Future (knitting) plans

I am real into adding something that usually wouldn't be associated with knitting into my garments. I want to knit something from really soft yarn, like mohair or something, and then add leather and/or metallic zippers into it. It just still needs to look neat, I mean I am not really a rock/glam girl normally... But I have seen lots of stuff like that, and I'm very excited about them. What do you think?

I have been a little sick for a few days now so I haven't been knitting my Rhombus socks but a much more straightforward and less focus-requiring ribbed shirt. I have really proceeded with it, too, although some might say that knitting maybe isn't the number one thing you should do when sick. But I haven't been that sick, sitting around doing nothing would make me even sicker. That's my story and I'll stick to it.

I have also been leafing through Susan Crawford's A Stitch In Time, vol. 2 and trying to decide which pattern to knit next. I really like Kasha but starting it up is pretty intimidating as the gauge needs to be just right which really isn't my strong suite. But it really is lovely and quite different from anything I have knit before.

In other news, I am going to London with my boyfriend for a five-day holiday in January. I know, it's far away, but you have to book now to get real cheap flights. I'm pretty excited :)

Rhombus

Willow-colourway

Yesterday I started knitting another Cookie A. sock, this time one called Rhombus. [pattern] The yarn I'm using I also got yesterday, while I visited a yarn store when I should have been at uni, oops... I had been surfing the Buffy group on raverly, and was so taken by people's self-dyed yarn that they had used the show as an inspiration for. I told my boyfriend that I would love to dye yarn myself as well, and he told me that I should just go to a store and buy yarn that in my opinion could be inspired by the characters. So then, what else could I have done other than what he proposed? Here are the results: I am knitting my Rhombus socks from a beautiful purple that I think kind of represents Willow:

I also have a colourway that in my opinion is a total Buffy, although I am sure people will disagree. But that's not really the point, it's Buffy for me and it is so beautiful as well. Also, I have a dark blue that I had difficulty attributing to anyone in particular. Maybe season 1 Angel, but not really Angel of the entire show, I don't know it's weird... But this I know: Xander would be brown with dark yellow highlights, kind of like Novita Puro's new colourway, Retro: here, Giles would also be brown but without the yellow, Riley would be dark green, Spike red and black and blonde. 

Buffy-colourway

Angel?- colourway

I also got my Buffy season 9, Freefall but I haven't read it yet. Looks promising, though :) And you know, I am now not only rewatching Buffy, but Firefly as well. And as I started rewatching that, I started knitting a tam, a River Tam. [pattern] (that is only funny if you know the show, it has a character called River Tam) But now I am so into my Rhombus socks that I am not going to knit that for a while. They are really quite demanding, but I love it! I'm knitting them on 2mm bamboo needles and they bend so vigorously all the time that I am afraid they're gonna break. But then I remember that bamboo is used for everything in China, even construction site stands so I guess it'll just have to endure my knitting!

My Rhombus sock

A little about knitting socks

I'm knitting these beautiful cable-lace knee-highs but the problem is that I run out of yarn. I am making them directly after a pattern and it said that they should be knitted from 100g of yarn but here I am, used up 100 grams and one foot short... I would give the magazine the pattern was published some feedback, but it's a few years old so I don't think it would do any good. However, I am a little annoyed as the yarn is no longer in production so it is not the easiest to get my hands on a new ball. Also, there's almost no way I am going to find a ball that is from the same dye lot so I just have to hope that the difference isn't as big as in the yarn in my Seaweed socks... I am definitely not going to frog and make the socks shorter, because they are just the perfect length now, so I just have to get the yarn. But this is quite an annoying problem! But the socks are going to be pretty, see for yourself:

My Autumn Skirt

Finished with my striped skirt I was writing about before! I really like it, it's quite warm and very beautiful, the colours really are awesome. Of course I also had to buy brown stockings to go with it, and the yellow shoes I bought from Beijing. Don't they all just look darling together? ^^

Tomorrow I am going to see a friend who is going to China for a year, and she is leaving in a few short weeks. I'm really gonna miss her, but I'm sure we can still keep in touch. I was knitting her these mittens but I couldn't finish them on time. Now I'll just have to send them to her for Christmas or something!

Unfinished projects

One of my knitting-related problems is the fact that I always seem to be casting on new projects are abandoning old ones. They just pile up, unfinished, sometimes for a very very long time. But now I've decided to finish at least some of them before starting anything new. The finished to be projects include Martin Storey's fairisle vest called Maya, which has been in the making since October 11th 2011 (oh my). For at least a few months now it has simply been waiting for be to make the remaining one of the two pompoms that I am not even sure if I want to to attach to it... Here's my almost finished Maya:

Another almost finished project is my collared green cardigan that I found the perfect buttons from my grandparents house. That one is waiting for be sewn together and for the buttons to attach themselves onto.

A third project that I must finish soon is a pair of Cthulhu mittens for my boyfriend that I have been knitting since June 10th 2011... They are finished apart from the other thumb. One of the reasons they have taken me so long is that one of them is much bigger than the other one. I had such a long time in between knitting them and I was sick while knitting the other one that my gauge is just horribly different on them. As soon as I had finished the looser one I decided to frog it right away and knit a new one but my boyfriend wouldn't let me and just wanted me to finish the thumb so he could start wearing them. This of course I could not swallow so now the mittens have been waiting and waiting. But now I'm just gonna knit the thumb and be done with it. If they are good enough for him, they are good enough for me.

