Cottage Garden Sweater

The yoke of my Cottage Garden Sweater

Pattern: Cottage Garden from Twist Collective (Autumn 2009)

Yarn: SoftWoolSilk from Gepard Garn, colours 469 and 81

Needles: 3,75mm/US5

Project time: February 18th - May 10th, 2010

This is what it looks when worn

Pattern modifications: I didn't really change anything. Because of my body shape I had to start out with an XL for my hips and then decrease down to a medium in the waist and a small for the bust. I didn't change needle size when working the second part of the picot edges. The neckline ended up being fastened with a 3-needle bind off as I couldn't get it to look pretty when trying to sew it down. I lengthened the sleeves quite a bit as I have long arms and I really wanted the cuff to hit my hand and not my wrist.

I love the length of the sleeves after blocking

Thoughts: Love!!!

And once I got the hang of knitting stranded with one yarn in each hand, it went fairly smoothly. My knitting isn't perfect, it puckers some and is too loose elsewhere, BUT I'm still proud of myself. It definitely looks good enough for being my first completed stranded knitting project.

Asia, here I come

So, I've been abscent from this blog of mine. Ever since the start of this year, I've felt unmotivated to make updates. Spending the time forming words, unloading pictures from the camera and get them here in posts and everything else that comes with blogging, just didn't feel inspiring anymore.

Add to that, a long winter that wasn't good for pictures, a sore body (from two falls when biking), a university class in Creative Writing and tiredness, and you get more of the picture.

Now, when female bloggers "disappear" and come back after random posting for a couple of months they often come back to announcing that they are either 1) pregnant or 2) working on a book as they've gotten a deal. I'm doing neither of those. (Which being me is 1) just as it's supposed to be and 2) a bummer but I haven't tried getting one...)

I'm still pottering around with my knitting. I'm still by the sewing machine from time to time. I read books and see my bookclub friends every 6th week. I make my assignments for the Creative Writing-class and I'm enjoying it. But it's more time consuming than I though it'd be.

And.

I'm going to Asia for two weeks early this summer. For the first time in my life. I'm combining a couple of days of vacation with days of working. Most of the time will be work. I know I'll be dead tired when I come home after 16 days away, but it really feels like a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity and I couldn't let it pass me by.

Ready for spring

It's March. Time for spring?

This winter has been long. As I've mentioned before, we've had an unusual amount of snow for being in the south of Sweden. Late last week, the temperatures rose above zero and they've stayed that way over the weekend. At least during the days. A lot of the snow has melted and we can now see the ground in about half of our back yard.

We can see green leaves and yellow buds in our flower beds.

Yesterday I let the cats out in the garden for a bit. Skorpan had his first roll on the ground for the year. He looked ridiculously happy afterwards!

I'm ready for spring now. I want warmer temperatures so I don't have to bundle up as much every morning and afternoon when biking to and from work. I want the ground to be dry so I can bike through the park again. I want the trees and bushes to turn green so my eyes get some practise looking at colour after months and months of grey, brown and white. I want the sun to come visit regularly again. I want the days to get longer so I can keep my blog updated with pictures of my projects. I want to be able to sit on our porch reading without being cold or in the darkness.

I want spring.

An FO

Something has been knit. And something has been blocked.

Close up from blocking

Random Friday (nr3)

1. I'm alive.

2. Work kind of slowed down for a week or two and then picked up again. I don't think I've ever earned my salary as much as I have these last couple of months. And I deserve a raise! I've lost count of how many evenings I come home, eat something and then crash. Sometimes physically. Sometimes mentally. Often both.

3. I'm dead tired today. I promised to come and get my boyfriend and a colleague of his from a company dinner yesterday. I was expecting a call at around 9pm but it didn't come until just after 10pm. It was 11pm when I got in bed and when boyfriend started snoring I had the hardest time falling asleep. Even though I was dead tired. Men!

4. I spent yesterday afternoon in Copenhagen. A work thing brought me and some colleagues over. I haven't walked on Ströget in ages and ages. The visit got me thinking about when my best friend in Canada came to see me in 2004 and we spent a great day in Copenhagen. Do you remember that day, Shel?

5. My writing class is fun! And challenging. Our second assignment is a lot of work. It's really interesting to see how we all use our words differently in our writing. Some put the words together in a very complicated way and others make their texts flow really well by using a mininum of words. I'm doubting my own writing project though as a result... I'm not sure I'm ready for it yet.

6. I'm a bit tired of snow. We've had an unusual amount of snow and cold days here in the south of Sweden. We've actually had snow on the ground since the week before Christmas (with two or three days interruption thrown in there). I'm sick of biking in temperatures below zero and not being able to go my usual way as there's too much snow in the park.

7. To end this post on a positive note: It's Friday!!!

Creativity: Hello!

So, I decided to force myself out of the non-creative state I was in. In the last week I have:

- finished all the sewing on my first Roman shade (=hissgardin in Swedish) for the living room/dining area. Our living room/dining area gets ridiculously warm in the summer and last spring I started an attempt at making Roman shades for our big windows. I stumbled on the first one when I realized I had made a mistake when trying to figure out how to construct the shades. I also had problems placing the channels for dowels without having to measure a thousand times for each... Anyways, I got it all sorted out last week and now I "only" have four more shades to go! (Luckily, two of them have the same measurements as the first one so they'll be quicker to make.)

