It is raining. I have just erased a long complaint. Decided that noone wants to read that crap, not even me. Look at Fen Bai peony. Looks weird. Ehh, knitting blog? Dyeing?.. 
Wonderful garden. Wonderful knitting. I have had a calm relaxing 3 day weekend (hey, it is midsummer, a very important viking tradition, where we usually get intoxicated with snaps, eat herring and fresh potatos with onions and gräddfil (sour cream). But instead of being on the boat, both my loved one and me just took it soo easy. Sleeping in the "baden-baden" chair in the garden, sniffing the peonies, and some knitting. So Chromatella is just fantastic tree peony. One of my favourites. Anyway, sorry Maria, did not mean to complain about the yarn. It will be excellent sockyarn as you said. It did colour great. 50% mohair and 50 wool. But some dead hair. So, what is dead hair? Isn't the whole thing dead? No, dead hair means that the animal is probably a bit old and the hair has died and fallen off by itself (but stuck in the fur). This means it does not suck up colour, and that it is a bit stiff and hard. During colouring this becomes visible, and is easy to pluck away. It probably adds strength to a sock, but might be a bit "itchy". It takes a trained eye to see. 
Anyway, I do recommend colouring. I would definitely do this again. Dripping on the yarn. Some postings below you can see the yarn that I died. Here (thanks for encouraging me, Hpnyknits, I first took a swatch picture in the Festiva Maxima peonies. But, a lazy day means both ripping weeds, and knitting. So, I just "had" to finish it before It is time for a new week.
Since it is only 100g all together, it is a very short sock. But, it looks great. I really like it. It was not what I expected. But, all my favorite colours is in it. Lime, Purple, violet, turqoise, blue. It will be a good sock. Except it is 100% wool, so this one will wear out, So I did extra strenght heel (you know, knit 1, slip one.. turn, purl the unknitted, slip in front etc..I'm extra proud I did it without pattern. But socks are easy to fit. (honestly, I did rip the heel up once..).. Well, I'm rested. Hold the tumbs (toes?) that I get the new job (it is still within, but definitely a new great boss!)
With patience wonderful Margret showed us the secrets of dying yarn and animal fibers. First step is to understand the basic colours. And there content. Like Ocra (yellow) has nickel in it (highly allergic for some) and that most dyes of this lot is actually food colouring (not harmless)... as a base. 
The great about the mixing here, is that you not only can mix 2 or three colours, but that you also have strength in % to think about. Check this next chart out, which has the same colours but in 0,1% and 2% (I think).
Check this out. You have three base colours, and you mix them 1 and 9, 2 and 8 etc..
The Färgkraft fantastic dyeing weekend (enough happenings to fill my blog for a long time) is growing on me. I realized I learned something. I realized that I should never dye when I'm tired, but only when inspired. I realized the possibilities - they are endless, exactly like the spinning and knitting experience. Anyway, this is how my yarn looked like before. The lime and grey are Färgkraft very special Swedish sheep furblend (pälsull). the white is alpacka, and the more yellow-ocra that you just see a glimpse of is real cashmere. There is also a white hank of Estonian 50% mohair and 50% wool from Maria G (sock yarn) in there.
And, basically you boil it between 80 and 90 degrees Celcius for an hour. (and using smart chemicals like Baylan, which aids the colour to join with the yarn at a lower temprature - meaning 80 is ok!)
The final lime really got smart with the lime. But bear in mind My contrasting colour was ment to be about the same green as the background, but as I said. I grabbed Marine blue instead of the lighter - plain blue. Now, afterwards a true turqoize could also have been great. Well, live and learn. I definitely learned something. And I'm so greatful. It was just that combination of total failure that overwhelmed me. It is over now. I got a cold instead. I have also learned that a cold is the body's "inner cry", a good defence of sadness. Sadness has nothing to do with this great course. It has to do with my current worksituation. My new manager makes life very hard for me. I'm just not ment to be controlled on a detailed level, and ask for permission to talk to people within the company. It seems so oldfashion and delimiting, I'm speechless. I just do not understand how these psychopatic men can be elected. They sure want to control the world. Have they ever heard the leadership words MOTIVATION and INSPIRATION? Well, In this context I think I just totally bummed out when my colour went wrong. But the great learning is - you learn from everything. And, Im warming up to this colour. It is definitely my hubby's favo.. He is what we in Sweden call "skogsmulle", which might be freely translated to forestgnom...but actually refer to a school that existed for minors (no, not the scouts or brownies), where kids go into the forest and learn to play and respect the wonders there... It was popular when we grew up (in the 60s. Hubby is still a tree-hugger. So with this, he will blend in with the fur and pine-trees.