Talking about Cthulhu, isn't he cute?

I made him for a friend as a birthday present, after these instructions: pattern for Cthulhu

Now you can knit your own! 

Pointelle

I think knitting these socks I set a record for myself: socks in four days. However, I am not completely satisfied with them. The lacy parts beg for blocking but as the foot is a little too wide even now how would it fit after blocking? But the colour is beautiful, like melted gold! And I really love the pattern, which is part the reason why I am so dissatisfied, it looks so beautiful in the book, why won't my socks look as beautiful? So I haven't yet decided what to do with them. I am going to set them aside for now and decide what to do later. But I should probably put them in the closet and not on the chair all my unfinished projects are on as it looks like it's gonna have a huge wool slide any minute now...

My Pointelle socks

Like I wrote in my previous post, we were visiting my boyfriends mother on the weekend and as she is a vegetarian, we always need meat when we come back home. I have pork cutlets in the fridge marinading in a homemade marinade consisting of coke, cloves, star anise, cinnamon, chili, garlic, allspice and white pepper. We'll see how it is, kind of exciting really as I kind of just came up with it... On the side we have courgette and pasta. I really love courgette, now that I have to buy it from the market. When I was little, my mum grew it in our garden and at that time I really hated it as we ate it every summer all summer! But now I have a newfound love for it.

My name is Nina and I'm a knitaholic

Today I got to thinking: what if my knitting is no longer a harmless hobby but an uncontrollable addiction? What if I no longer hold the strings (or yarns) in my own free hands, what if knitting has taken control? How do I know if I am simply enjoying a pastime that produces beautiful things or if I am dangerously no longer in control of my own life?

Today I have pretty much done nothing apart from eating and knitting. It's not like knitting has kept me from doing anything - I am with my boyfriend visiting his mother in a rather remote small town and it has been raining for almost the whole day - still, shouldn't I have done something else as well? I haven't kept track of how much money I've spent on yarns in the last 6 months, in the last year, what I know though is that balls of yarn have been piling up in our small apartment for quite some time now and my smallish closet is also getting full of all kinds of knitted objects. I knit everyday, on some days more than others but still, everyday. I have multiple projects in the making. When before, when I still could be sure of having my knitting under control, I only bought yarn for something I was sure to start in a few weeks, I now buy yarn for something and then when I finally have time to start that something I might not want to make it anymore and have that yarn for nothing until maybe someday I figure out another project it would be good for.

Today I have - while knitting Cookie A.'s sock Pointelle from a beautiful golden yellow - been haunted by these questions. My boyfriend thinks I'm being silly. I don't want to quit knitting, even to know if I actually am addicted, I don't want to quit for even one day. Is that just a symptom of my addiction? I love knitting, and knitting socks is at the moment pure bliss, the easiness of the small project, the anticipation of getting to a new section that lurks just around the corner and can be reached in a matter of hours, the feel of the soft thin yarn in your fingers. If I am not addicted to knitting per se at least I am going through a phase of serious sockmania.

But seriously, who am I kidding? I am addicted to knitting, there's no question of that. But what I really want to know is if this is harmful or if it can just be considered as kind of cute? I'll hope for the latter as I turn my hands back over to my knit pros and the sweet soft yarn.

Back home

I'm finally back home in Finland and pretty glad about that, too! I mean of course it was great being in Beijing but for me coming back home is always ten times more fun. Especially if you are gone for long, as I was. While in China, I didn't do as much knitting as I do at home, but it certainly attracted more attention. I knit in my dorm, a shared room with a Canadian girl, and in class. I showed my Raverly page to my roommate and she wanted to know if I was famous for my knitting. Sadly I had to admit that I wasn't... ^^ In class, I think I got a little too much attention from my Chinese classmates as they found me knitting pretty inscrutable. But the classes were so long (three hours!), I would definitely fallen asleep if I hadn't had my knitting. I finished one pair of socks while in Beijing, they were Cookie A.'s Pomatomus which is her first published pattern and thus a perfect start for me knitting her socks (and I plan to knit many). Below a picture of my finished socks in the new shoes I got from Beijing.

Since I've been back, I have started knitting a striped skirt from Finnish yarn maker Novita's Autumn collection. It is so pretty and perfect for the coming season. The pattern is online for free, but only in Finnish, sorry! Here's a link anyhow: pattern for striped skirt

In China, I also finished a third sock, also by Cookie A., this time called Clandestine. I named them Seaweed socks as I am knitting them from green multicolour yarn (check a few posts down). But knitting the other sock back here in Finland I noticed that something had happened to me that I don't think ever happened before: the two balls of yarn were from a different dye lot! I had checked them while buying - of course - but next to the black printed lot number there was another number printed in light grey which actually signified the dye lot! Noticing this only after I had almost finished sock number two I was so so upset! Now I have to go back to that yarn store and try to find a new ball of yarn with the colours of the first sock as that is much prettier. Next to that, the other one looks like it's been bleached. I can't believe I didn't notice it before as the difference is pretty huge... Ah, I get all worked up just thinking about it.

Although this has nothing to do with knitting I just want to share with you this video I took from my dorm window one Saturday when it was raining in Beijing. You might have read about the floods in Beijing, this video doesn't really do justice to the news of devastation, more just looks pretty. The sirens you hear in the background are anti theft alarm systems that went off simply because of the rain.

Oh and I did also start knitting the vintage turban but it isn't finished yet. I am also a bit worried whether or not I'll have enough yarn but will just have to hope for best...