Wahoo, I finished one of my Ravelympic projects!

Me so happy now. :) So happy, in fact, that I'm not even sad that I'm not going to finish the socks in time. This was my primary project anyway, so the important thing is that I finished it. And with it I of course mean the Snapdragon Tam. I'm kind of in love with it. :)
Please note how well the green goes together with my carrot-colored hair. ;) I decided that I wanted a change from the dark brown I've been sporting for a while now, and went a bit crazy with the color remover. :D And eventho I put another color on after removing the old color, I still ended up looking like I'm related to a carrot. But I kinda like it. :) And just for the heck of it, here's a better pic of my hair. :P
Aaand now back to the subject at hand, my new tam. It grew an insane amount when I blocked it, I was going to block it over a dinner plate, but realized that I don't have any plates that are big enough. :O So I just kinda had to stretch it out a bit and lay it on a towel to dry. It ended up being really slouchy, but I like my hats that way. :)

Oh, the specs..
Pattern: Snapdragon Tam by Ysolda Teague (ravel it)
Yarn: Madelinetosh DK in Seaglass
Needles: 4,5mm (I could very well have used 4mm)

I was going to post this pic
but luckily I noticed how horrible I look in it, without any make up on whatsoever. Oh, wait, did I post it anyway? Oops, sorry. :P In order to give your eyes a chance to recover, let's end with a pic of just the tam, without me.

I made the tiny one a new shirt

But you'll kinda just have to take my word for it, because I couldn't get a single decent shot of her wearing it. Instead I'll show you what kinds of photos I did get. Here we go.

Brilliant photos, dont'cha think? Hah!

And on another note, I'm so not going to finish my Ravelympics projects. Oh well, I'm doing just about as well as the Finnish team in the real Olympics, so I'm not too bothered. :) I'm about halfway thru the Snapdragon tam, and I've finished one of the kneehighs. I'm going to try to finish the tam, because it was my primary project for the Ravelympics anyway. I still have a few days left. :)

Testing, testing..

Guess what this is?
Huh, anyone? What do you think it might be? A cozy for your toilet paper rolls? A bottle cozy? Nope, it's a pouch-thingy for my DPN's. :) See, I can fit loads of my DPN's in there.
I should have made it even longer, and made more different sized pockets, but this was just a test drive. Oh, I should also have made it deeper, because as you can see some of the DPN's are longer than the pouch, and that just doesn't look good. But anyway, I think this is quite practical, now I don't need to keep my DPN's in a tin anymore, where they get very, very dusty. I just love this fabric too, paisley is cool. :)

I used the same fabric to make myself another pencil pouch too, because I realized that all of my pens wouldn't fit in the first one I made.
So now I put all my coloring pencils in the old pouch and all other pencils and pens and scissors and stuff in this new one. :)

Best mail-day ever!

I went a bit crazy with the internet-shopping a while back (yes, I can still hear my credit card whining), buying all kinds of fun stuff, yarn, fabric and such, and most of it arrived today. Wohoo! I came home to find my mail-box stuffed with, well, stuff. There was a package from The Loopy Ewe, one from Hawthorne Threads, and one from Eat.Sleep.Knit!

From the Loopy Ewe I got three skeins of Cascade 220, in a wonderful dark blue heathered color. I couldn't get the color just right no matter what settings I tried on my camera, but this one is pretty close, the real color is just a bit darker
Next we've got the fabric from Hawthorne threads
And last but not least the yarn from Eat.Sleep.Knit. I actually got two skeins from there, but I'm only showing you one of them, because the other one is for the swap I'm in. Ssshh, siikrit stuff. :)
Oh, the yarn is Pima Petite by the Unique Sheep, something I've never tried before. I think that this will have to become a hat one of these days. And I have just the one skein, so I don't even have enough for a larger project.
I think I still have one package or two on the way, but can't for the life of me remember what they might be. Oh well, I'll find out when they get here. :)

And on another note, I'm participating in the Ravelympics this year, yay! I have two projects on the needles, and I'm not entirely sure if I can finish both in time, but we'll see. I have next week off from school, so I'm planning on doing lots of knitting then. And we'll be on the road for several hours this coming weekend, as we'll be driving to the husband's grandmothers 90th birthday party, so I'll have a few hours of uninterrupted knitting time. :)

Aaanyway, my first project is the Snapdragon Tam (ravel it) by Ysolda Teague in the beautiful Madelinetosh DK I got a while back. This yarn is just too soft and yummy for words. :)
I'm also making new socks with Noro Silk Garden sock yarn, and I'm hoping these will fit over my thick calces, so that they will be kneehighs when they grow up. :) I haven't gotten very far yet, but I love them already.

