Sunday, January 31, 2010

Oh, ok, enough of this already!

Now don't get me wrong, I love Winter as much as the next guy, but I'm getting a wee bit tired of this snow already. Seriously, it's everywhere! And there's so much of it! I just spent an hour and a half plowing our yard and driveway. This is the view down toward the road
There's just an insane amount of snow everywhere. I feel sorry for my poor appletrees, their branches are almost down to the ground because of all the weight of the snow.
And like I said, there's snow everywhere
And to prove that I have been knitting too, I finished the Diamondback Mitts! They did turn out a bit too tight, but I wet them after they were finished and stretched them out, and now they fit me perfectly. :) I just love them, now if the temperature just stayed like this (it's about -4C today) I could actually wear them too. :) The -20c we've been having lately is just a teeny tiny bit too cold for fingerless mitts. Here's a very professional looking photo of one of the finished mitts. :)
Pattern: Diamondback Mitts by Stephen West (ravel it)
Yarn: Cascade 220 in White and some of my own hand dyed Sandnes Garn Perfect
Needles: 4mm (altho I really have used 4,5mm)

I'll probably finish the Noro socks today, and then I'm going to cast on a sweater, for me. Imagine that. I haven't quite decided on which sweater, I have a few to choose from.. Stay tuned! :)

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Kaheli-vaihdon paketti tuli!

Only in Finnish this time, sorry. :)

Ok, ok, johan se tuli monta päivää sitten, mutta en vaan oo saanu aikaseks blogata aiheesta. :P Eniveivi, mä sain kaikenlaista kivaa, paksua Pirkkalankaa, vihreenä ja mustana ja Blend Bamboota sinisenä. Pirkasta en oo keksiny vielä mitään tekemistä, mutta tuosta Blend Bamboosta ajattelin tehdä jonkun myssykän. Molemmat langat on mulle uusia tuttavuuksia, joten oikein kiva päästä kokeilemaan niitä. :)
Pakettiin kuului paljon muutakin kivaa, kansio koulupapereille, kaaviopiirtämisen apuvälineet (mikä noitten oikea nimi on, mä en tiedä. nolo.) Nättejä silmukkamerkkejäkin sain, niitä ei ikinä ole liikaa. :) Lämmin kuppi vielä odottaa juojaansa, suklaat mitkä paketissa oli ei päässeet kuvaan mukaan, joku köh, nimiä mainitsematta ehkä tuhos ne jo, mutta nekin oli oikein herkullisia. :) Eli kaikenkaikkiaan oikein mieluinen paketti, iso kiitos siitä Kahelille Kaverilleni. :)

Itse menee vielä tovi miettiessä että mitä kaikkea mä omalle kahelilleni oikein keksin, mutta kyllä tää rupee tästä pikkuhiljaa selviämään. :)

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Two new WIPs

I was going to make myself a pair of striped kneehighs with Noro Kureyon sock yarn. I cast on a bunch of stitches (60, if I remember correctly), knit the ribbing, added four stitches and started knitting. And I knit and knit and and knit some more. After a while I tried my soon-to-be-kneehighs on and realized.. That I have thick calves. :( So, once again I was faced with the decision to frog or not to frog. And, well, ok, you all know how I feel about frogging, right? So once again I decided not to frog, and just start the heel instead. The cuff is quite long on these socks, but not quite up to my knee, maybe I'll just call them boot socks instead. :) Oh, and I may jus have ordered more Noro sock yarn that I'm going to knit into kneehighs later on. ;) I'm almost done with the first sock, just the toe decreases to go.
I love these colorways, I think I need to get one more skein of each. :)

My second WIP, that I started just yesterday, is a pair of Diamondback Mitts, by Stephen West from Watch Stephen Knit. I started knitting these with 4,5mm dpn's, but then I switched to 4mm's because I thought the beginning seemed a bit too sloppy. However, I should just have stuck with the 4,5mm's, because now these are just a wee bit too tight. But I think that if I just wet them and stretch them out a bit when they're done, they'll fit me just fine.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Special announcement

No, I'm not pregnant. :P Admit it, that was your first thought. :D (well, except for those of you who know what I'm talking about.) Aaaanyway, I know I haven't talked about this stuff much here, but I applied to school last Fall, after finally figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. My job has been causing me nothing but grief and stress since I went back last September, so when I found this school that had the exact education that I was looking for, I sent in an application. And then I waited. And waited. And waited some more.

