My weekend

This weekend has been long and slow... The whole family is sick and none of us has the strength to do anything. DS has an eye infection, an infection of the respiratory passage and a general cold, and the doctor prescribed penicillin. DH has a sore throat and achy ears, and I think my cold has evolved into sinusitis...

Well, enough wining! As I wrote in my last post I finished my Knitting Olympic sock on time!
I also signed up for the Quilting Olympics, but I didn't make that one... I began sewing a knitting bag, and it's not much left to do, but I'm just not up for it tonight. I'll settle for one gold medal :) I'll see if I can't finish it tomorrow.

I have also read a lot of blogs. I guess I'm kind of a voyeur, but I really like following other peoples lives, reading about what they do, how they fell, what their inspirations are and what they create! I also eagerly read whip up evry day, it gives me so much inspiration and so many new ideas!! I just wish the whip up team could give us a tip about how to find more time :)

I have begun my second Glad Ragg sock, but it doesn't have do be done until 31 march, so there is plenty of time! I guess I'll work on some other projects in between, as ususal.

Knitting Olympics - I did it!!

Tonight I finished my sock for the Knitting Olympics! I did it!! I won a gold medal!!



My challenging project was to knit one sock during the Olympics. "One sock?", you might say. "I can knit one sock in an afternoon!!". Well, I probably could too, if I could sit and just knit the entire day...

This was a real challenge for me because:

• I have never knitted in english before, so I had to learn.
• I have only knitted lace on a very easy scarf before, and this sock has lace on the leg.
• The pattern calls for beads, and I hade never knitted with beads before.
• My son got sick just before the Olympics, and still is, so I haven't had much time to knit.

But I did it! The knitting in english part was easy, I found a knitting terms glossary on the net, but the pattern was quite easy so I never needed it. The lace was also quite easy, I was fun and fast to knit. The beads. Well the beads didn't work out very well, since I didn't really know how to knit them. So I frogged the sock and started over without the beads (they were optional).

The pattern I used was february's sock from the SixSox KAL Yahoo group, called Glad Ragg. The yarn I used is Regia 4 fädig col# 2137, a greyish blue, and I used 3 mm dpn's.

Sick week

Yet another week passed and no posts... Linus is still sick, quite a bad cold. Poor child... On the top of that I was sick last week, got well, and during the night I got a high fever and a sore throat :( Plus that DH has a sore throat and a hurting ear...

Well, well. It will eventually pass...

I'm almost finished with my olympic sock, more about that in another post.

Busy week

Another week not blogging... It's been an ordinary working, parenting, sneeizing, sick child, knitting olympic week. Haven't had time to do anything at all, at least it feels that way.
Hope I'll have time to write more in the coming week as I really like writing and sharing my life with you...

Team Sweden

Today I discovered and joined the Team Sweden Blog! We are acctually quite a few Swedish olympic knitters out here, knitting along in the snow!

Go Team Sweden!

Linus' sweater

Another finished project. This is a sweater for my son. I knitted it for a size 1 year, but it's just perfect for him now at 9 months! It's really good I didn't make it smaller!

It's knit with Raggi from Järbo garn on 4.5 mm bamboo pins. The pattern is more or less my own. I looked at a pattern for a cabled sweater in Raggi for the number of stitches and decreases, but winged the rest.

I finished knitting it a while ago, and my mom just finished sewing it together (yes I know, I'm really spoilt :) )

Now that I see the picture, a pattern appears on the front of the sweater. It looks very nice, but it's totally unintendend! The yarn is multicolored, but I thought it was randomly!

Knitting Olympics has begun!

The opening ceremonies was held friday night local time in Sweden. I was really excited to cast on for my Glad Ragg Socks, but unfortunately my son had(has) a cold, so I ended up with a sleepy Linus in my lap instead of a knitting. Quite cozy :)

So, saturday night I began threading 260 rocaille beads on my sock yarn. The beads I bought are one size to small, but I didn't think it would matter that much. But it does. A lot. The beads are quite tight on the yarn, but I can still move them, so thy'll have to do.

I also had some difficulties when I was knitting the beads, since I didn't really know where on the purl stitch the beads are supposed to sit. After trying a few ways of knitting them, I placed the beads on the purl bump, because then they will show the most!

This is how much I have knitted this far

Feeling low and no knitting olympics...

Today I'm feeling sort of low... Had an all day argument with DH and it's not over yet :( And as usual it's about nothing!

DS is sick, a bad cold with a cough that hurts my lungs. Therefore, no casting on for the knitting olympics last night, he would only stay calm sitting in my lap and knitting is then off the menu. I'd really like to cast on right now, but then again I don't want to. I hate feeling this low... Maybe I'll just do it anyways, I really want to finish on time since I don't began on time!

C is for Chocolate

Oh, I almost forgot about posting my C in the ABC-along!

My C is Chocolate... And not just any chocolate, but expensive, filled ones. This chocolate shop is located in Gallerian in Stockholm and they sell GREAT chocolate! Doesn't it look yummie?!



