroidery/sewing jobs and an urge to acctualy create something for myself...

My self striping OnLine socks are growing, I just turned the heel of the second one, and the gussed decreases will go really fast since they are the most fun of the whole sock! I just love the way the k2t's and s1,k1,psso looks and how nicely they form a triangular shape! I even thought of a name for the socks, the Ribbed Spring-y socks!

Yesterday I took a dive into the ocean of beads! I made my first necklaces and a bracelet, and I will definitely be doing this again!! I gave one of the necklaces to Nette, as it matches the earrings I gave har earlier. The other one, and the bracelet, I made for my mom, who celebrates her birthday tomorrow.

Thats all for now, I have to work too :) I might not post tomorrow, sice we are invited to a waffel party at Karna and Anders'!

Towel swap

As I wrote in my last post, I got a package from Lisa. It also contained the towel swap we have been doing "on the side".

I recieved two very nice dark blue towels, one big and one small, with boyish embroideries. Exactly what I wished for! These are going to be Linus' bedtime bath towels.

Thanks Lisa for the beautiful towels, your's are coming as soon as I have finished the embroidery!

Valentine's swap

This Wednesday I finally recieved my valentine's towel from Lisa! It was not her fault it was a month late, it got held up in customs, and after some phone calls and some email communication, they finally released it free of charge. You might think they would have their hands full trying to stop drugs and other illegal things coming across the border, but no, they had to snatch my valentine's gift... Anyway, here it is! Thanks Lisa for a beautiful towel!

And a closeup of the cute embroidery:

E is for embroidery

I like embroidery. All kinds of embroidery. Both by hand and by machine. I have tried redwork, cross stitch, freehand embroidery and following drawed lines. And I recently bought a new embroidery machine, a Husqvarna Viking Designer SE, which is totally amazing! I used to have a Janome MC 300E, but I never really got along with it, so I sold it.

I mostly machine embroider towels for customers, as my creative time is somewhat non existing due to motherhood. But sometimes I get to make a pillow, a bag or a table cloth. I often download free embroideries from the Internet, but I'm becoming more and more picky, so I'm not downloading as much as I did when I bought my first machine.

One favourite embroidery site is Artistic Threadworks, their embroideries are cartoony and just sooo cute. With a membership you can download thousands of emboideries of good quality. Another favourite is Zundt designs, who are specialized in lace, and boy are they good at it!! I never bought anything from them, but I will, believe me... Soooo beautiful, I'm thinking of using some of them for my wedding gown!



In this photo you can see my beloved Designer SE and some multicolor redwork hand embroideries I'm making for a country quilt, patterns from Bronwyn Hayes.

Linus' grey sweater

About 2 weeks ago I finished the back of Linus' new sweater. It's quite narrow, it's hard to measure the gauge since it's so stretchy. I think I'll try to block the back and see if I can get gauge that way, otherwise I'll have to frog and reknit :(

Socks again

My latest project is a pair of socks, one down one to go. I have no pattern for these, but is picking bits and pieces I like and putting them together for my own socks. The leg is k3p1 ribbing, which is continues down the instep and top of foot. The heel is an ordinary heelflap/gusset heel and the toe is my favourite (*k6, k2t*, a plain row, *k5, k2t*, a plain row, ...). They are really fast to knit, the ribbing on the foot adds variety to the otherwise booooring knitting of the foot...

Syfestival

3-5 March it was Syfestival in Sollentuna, and as usual I spent an obscene amount of money on crafts...

It was me, mom, sis and gradma who set out for the festival. First we were dealyed due to an accident on the highway, then it snowed extremely much which slowed us down a bit...

We strolled around for a few hours and then we had lunch. After lunch the serious shopping begun! I bought:

• 8 skeins of worsted weight yarn for 4 pairs of socks for DH
• 4 skeins of OnLine Supersocke 100 in different colorways for 4 pairs of socks for me
• 2 skeins of really fine dark red wool, for a shawl I think
• 1 skein of natural wool to complete Linus' sweater
• 1 skein of natural wool for a hat for me
• A bag full of beads
• Bamboo needles and dpns
• Inox ciculars
• Row counter
• A gadget to put on your index finger to keep your threads organized when working stranded projects

Maybe it doesnt sound much, but it is! At least for me! My sis bought a really nice japanese book, I will post a pic when I borrow it from her.

When we were going home we couldn't find grandma... We looked everywhere and tried to call her cellphone, but no luck. After 30 minutes we found her sitting near the entrance waiting for us...

D as in Ducks

I'm really really late posting my D for the ABC-along!!! But here it is:



DH and I collect rubber duckies. We have a skeleton duck, a spiderman duck, a devil, an angel, an official duckrace duck, three baby ducks, a duck with feet, and several more. It all began with the duckrace duck sometime back in the 90's and then it just grew... We expand the collection anytime we get a chance, we even get ducks for christmas :)

Glad Raggs finished

Last Sunday, the 4th of March, I finished Glad Ragg sock #2! Well before the deadline! I really love my new socks!! They are only the second pair I knit with sockweight yarn and now I'm hooked...


Details: Yarn - Regia 4fädig col# 2137. Pattern - SixSox KAL february 2006. Needles - Inox 3 mm dpns.

Knitting Olympics - Wrap up

Ok. Knitting Olympics is over for this year. I set up a goal to make one sock and I did it and posted it.

I also recieved a gold medal (scroll down and look at the left side) and a nice Certificate of Participance (which is printed and placed first in my knitting patterns binder)! I didn't win anything in the drawings, but being a wuss, I feel I have won anyway!

Some of us in Team Sweden are acctually sending each other prizes! I haven't had time to go to my LYS and get "my winner" something yet, and I haven't recieved anything either, but I'm sure it will come...

If nothing else, I won new friends in Team Sweden!! It's nice to "know" some swedish knitters too!

Long time no blog, again...

Almost two weeks since my last post... We have been sick, again... DS was prescribed two different antibiotics, the first didn't work, but the second one did. And now he's teething.

Well, my days are filled :) I haven't even read any blogs for at least a week...

But now I'm back!! (At least it feels like it tonight) There will be more pictures and more posts coming up!