We started the dying course with mixing some slimy stuff (algees?) in very thick (to stamp) and a more maple syrap thickness (for more control).. with the pulver dyes. Then we had a whole section of different silks, and some wool to test how it floated and behaved. You might be able to spot the crane (in dark) in the middle on the left, which is a silkscreen. We also discussed favourite colours, and you can see me going nuts here. My friend Tuula, was much more cool and collected and did this very planned and smart samples (writing the different colours). I especially like her square pattern. Easy to move into knitting.
This will be an excellent mitten yarn, where you create a lice (lus) or maybe two or three depending on your dots sizes and stick size. Cool? This special preparation, will make it easier to fix. You just steam-damp it in your "saft-maja" rolled into a cloth. (hmm steam it - I just do not know how to translate that. Sorry. But is not these colours just yummy for a sweater, or mittens (hmm only did 100grams so...)! Just lovely yummy yarn - all wool.
Also, all cloth got fixated the same way. Steam damping. Got one last picture of that. Of course it blurrs a little, but knitted it will look fine. Cannot wait to knit. Otherwise, I worked to 1.30, was up 6.30 today, and just got home 10 at nite.. Am I tired? You betja! 
Im exhausted. Spent 3.5 hours on a train with no windows and no aircondition, overcrowded around 40 degrees (and no water or service either!) And - my colouring went catastrofic. Why? Dogs- OverSensitivity/allergy - Medicine- tired- stressed- and general catastrophic expectatation made me mix marine blue with blue. 
I'm going to a course at FÄRGKRAFT (colour-power!) with Margret Kållberg in Töreboda (Lyrestad). I know everyone else is going either to Skåne for "Speede-tröjor" (Special Southern Sweden old age, looks a bit like the danish "Natt-tröjor", Night sweaters...) which is knitting on the thinnest needles with the thinnest yarn, one colour, but using purls to to star patterns, and It uses embroydery bands to decorate the end of the sleeves and the square front neck. It is usually tight and fitting with one button and a opening in the back to. Well, I have already been on two courses in Speede, and even if I really come from Skåne (dad's side) so, It is on my list. But not now. The others are doing a one day cruise to Åland. Not a bad idea. Probably very nice too. Well, I decided I would go - many month ago. I will learn more about colouring from one of the masters in Sweden. See some of her colour mixes at YlloTyll here. My plan is to bring some of the tricky yarn I have not been confident to colour yet. My cashmere for instance ;-) and some alpacka. Dearest Ms hpnyknits, I guess I'm lucky! You bother to comment on my blog. I do have a friend far way acorss the world. Knitting is great. I love my garden. I have someone (between puppy and Ewok - yepp, my husband) that really likes me. And - today, when my work day felt like "disastero", some project manager walked in - and want me to go to US, North Carolina. Do they have yarnshops? suddenly life felt so much better. Doesn't matter how many peonies or yarnballs you have, if you cannot fully enjoy it, grasp it, let it come inside and WARM your heart it is never enough. I have this theory, we have a tendency to long for things we do not have. 
Lilacs in blume. I have "Beauty of Moskow", "Katherine Havemayer", "Mme Lemonie", "An denken an Ludvig Spät", here is "Pink Glory" above, and below "Sensation" one of my favorites colourwise. And then two "farmer lilacs" that smells wonderful. So, I'm confessing not knitting! Im killing lice on my roses, death to the lily beatle, and then just drawing weeds. But the heat. It is frying my brain. Terrible and fantastic work-day. Not even trying is enough some days. A lot of people are ready for vacation, grumpy men... In the middle of the day, an email came from 
colourway. Fast, nice and reliable. OK. Spanish word of the day (hubby's fault) Ovillo - which means garnnystan (swe) or hank, yarn ball. Heat. I blame it on the heat. Spanish vibes... Anyhow, my computer is also adding on the heat in my lap) Notice, in Sweden aircondition inside is less near null (we might have it in our cars!)
dwell on that. Spin-off had a great discussion about balancing the yarn. Great, more technical articles and hints. Well, we were discussing peonies. This yellow one is called P. "High Noon". Bloomed for the first time. I have a long list of Peonies. 
(Molly the witch P. Mlokosewitchi) (which also has a beautiful yellow, sulfur colour), 3 white in blooming right now P. Fen Dian Ban (Phoenix white), P. Goidaishu, and one more...Just leaving are P. Potanini bluming for the first time (redish brown), two P. teunifolia (dillpion), one simple and one double, P. Mai Fleury are showing their last. And this is just a sample. I got as maniac on my peonies as I am on yarn.
