The most exciting thing that happened in all of April was… a yarn exchange. You read that right, there is a nice women from the States who offered to exchange some yarn with me. We were going for something like 5 skeins each and then just send it to the other. Instead, we went a bit overboard and I might’ve asked for a sweater quantity of Loft somewhere along the way. I decided differently in the end, but more on that later.
Author: sarah
“Oh, it’s that time again!”
That’s what my boyfriend answered on Wednesday evening when I told him that I was sick of knitting sleeves.
He might have also called it “phase four”. I didn’t even know there were phases! He explained that there was always a point when I would be sick of the thing I was currently knitting and complaining that I was sick of the garment/sock/etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I love knitting. Read more
Long time no see
What happened meanwhile? I finished my Conic (and still haven’t taken pictures of it) which took me maybe five months? I knit three pairs of socks the week before Christmas. Lesson learned: Prepare your presents beforehand. Perhaps I can stick to this next year.
The boyfriend and I were at the 30C3 in Hamburg and guess what? There were lots of knitting courses! Little side note, a conversation with a friend went as follows:
“I heard you wear at a knitting workshop!” – “Of course, I’ve been to all of them!” There was Yarnbombing, short rows, knitting machines, you name it. But there were also other fun things to do like lock picking, listening to talks and of course meeting people.
On my needles: Winding Way and Conic
Last year Christmas surprised me when it came around the corner, so I started earlier this year with Christmas knitting. Yesterday I started this beautiful sock, designed by Emily Wessel of Tin Can Knits. I mixed her pattern up a bit, because the socks are for my dad and he doesn’t like patterns on top of his foot.
Yarn is Wollmeise Twin in Mont Blanc. Although I very recently didn’t have any nice words for the thinner Wollmeise qualities, this yarn totally changed my mind. It has less yardage on a skein than the 100% Merino yarn, but is so much more comfortable to knit with! Twin is very tightly wound and has a nice spring, so you hardly notice that you knit something – it’s wonderful. Definitely not my last Twin project!
The other project I started during the conference week is my Conic, design by Cookie A, who is better known for her sock designs. Last year she released a clothing collection, and this cardigan has been in my knitting queue ever since.
I had a few differences with this pattern. When I first tried it, sometime last winter, I couldn’t get the right stitch count for the second(!) row, no matter what I did. Turned out I had knit pfb instead of pfbf (increased just one instead of two). Obviously I needed to write Cookie herself an email to realise that. *cough*
Plus, it had been the wrong yarn. I had used Wollmeise Pure on my first try, which was way too slippery. Now I bought Holst Garn Coast for this in the colour-way Blackcurrant. 
Today Plucktember starts and although I probably won’t have time to knit a second Monomania, I will certainly knit the Westknits MKAL in Plucky Feet. Totally looking forward to this, September will be – wait for it — awesome!
First foray into lace knitting
Yesterday I finished my first lace shawl! Actually I still cannot believe that I was the one who knit this!
This is the first rather big piece I finished this year (see my previous post), so it not only makes me a bit proud but also content to be able to wear this.
On top of this, I always thought of lace as the master class of knitting. Perhaps I can call myself an intermediate knitter now?
Now, please excuse me while I wallow in the feeling of lace around my shoulders. :D
Being frustrated
Recently I’m highly frustrated. All around people celebrate their birthdays or want to marry, or even worse: people want me to marry. Next week, there’s a conference I co-organized together with other volunteers and that’s also very relaxing keeping me frustrated.
On top of that, I can’t seem to get any knitting done. Or rather, anything finished. That doesn’t really lower the frustration level, I tell you.
For example, in January I started this sweater in light fingering weight yarn (!) that turned out to be too small at the waist and too big at the shoulder part.
Then I knit a Toujours sweater that has rolling edges and is also too wide in the upper area.
My latest failure is a Monomania cardigan that I knit from stash yarn, where I decently swatched and blocked, but when I tried to join the shoulders it was all waaaay too small because my gauge had changed!
All I could finish knitting this year is four pairs of socks! Honestly?!
Well, what does one do when one gets frustrated? Exactly, shopping!
I got myself this yarn and pattern kit. They are fingerless mitts in lace weight yarn by Bombella on Etsy.
A beauuuuutiful geometric brooch by Parker and Lou-Lou which arrived in no time at all but I didn’t get to take a picture, yet.
And most recently a knitted necklace by Amy Lawrence
Let’s not talk about the yarn purchases. I plan to knit until the end of my lifetime, apparently.
Meanwhile, I spent my time knitting my first lace shawl. It took me three false attempts to get really started, but now I’m happily ploughing along.
It’s Rappaccini’s Garden Shawl by Anne Podlesak:
I can happily announce that I’m midway through the last repeat and then there’s only a lace edging keeping me from completing my first all-over lace project. So perhaps it’s not the knitting I fail at but the measuring. I swear I will properly have myself measured by the boyfriend when all this craziness is over! *shakes fist*
There are people
… who amaze me sometimes!
Like this vlogger who was a recommendation by youtube.
Go watch it. There are anime-style real life videos to be seen!
His drawings also remind of Botanicula, the video game. As you can see in this video.
Oh, and have you met Grace already? If not, you surely missed out on something!
Recently…
… out of my oven:
A friend asked me for “an easy recipe for simple cupcakes” today. I got so frustrated searching the Internet for hours that I had to make myself one of the recipes that I sent her. People constantly nag me for recipes, but the truth is I simply follow other exciting recipes I find through foody sites.
Good for her that today was the first day since Friday that I felt somewhat better. I came down with a bad cold exactly when my holiday started, thinking that I was the only one in my family to survive this half-winter without any sicknesses. :(
…off my needles
My boyfriend ‘got’ me this awesome SLR camera lately. It’s like Christmas came early (or belatedly?), because I wanted an SLR since I was allowed to drive a car (which has been quite some time now). I say ‘got me’ with quotation marks because it is the exact same camera he owns, but brand new that he bought second-hand from one of his friends. I totally don’t mind not having guarantee or anything, because I’m sure that the boyfriend will look out for my camera as well as he did for his own up until now.
Oh, and we’re still re-decorating our apartment. Last week I took a short trip to IKEA and got us a Billy bookshelf, which weighs 40 kilos! Crazy me was too stubborn and couldn’t wait for it to be in our flat and carried it all by myself. You cannot imagine the pain I had in my arms for three more days!
Christmas presents
This year I will certainly receive many presents for Christmas, but this is something I’ll give to my boyfriend.
A leather-clad felt Kindle case for his new e-reader as soon as it arrives. It won’t be finished for Christmas because I don’t have the true sizing of the reader itself. (Amazon has different measurements on its product pages.) What did I want to say? Oh yes, of course! Merry Christmas everyone!
Madonna’s Concert in Cologne (picture-heavy)
Yesterday was a looooong day for me. After only 4 hours of sleep I stood up to go grocery shopping. Why I did this? Well, I simply needed some things to get through 5 hours of waiting. Waiting? Yes! With about 100 other people I stood in a queue for the standing room for the long-awaited Madonna concert.