Swedish Knitblogger who loves spinning, knitting, dyeing and yarn. I will do some other roundabouts about life too.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Enterlac -Malabrigo-Noro progress!

This is my latest new project, I just could not resist the soft Malabrigo wool. And Im so into turquoise. This colour is called "emerald". And it is just exactly the same as in Noro. As you can see Noro (183) is much more brown, black and grey, and very little lime - and turquiose. I love enterlac. It moves you into great progress. The problem is of course fixing the neck and sleeves. This time I have an even number of squares. An improvement at least. To be brutually honest: It is a bit strong in the colours. A bit too strong, and busy. I do not think I would have done it if I new the result would be like this. But, I think it will be one of those loved sweaters anyway. Cheerful. So I better finish it. It is a quick knit. 13.40 and the sun is almost setting in our horizon. It is very close to mid winter (the 21) when the day is the shortest. Talkning about december and winter holidays. I'm so stuck in the knitting Christmans calender. It is a bit quirky pattern. I'm still on dec. 4th. So behind. Not as smooth as I would expect. But, ok. Johanna is great as a person, I forgive anything. As usual, torn between the different knittings. Finish Enterlac or be done by christmas? Thank you for my well wishes. I do feel terrible. My head is ready to pop, ears, throat hurts, coughing is pain. Still fever, and my nose is read as Rudolfs. Already used up two packages of Kleenex. Better? not Really.
Enterlac, I think it is so fun. I feel sorry for people claiming their perfectionism prevent them from enterlac. They do not get it. It is just great. Try it. But use WOOL, not superwash or combed (kamgarn). That would not even out the special lifts.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Oh no, sick again - Paris in a fever

So,hectic at work at get back. My dear brother, the ARTIST Johan Mauritzson (my great birthday present from him on left!) came from up north for a visit. And I just got the worst cold, so I couldn't really talk. Such a sore throat. Now, I have to explain some things. My brother have a red shoe in his fridge. It is a long story, but, visiting Pompidou, the modern art museum in Paris, they had this giant shoe looking very similar, and my guess is that my brother, about 30 some years ago saw this when he was interrailing there. He does of course deny the connection.
But, the shoe (very clean!) is in his fridge. Un Object d'Arte! Anyhow, I was a bit bad yesterday, not only did I sneak off work a bit early, I also visit Maria's Yarn shop to have a good chat, and view her fantastic work. Im so impressed by her. She had knitted that fair-ilse from Loop-d-Loop, in an estonian yarn that has slow colour-changes. Just absolutely breathtaking. Of course the purpose was to buy Johannas knitting christmas calender. I confess. Im still on december 1. And decided I would stick to it.Knit it, and then open the next day. Then I just had to go to dear Nina at Nysta to make my malabrigo and Kureyon complete (I hate when I ran out in a sweater). So yarn shopping. Stockholm is so lucky! Ohh, I hate being sick. It was that rain and walking and bad belly, and all french kissing on the cheeks. The latter probably the reason, with too many hotel rooms and too little sleep, must be a good way to get some germs. Well, I have three packages of wool that I will take pictures on tomorrow. And of course the enterlac. Today I was just too bad to do it. Please excuse me. But still great Paris memories.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Back from Paris and some more Speede..

The classical picture. The new head-piece from France. And - this is me. Oh, I have missed the blogging. Actually I have been 3 days in Rijen (Breda) in Holland, and then 4 days in Paris. Work, but at least a weekend in Paris. And, It has been a lot of knitting. The new plane craze for water, makes them totally ignore wooden circular needles - equal size to pen.. so, I have done half an enterlac in Malabrigo (turqoise/Emerald) and Kuyreon (nr 183, that has just the same tinte of turqoise in it). Is it busy? You bet. It is a colour-chock. But Malabrigo get the best recommendations from me. Soft as a whisper, knits thick and filling, and is surprisingly long for a hank (usually thick yarn is so short). I pure pleasure to knit. Paris was raining (in picture it just cleared up), and my favourite food Beuf Tartar (sorry guys, it is RAW MEAT) was so tasty the first evening, that it was worth one day of very frequent visits to WC's. Say no more. At least it was only one end, so it was manageable. Anyhow, In the rush between packing, I remebered the name of where to go, but did not print the blog, so I had to phone to find it. After a day of chasing, we ended up at La Drougerie . Of course, this was a shop filled to the brim with goodies. It did a fine job presenting yarn (wool, alpacka, cashmere, cotton, blends) in the same colour-scheme. All hanging in hanks displayed. Unmarked yarn. You needed to stand in line for 30-40 minutes to get help. So, a weird experience, when I had husband (and a bunch of frustrated men) pacing outside the door when I had gladly said "it will only take 15 minutes dear". But being "etranger" is not always bad. I decided, and somehow got to buy some expensive cashmere (10 g, 4 Euro).
But the experience for me was the weaved silk-bands. This fits just right into my Speede-sweaters. So I bought a meter of this and that. Just great. Bon Marche? I wish. I was content.
I had my little bag - and HEY I have a yarn room.
So, How did my course-work look like? Half way through (I'm not finished) I have slaughtered a sweater (to practice before I knit the new), and done the band attachments and some stiches. This is how it looks like in progress... You will have more later. And I have so much more to show and tell. This blog will be busy the next days.