- started to knit a cosy hat for myself in yarn from Araucania. 5 times. Yes, I'm on my fifth attempt to get a hat to fit my head without the yarn pooling... I think I'm on track this time around. The yarn is a mix of greens and browns and is definately more subtle when knit than in the hank. This made my boyfriend happy...

- started a Citron shawl. Like everyone else. I blame my start on the three or four women working on Citrons at knit night last week. I realized a ton of stockinette would do wonders to my tired brain and my frustration with not producing anything. I'm using blueish-turquoise lace weight wool from Handpainted yarns. The yarn comes from a yarn swap with friends. (Did you know that citron is lemon in Swedish?)

~~~~~

My online Creative Writing-class officially started today. I logged on this weekend and found our first assignment; write a text in which you introduce yourself through the eyes of a neighbour (real or made up). The neighbour is the I in the story. A kiss or a crime has to be included and you should use approximately 2,500 characters (including blanks).

We have until next Friday but I thought I'd at least make a start yesterday. After an hour I still had nothing I wanted to save. I shut down the computer and casted on for Citron... Instant gratifiction.

One of my anxieties when it comes to this class is the fact that we will write and make our texts public. Or sort of public at least. They will be read by others. They will be critiqued by both students and teachers. My texts will be graded. Performance anxiety: Hello!

Not very creative...

Time flies. And I feel frustrated with how little time and energy I have for making something creative.

Work has been busy since coming back from my vacation. I thought things would calm down over Christmas, but I was wrong. One of my big projects is in an important phase and it makes my phone ring a lot and my email count to rise. And most people contacting me are upset. Or sad. Or angry. Or frustrated. Or mean.

Usually I can leave work stuff at work and focus on other things when I'm home. But it's hard now. I can't relax like I usually can. I can't shut down my brain when it starts to spin with thoughts on how to deal with the phone calls, or how to reply to a certain email, or how to prepare for yet another meeting, or...

I just don't feel comfortable knowing that my work tasks and my project is upsetting people and making things difficult for families. 'Cause it is. But on the other hand, it's also helping 55,000 people on the receiving end.

These last two weeks I've spent my evenings watching tv, working a bit on my writing project, sleeping (or some evenings and nights; trying to sleep), cuddling with cats and playing boardgames with my boyfriend. I've searched the Internet to find something exciting to knit. I've gone through all my pattern books and I've looked through my stash numerous times, trying to get inspired to work on something. But nah. It hasn't worked.

I'm trying not to feel stressed out about it - I don't need the added stress to my life right now - but it's hard to accept that I'm not using my time to be creative.

I'll let you know when things change.

Deciding which writing class to attend

Remember me talking about applying to writing classes at the University? Well, anyways, I applied to three completely different classes as I couldn't make my mind up about which one I really wanted to take part in.

I got accepted to all three.

And now I've had to think it all trough to decide which one to actually attend. As always, when making big decisions, I started to make lists of pros and cons. Here are the three lists:

1. 50% course in Creative Writing. In English. Choice of being a student online or on campus.
+ Seriously interesting syllabus. Covers a whole lot of things and aspects.
+ The choice of whether I want to take the class online or on campus.
+ Getting even more practise in writing in English and the opportunity to make real progress.
- A lot of work and many hours. I would prefer a 25% class as I'm going to keep working full-time.
- The risk of being surrounded by people who might make me question my abilities in English.

2. 25% course in Writing in different genres. In Swedish. Classes on campus.
+ The 25% (which means a workload of approximately 5 hours per week)
+ A versatile syllabus that hopefully would leave me with skills that I can use both professionally and in my own private writing.
+ Taking it as a class on campus will make it "real".
+ It's in Swedish which will force me to write more in Swedish outside of work.
- Not geared towards creative writing and might end up dull and stiff (might feel like work work instead of fun work)
- The reading list is loooong and getting the text books will be expensive.

3. 25% course in Creative Writing. In Swedish. All online.
+ It's a creative writing class!
+ The 25% (which means a workload of approximately 5 hours per week)
+ It's in Swedish which will force me to write more in Swedish outside of work.
+ It will give me some "anonymity" as it's online and that might make it easier to write and critique the texts of the others.
- It's all online and it might be veeery hard for me to commit.

I decided to go with number 3. To see if classes in creative writing is anything for me. If they are, I can apply to another one for fall. And if they aren't but I still want to write, I can try the middle class.

This class will give me university credits and my work will be graded. I hope this will turn into a motivation factor instead of a stress factor...

Wish me luck!

Highlights (5)

Highlights from this past weekend (December 11th - December 13th, 2009)


* The feeling of satisfaction as I got coming out of the grocery store (with everything I needed!) at 8.20am on Saturday.

* The blue sky and bright day we had as we biked into town.

* Hearing my sister's choir sing some Christmas songs.

* Having a friend/colleague and her daughter over for dinner on Saturday night. I made parmesan cheese pie with parma ham salad on the side. Delicious! We had Ben&Jerry's for dessert. Delicious as well!