Isn't it great. Mother-in-law's fitted poncho. It started like the shadow knitted shawl, and she wanted it to be in place, so it became a poncho. In this picture you can't really tell the "shadows". But does that matters. Well, we were sailing today, and I got coffe too late last nite, so I have just slept for 6 hours. So, I'm soooo tired. 
So, one day cold. One very long day in Ronneby (yepp, plane again). Knitted on Ronneby Square (people turned their head). Taxi did not want to drive me to airport, but had me wait for 40 minutes (that is small town rude for you!) But, met an ex-co-worker that took over the local yarnshop. Into Garnstudio, Idena and not much more. Some nice knitted sweaters. Some linnen cloths. But, just not that "umpf" a yarnoholic like me look for. And maybe she was not enlightened by her surroundings, that was (according to her) an acrylic set of old ladies. Small-town. Sigh. So, today my long awaited package from Vienna was picked up. A friend carried: a pair of Birkenstock in pink flowers "Papillon" (great sandals!) a whole bunch of dirty clothes, and: One box (10 balls) of Filatura di Crosa, 100% mercisered cotton in a beautiful blend of lime and greens, and purple and blues. Also, some hot pink turquoise (3 balls) and a yellow,pink small ball. Great! Like Christmas in the midsummer! 
Strange long weekend. I'm such a cool chick. Hey I'm the captain!Maybe I like it best at home. Nothing like a short sailing adventure, to realize how great it is drawing weeds out of the garden. Cleaning up the guest room, mother- and father in-law is coming! Cleaning meaning- throwing out about 15 large pots with geraniums from the guest room and washing the entire place, throwing out some house spiders of fist-size (ok, not THAT big, they just felt big), nothing like the huntsman we had in our house when we lived in Melbourne, Oz!
What a weekend. We took our lovely boat out for the first sleep-over in new islands. The sun was shining, and the wheather report was wrong about the wind direction (it turned the wrong way in the night!). So we were weaking up 7.00 sharp by one of our ties, had loosened up to from the cliffs. Well, lets just sum the ordeal up with my beloved took a dip in the very ice-cold water. And we got sunburned, and I have been knitting like a frantic. Great sailing home, but now both of us just fell asleep for hours in the sofa (it is a big one). So, now Julia knitting has reached 40cm, and should be parted into back and front (sleeves starting). And - we are one experience richer. It is cold in the sea in Sweden beginning of June, and do not trust the weather report- Tie good - And - if you only have one knit with you - bring the pattern along ;-) I'll return with some fresh pictures and more progress. But the sofa is still floating. (A common aftermath of being at sea!)
What an intense day. Yesterday was a bit lazy, but hey today, an intensive supervision meeting, enjoying my first paper acceptance... work work... but then late I finally went to the machine-knitting group, I have wanted to attend for such a long time at Stickbutiken, now owned by a new cheerful owner,and the yarn content is slowly being more updated. Really great. We looked at the art of machine knitting with this extra bed (wow, now my machine-knitting english really is limited).. that in swedish is called "resår-bädd", (in principle, lets you do purls....) what a trick. Do not think machine-knitting is easy, oh now,hand-knitting is so much easier. Do not think it is faster, well it will definitely take some time and a lot of experience to get faster. If you are lucky you might to some great squares. So Machine-knitting is like a sewing machine. Does not make designer outfits by itself. And this wonderful group, I just blush. I realize I am such a beginner. But, I might finish the christmas sweater on time to this christmas ;-) But Ann-Sofie had knitted in the round, with shetland yarn. And I must say, I feel more and more sure that I will do my Catherine Parr in some other yarn. Gee how difficult it is. So difficult..But I think I really want to think hard about this decision. Very hard. I love thinking about it. When it is started it is different. I want to linger in the moment of decisiontime - all options open. So, curious about the sweater? It is "old" more than 15 years... one of my "free patterns". It also have a long cotton skirt in green to it. But, I have never been happy with the neck, so I'm ripping it up to fix it. One of the summer projects. And soon it is a long holiday weekend in Sweden (again). That is wonderful. Really great. A knit-weekend on the boat.
Big decision time. Time to lay my Rowan Julia aside, and get into the Tudor Roses KAL! Winding up the Catherine Parr yarn. This means, go go go! I'm still totally in the air with yarn, but hey... inspired by... Then the jetlag hits me and my brain zoomes out to a dragon- Chinease - red red... and gold. In my dreams I see silk being spun and how this becomes a beautiful silk sweater, and I rembember that I also have started a green recycle silk sweater. It is in my yarn room. It knits fast. But, I only knit on it for a few rows each day. Swatch swatch...Hmm.. Still need to finish my muscat. And my circular (Anne Modisitt) from Vouge. By the way, what happened to my Vouge subscription?