The best chocolate shop in Sweden must be Elite in Karlskrona. That's where I had my first encounter with fine chocolate, and that messed me up for life :)

Knitting along...

Since I finished the Lovikka mittens on Sunday, I immediately threw myself into the next project. It is a really nice woolen sweater for Linus, knit from a natural colored one strand yarn, the color varies from white to medium grey, on size 3.5 mm needles. I had already knitted about 3 inches on this one, but had to frog it and cast on for a larger size. Children apparently grow!?

I began knitting on regular needles, but switched to a circular since I was bringing the project on the bus, and it fits much easier in my small backpack :) I knitted all Sunday night, the whole bus rides to and from Stockholm, half the car rides to and from Västerås, and during an episode of CSI last night. So far I have a little over 8 inches, and I need 4 more for the back. The pattern is really beautiful in it's simpicity, *k2 p1* repeat on all rows, ie you make a k voer a k, a k over a p and a p over a p. Picture will come soon.

However, I will put this one aside tomorrow and concentrate on the beaded lace sock for the olympics :)

Monday - serious shopping day

On monday I went to Stockholm with mom to do some shopping. And boy, did I do some :) I spent around $100 in Sweden's Craft Paradise #1, Panduro Hobby. I bought a ton of beads, some stamps and a hot glue gun. Fun fun fun!!!

I also found some clothes on sale, but they need some altering to fit better, esp the jeans... I hope I'll find the time soon!

We had late breakfast at a café, lunch at Taco Bar, and afternoon coffee at the same café. It was a long but very nice day, and we were both very tired when we got home. I spent the evening sorting my old and new beads in nice see-through boxes from Panduro. Oh, how I love the order among my beads now :)

Deep Purple mittens - Smoke on the water

Sunday I finally finished the Lovikka mittens I started last winter. I only had the embroidery and the tassels left. It's great to bring knitting projects to my inlaws, since my MiL watches and plays with Linus, I can sit and knit in peace :)

The mittens are made from a dark purple Lovvika yarn (really thick pure wool), dpn size 5 mm and black, grey and white embroidery yarn in pure wool. I think the name is quite cool! Deep Purple is kinda obvious, and Smoke on the water refers to the black/grey/white embroidery :)

The picture is taken in the sunshine and snow at my inlaws house.

Fuzzy scarf is ready!!

Late friday night I finished the most hated Fuzzy scarf! I swear I will never knit with a hairy, fuzzy yarn again! I was not very difficult, I just didn't like it. And what I hade the most is that mi dear sis finished a similar scarf in about 2 days... Mine took over a year (or about 2 weeks of knitting time...)

Now I don't know what to do with the scarf. I guess I will put it in the "last minute gift"-box and see what happens to it.

'Cause I'm a SixSoxer, yes I am...

Have you heard the song "'Cause I'm a hiphoper, yes I am" by Thomas Rusiak? If you haven't, find it and enjoy it!!!

Anyway... I joined the SixSocks KAL list! The idea of this group is that they release one sock pattern every other month, and you have 2 months to finish your pair of socks. If you finish on time and post both a progress and a finished photo, you are entered in the raffle. If you don't, at least you have a new pair of socks and you learned some new technique! It's a win-win situation :)

This month we are knitting beaded lace socks in ragg yarn, and this is the sock I'm knitting for the Olympics! I will post progress photos as I knit along.

I have chosen a greyish blue yarn, Regia 4fädig, and Gütermann Rocaille 9/0 beads in a shimmery pale yellow. I think it will look very nice! Too poor lighing right now, but picture is coming...

I will begin casting on tomorrow during the opening ceremonies! Can hardly wait...

Long time no blog

Hi folks, missed me?

It's been a really busy week here... Here comes the short short version.

Thursday - work
Friday - Lunch with Nette and the kids, then some work
Saturday - Work, and then off to the inlaws
Sunday - At the inlaws
Monday - Shopping in Stockholm with mom
Tuesday - Retailer meeting with Husqvarna Viking in Västerås
Wednesday - Working, plus Linus have a cold
Thursday - A day off, Linus cold worse

Thats what I've been up to! More specific posts are coming up, just keep reading :)

Journal Quilts

Early in January I found out about Journal Quilts, a friend wrote about it on a mailing list. I'd like to make the same approach to Journal Quilts as the woman in the link above, to explore new techniques, to mirror what happens in my everyday life, to sum up what I have learned and what could have been done diffrently.

And now it is already February, and I haven't made one yet... I guess what I really learned during January was how to blog, and how to find other people's (crafters') blogs. That might be quite hard to interpret in fabric... Maybe I'll have a go at it and make the first one a bit late. I still want them to be 12 in the end of this year!

Perhaps January's journal could be made using the new presserfeet I've got in the shop, and using some of the fabric I got in the Monthly scrapbag I subscribe to. Will think more about it in the morning...