The last day for applications went by, so I waited some more. And then I sent the school an e-mail asking when I could possibly wait to hear something. To which they replied that the application time didn't end until sometime in December. Sooo, I waited yet some more. And then I got the letter I was waiting for, I got called i for an interview. It was on Friday a week ago. They had a second round on interviews last week, so I've been very anxious since then, because I figured I'd find out this week if I get in or not.

Luckily for me, I didn't have to wait for very long, as I got a very pleasant call today, as they called me from school to tell me that I GOT IN!! Whee! Wahoo! Yippee! Yay! I honestly can't say how thrilled I am! (my boss was less thrilled when I told him, and he might actually end up firing me. But who cares, I've hated that job for a long time now.) This is such a relief and I'm too happy for words. :) Oh, and in case anybody wonders, I'm going to be a seamstress when I grow up. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

I've been really busy lately..

Unfortunately, I've been busy with work, not with anything fun. So the only thing I've knit in the past couple of weeks is a pair of teent mittens for the tiny one. I knit them tith Malabrigo worsted, and they're sooo soft. I want a pair for myself too. :) I can't believe that the only thing I've knit for myself with Malabrigo is a Calorimetry.. Hmm, I must rectify that soon.
I do have three dresses that are almost finished, let's hope I'll have time to finish them soon. :) Two of them are for the shop, so I'll finally have some new clothes to list too. And talking about the shop, I have been dyeing new yarns and I'll be listing them as soon as I get them reskeined and photographed. There's lots of bright stuff on the way, like this green yarn for example. :)
Plus I've got some brown yarn, brightbrightbright pink and more green. New stuff is on its way. :)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

First post for the new year :)

First post - first FO. :) Ok, so this is a bit like cheating, because I started this hat last year, but as I finished it this year, it still counts. :) I've had the Odessa hat (rav link) in my Ravelry queue for ages, but only now decided to actually knit it. It was a really quick knit, I knit it in about a week. I was going to add beads, to add a bit of bling to the hat, but apparently I have trouble understanding written text, because it didn't sink into my brain that you were supposed to add the beads to the yarn before casting on. I just figured that I'd use the add-beads-with-crochet-hook-method that I usually use. Until I got to the first beads and realized that it couldn't be done that way. Bugger. So I had to decide between frogging the beginning and adding the beads or just knitting the hat without the beads. And as I'm not a big fan of frogging, I did the latter. And decided to knit another Odessa with beads at some point. The hat is so soft and smoochy I could wear it all the time. :)

Pattern: Odessa hat by Grumperina (ravel it)
Yarn: Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino Wool DK (one skein wasn't quite enough, so I had to knit the last 20 or so rows with another yarn, I used some Gedifra merino, can't remember exactly what it was called..)
Needles: 5mm & 6mm

I also started to knit myself a pair of socks, because I really need new woolly socks, especially with this really cold weather we've been having lately, it's -19C as we speak. Which of course it loads warmer than the -29.9C it was this morning. I knit happily along for several centimeters until I realized that the cuff was going to be way too tight. So, again, I was faced with the decision to frog or not to frog. But, as I just mentioned, frogging sucks, so the socks are now going to become mittens instead. I really need new mittens too, so it's actually a good thing. I can use some other yarn to make the socks. :)
This was originally going to be the Glynis-socks from Cookie A's Sock Innovation, (seen in this post), but after the tiny one pulled out the needles from the beginning of the sock I just never got round to fixing the thing. So in this case, I did frog. :O I really love this color, I wish I could duplicate it. Maybe one of these days I'll try.

I've also been dyeing some new yarn for the shop, but I just can't get my camera to show the colors right, no matter what settings I use. It's driving me mad! I'll only be able to list one new yarn, because the other colors look so wrong. Maybe I can get better pics tomorrow. I hope.