Missing some blogging action, so, here is more reports. Hardly any time to knit on my busy trip, but it was morethan 11 hours on the plane, which made some slow progress to my Rowan Cottonsoft 4ply Julia, that I knit in my size which means 1 extra pattern on each side. Of course I also change the pattern to circular. I laugh at myself, I thought I should finish it before I was coming home, and planned for a second knitting... but I restrained myself. So, have I knitted 30 cm?
Well Julia close up (yes you can enlarge the picture by a click) really show how endless this knitting is going to be. I have a bad habit of starting knitting that goes on "forever". So when the colour is totally out of fashion, then they will be ready. Please comment, it is so nice to have contact with the world.
I will give you a long review of Vienna yarnshopping, but this is an exiting picture from Shanghai. And I must say, what an exotic place. Thanks for the global Starbucks that at least gave me great coffe in both Vienna and Shanghai. And the dim sims were fantastic. And the wheater. I passed ONE yarnshop in the taxi near Deng feng road, But, when the taxi driver does not understand one word, it is hard to ask them to stop and wait. The Vienna shopping was better. It started horrible (but a great dome)...but it turned out when I gave up yarn chasing I stumbled into MANY exotic yarnshops. And when my dear friend volunteered to carry some of my stuff back to Sweden (since I was going for Shanghai shopping), it was a given hit. I just got some great cotton from Filatura the crosa). To remind you, the shops are close and around the west station..... Neubaugasse had two shops and Maria Hilfer Strasse had some (according to rumour- since I had my whole research bunch on the lookout for me ;-) WEll Taylor won American Idol, and his last performances were fantistic (I saw Elliot leave in China!) so, good choice. But I think if I would buy a record it would be Chris'! Anyhow, now it is time to check the sailboat, and kiss my hubby a bit more, the heart really grows fonder with a bit of distance. But I will be back with my progress on Julia! And pictures of my new yarn (when I have got it from my friend!)
So, the studentjubilee, interesting statistics...8 from our bunch of definitely above 25 some, zero (!!) from parallell and 5 from the other parallell. Just a very lousy outcome. Then I realized, Hey, it is noisy, we can't really speak with each other, the food is good, but I know noone outside my class, since I went to the US as an exchange student (Fresno, CA - class of 80!) so, I went only one year with them. I understand that it would be more fun just to meet. without the surrounding. Wow, how your memory goes after 25 years. So. Dear N3b in Karlstad (find your way here yet?). You were amazing! I think I got back some great memories of that time, and it is such a warm smart gang of people. Of course my throat choaked, and I feel that ache coming on at night... so I was early (around 2ish in bed!) Well, good hotel breakfast (a picture from Statt - my room) and then I went to the Värmland museum, which had a GREAT exhibition on. 
Ohh, so summerish outside. My throat aches and my eyes are swollen from the birch pollen. I'm still thinking about Catherine Parr, but, you have learned by know, I'm a bit crazy with both yarn-shopping, and cardi planning. I have about 15 hanks of linnen yarn. Here is the Karin Öberg spun from Holma Hälsingland in my favourite green. Also, the orange was one of those crazy internet sales, where I bought 10 hanks Rowan summer tweed. And I do not even like the colour, but I guess Im trying to get used to it. In the latest Rowan magazine is a fantastic pattern for summer tweed. Im definitely thinking about that one. Fair-isle and much more intrecate slip yarn in front to make pattern. Also you can see my new turquoise linnen yanr (yllet?) just on the edge. Yummy. Linnen knits up like cotton. No elasticy. But having only linnen means it is durable, and after a few washes and wears, it just gets more and more soft and beautiful. So, in right bottom corner there is one hank colinette, and very vague in the lower left corner is the Patagonian thick cotton in green and blue. In the middle is the Garnstudio silke-tweed. All from my stash. 
Wow, I dipped my feet in the Mediterrian.. sunshine, tapas, and cerveza, por favor. Americas Cup (sailing) in the background. Wow, My conference speach went great. I walked around the city (all closed) on sunday- then you cannot see any shops. Working all monday, and some morning hours before the flight back, I found (with bad spanish, and help from hotel) a shop. The owner's nose was so high up she was falling backwards (I suspect she did not like foreigners, and did not like to talk to non-spanish). She sold 100% acrylic yarn for 1 Euro (Yikes; it was terrible!). 