Skulls, skulls, skulls

When you start a new thing, like, say, school, you really do need new bags and pouches and things to carry all your new stuff around in. Because, you know, I have to start carrying around scissors and pens and books and notebooks and waaah, all sorts of stuff now that school starts. Plus I definitely need a new bag, a big bag. So I made myself some new carry-along-thingies, no point in buying new stuff, when you can sew everything you need yourself. :) Let's start with the bag. It's big, bordering on huge. And it's black, a thick indian cotton. So I had to spice it up a bit. And here we come to the first skull, it's a big one, and I'm totally in love with it. Oh, I didn't take a pic, but the lining fabric is a very bright pink cotton. For some reason I couldn't get the colors right, but they look right in this next pic.
Pretty cool, huh? Aaand moving on.. I also made two pouches, one for my pens and the other for my sewing accessories (needles, scissors, measuring tape..), using my very cool Michael Miller skull-fabric. Btw, I can't find this fabric anywhere anymore, so if anyone happens to know where I can get some please, please, let me know!
I should have made these a bit bigger, especially the one for the pens, because I can't fit everything in there. How embarrassing. Oh well, I can always make another one. :)

ps. I just might have made two pouches for the shop too. ;)

Waaah, now that just sucks!

The following story serves as an example that you should always pay attention to what you are knitting.

I went to a knit meet on Wednesday and knitted happily along for several hours on my Feb Lady Sweater without noticing anything odd, and I actually got quite a lot done. The next day I started looking at what I had gotten done, and looked at the progress. And noticed that part of the knitted fabric looked somewhat strange. You can't really tell, but here's a picture
The knitting looks looser and more "holey", and I realized that part of the yarn was significantly thinner than the rest. Well crap, now what should I do? I thought about leaving it the way it was and pretend that it didn't bother me, but I know that it would have bothered me, so I decided to rip back to where the yarn went thinner, which meant that I had to frog almost all of what I had knitted the evening before. :( Oh well..

Here's a pic to show you that the difference in thickness was really significant, it suddenly went from 6ply to 4ply
I still can't get over the fact that I didn't notice this while knitting it! Anyway, I've been in contact with the shop that I bought the yarn from, and they promised to send me some more yarn in the same color, to make up for the change in thickness. So I'm not too bummed about this whole thing. :)

I've got new socks, yes I do!

Noro socks, no less. :) I just love these Noro striped socks, must make more of them. Next I have to make kneehighs, because I just need kneehighs, I really do. I have no idea where I would wear them, but I have to make them anyway. (maybe I'll start wearing skirts to school, so then I can wear kneehighs?) But I'm going to use the Silk Garden sock yarn for those, because my feet deserve it. :)
I knit a (very, very ugly) short-row heel on these, and I really need to find a better one for the next socks. This one I just made up as I went along, and it looks that way too. And just to fool you into thinking: that heel doesn't look too bad, I'm only showing you the better side of the heel. :D
And just because I've come to realize that it's mandatory to take pics of Noro socks out in the snow, I'm adding this pic. :)
I also started on a new project, the February Lady Sweater. I've had this in my queue for ages, but now I finally decided to actually knit it. I have no idea if I have enough yarn to make the sleeves, but I'll make it into a vest if I run out of yarn. :) Here's how far I got in one evening, wohoo! :D
I've also been doing some yarn shopping, yesterday I got no less than two packages from Eat.Sleep.Knit. I got four skeins of Malabrigo Chunky in Buscando Azul, and two skeins of Madelinetosh DK in Seaglass. In love with these! Need more! Must. Buy. More. Yarn.