Soon it begins

One and a half hours to the start of the 2006 Knitting Olympics. And I finally belong to a team: Team Iceland.

I feel so secure and unalone. My other teammate is Cassie, who is knitting an Icelandic lopi pullover for the olympics.

I was thinking about how us Europeans have a head start since people elsewhere are either sleeping or working during the opening ceremony. To those I only have this to say: Mwahahahaha!

No, just kidding. I hope everyone wins :-)

Update at 20:17 : Obviously the gods did not find my joke funny. My olympic project is the lace leaf sweater, but I adapted it for knitting completely in the round. I had carefully calculated everything and written down the pattern, but it seems I have forgot the notebook in which all was written at work. What is a girl to do? Have some redwine and see if she can figure out the pattern again.

Busy busy

I have been an enthusiastic knitter lately. So enthusiastic that I hardly did anything else during the weekend and even forgot to go to a dinner party I was invited to on sunday. How is that possible?

After learning who my sockapaloooza pal is, I’ve been planning her socks and I’m really excited but a little bit afraid she might not like them. I was so happy to read that she likes lace socks because I’ve been dying to make some for a while. In fact I am really into lace at the moment. Her color selection is also great, which is definitely a bonus. I spent some time at the yarn shop trying to find the nicest yarn in the best color, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any in her favourite color, or lets say I didn’t particularly like the shades of that color which they had in the shop. I ended up buying yarn in an aquamarine color which I just love love love. I couldn’t resist. She also said she likes alpaca, so that’s what she’s getting. I myself have only recently learned of its existence, and I must say that my sockapal has changed my life, spoilt me for good. It’s oh so soft and beautiful, I keep staring at it and stroking it.

Having the yarn, I naturally could not wait to cast on. I decided to try out these Japanese Feather socks and they turned out to be fun to knit and the pattern looks cool. I decided to make a test sock first and follow the pattern to the letter. I can already see that I’ll have to make a few modifications so that it will fit my dear pal. Here’s a picture of the progress, I’m starting the heel now

Incidentally the sock fits me so far. Oh, what a shame ;-)

I ordered some postcards from Iceland to send along with the socks, and they came with the mail today. Naturally, most of them have photos of Icelandic sheep on them. They are so adorable and hilariously looking! (Although I did see a picture of a Merino sheep the other day and WOW, did that one look a magnitude funnier!). Since I had to order for at least $15, I bought some souvenirs (it’s difficult to buy $15 worth of $0.40 postcards!): a “friendship” pin with an icelandic and *** flag (where *** is the country of origin of my pal – I’m afraid to reveal anything at all), and a fridge magnet with a sheep on it. Sheep sheep sheep.

I pretty much finished my lopi sweater in the beginning of the week. I’ve washed it and it’s now taking aaaaages to dry, the poor thing, it’s been almost 48 hours now and it’s still damp. I’m such a sissy – I didn’t dare to tumble it in the washing machine.

I finished one wrist warmer or gauntlet of muffatee or fingerless mittens or … there are so many names in english and I have no idea what the difference is. These have been progressing quite slowly since it’s been my bus project. Apart from in the beginning, I’ve only knitted them on the bus on my way to work, and that’s only 20 min each way every day. I think it looks lovely.

The pattern can be found here, although I did some modifications. If you want them, just let me know.

When I was in the yarn shop, I also bought some mohair on offer, it seems that I’m really into blue these days. I would like to use it for a lace scarf, but there were only two skeins of that color left and I’m not sure it’s enough. Each one is about a 100g. It’s a bit risky to start the scarf and run out of yarn in the middle of it. That would be really very frustrating!

Of course I bought more stuff at the yarn shop. Is it at all possible to go to a yarn shop without going crazy?

Cast off

Phew, I cast off the green monster lopapeysa. Not that it’s a monster at all, green monster just sounds good. I decided to reknit the ribs on the sleeves and body, since I wanted them longer. I have something against it when sleeves end at the wrist, I want them to reach to the thumb. It might be a suppressed complex, since for my small size, I have abnormally large hands and they look a bit like I’ve been working in a factory all my life, or handwashing a lot of stuff. The body was also too short in my opinion, even though I added 5cm to what the pattern gave. Anyways, it’s looking good, I tried it on and it fits – hooray! Now it’s just the weaving in of thousands of ends.

The weekend was beautiful. The weather was perfect, a bit cold, blue sky, white snow. I also finished some stuff. I had some extra Smart yarn in colors which pretty much can only be used for kidswear. So I knit a hat for Liisa (my supervisors daughter):

There is a bit of a story. In the autumn I knitted a beautiful lopapeysa for Liisa, but as luck would have it, it was too small. That’s a nice thing, giving too small clothes to people, ha? I’ve been feeling a bit bad about it, hence the hat.

I also finished (finally) the lopi coat and I love it immensely, it’s so warm and cozy! Instead of buttons I used beads as buttons. After wearing the coat a few times it isn’t working all that well out, so I’m still thinking how I should solve this problem. The thing is that now that I’ve decided not to use conventional buttons, I really don’t want to do it. Yes, I’m a stubborn Icelandic sheep.

On sunday, Frank and I exchanged favors. I cut his hair, and afterwards we went down to Merihaka and took some pictures of the coat. Jeez, the weather was nice. Here’s me and the lovely power plant in the background:

and here’s me again with an innocent, downwards gaze, otherwise known as “the sunlight and it’s reflection off the snow are blinding me and I need to look at the gray pavement in order to keep my eyes open”.

Now I’m getting all excited starting some new projects.