* Being able to show pictures from our vacation in Tuscany on our flat screen TV. We laugh at ourselves everytime we connect our MacBook to the TV as we can't help feeling excited over being so modern...

* The two hours of watching a movie after the guests had gone home and boyfriend had gone to bed. I had Skorpan on my lap and JumJum right next to me the whole time. (Not wanting to move Skorpan when he was sleeping made me sit through the sappy and awful ending of Stepmom. The ending makes me want to puke...)

* Sleeping in on Sunday and not dragging myself out of bed until 11am.

* Being able to stay from fainting when cleaning out greenish-grey puss and skin from a scratch-wound on my right knee-cap. (I stumbled and fell at work on Friday. Tore my jeans open...)

* Knitting three rounds on my sister's Anemoi Mittens!

She hasn't been knitting...

I haven't knit a stitch in 10 days. I've looked at the two projects I'm supposed to be working on, but that's it. No knitting.

I have a deadline for my sister's Anemoi Mittens and it's only 14 days away. There's no way I'll be able to finish the pair up by then. If I get the first mitten done I'll be super proud of myself. I've knit about 10 rows passed the thumb gusset, but there's still at least another 20 rows left to knit before starting the decreases for the top and then the whole thumb. Knitting stranded takes time for me. And I'm not in love with the final product. The pattern isn't as clear as I'd like it to be...

And then I have my German Stockings. Some time a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd aim for having the pair done by Christmas. I'd love to wear them on Christmas Eve. But that won't happen. I've reached the easy part of them, working on the leg, but I don't have enough time. Knee socks have a long leg part...

So, why haven't I been knitting lately? Despite deadlines. Well, I wish I could tell you I'd done a million other exciting things instead, but sadly, I've just been too tired. Too tired. November was awful at work and December isn't much better. When I've come home in the evenings I've just crashed. The last two nights I've fallen asleep on the couch before 21/9pm. And that has been after severe struggle to keep my eyelids open fo quite some time.

The thought of knitting something that requires me to look at charts (as Anemoi Mittens and German Stockings do) has been too overwhelming. And knowing myself, I know that even the smallest mistake would leave me swearing in tears. I'm not a charming person when I'm tired. So, for the sake of my own, and my boyfriend's, sanity, I've kept from knitting.

It feels strange though. I haven't particularly missed it.

Maybe 'cause I've been creative in other ways? I'll tell you more about it some other time, but it involves trips down Memory Lane, a MacBook and the software Scrivener...

Random Friday (nr 2)

1. My hectic weeks at work are sort of over. I say "sort of" as I have a lot of catching up to do with everything I couldn't handle during these last three weeks. The email count in my inbox is ridiculous. I try to make sure it's empty when I leave for the day but right now I have 239 emails to take care of...

The pile in which I keep notes for myself until I sit down and organize everything is tilted to one side, looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. If I put another note on top, the pile will for sure crash to the desk...

2. To celebrate surviving these last three weeks, my boyfriend and I are going to the movies tonight! And that's the third time this year we're going to the movies.!! Shocking! My boyfriend is not a fan of going to the cinema. He prefers seeing movies at home, lying on the couch, being able to get away from it if it's not good... Well, anyways, when I heard that they were turning Stieg Larsson's Millennium-triology into movies, I made my boyfriend promise to go see all three movies with me. In the theatre. He promised. And then found out that all three would premier the same year. :)

3. Have you seen Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day this year? You can see all the participants here, here and here. Most of the Giveaways are open 'til Sunday, December 6th.

4. Thinking about paying for and downloading Scrivener.

Simpler knit project

The two knitting projects I've been working on this last week (my first Anemoi Mitten for my sister and my second German Stocking for myself) both require me to be very focused and follow charts. Sometimes I just want to work on something that doesn't make me think too much. I've tried to come up with something for myself but today my boyfriend asked me if I could knit him some fingerless mittens as he gets cold in his office.

Two hours later we were in my favourite yarn store (Fröken Garn) buying him some yarn. We came home with two skeins of the same kind of alpaca yarn I'm using for my sister's Anemoi Mittens. They're even the same grey colour. I'm mixing it with a merino lace weight yarn I got ages ago in a yarn swap. It's hand dyed in an olive green. (Hi Katie!)

Four fingers have just been joined...

From one thing to another

When biking home from my knit group's gathering tonight I got an awesome idea for a blog post. If I may say it myself... I worked on it the whole way home. Transforming some loose thoughts into something logical; with a start, a middle and an end. A conclusion. All in good language. But then as I got closer to home, I also got more and more insecure.

Was it clear enough? Was it interesting enough? Did I actually have a point? Did it make sense?

(And, would I have the energy to type it all out as Sleepy Anna needs her sleep and isn't at her best at 21.30/9.30pm?...)

Was it too personal? Too private? How would others react to me using them as examples?

This happens to me quite often. I have a blog post (or an email, or another text of some sort) all figured out in my head but when I get closer to the keyboard, I start to doubt it. Or I make changes and the text turns into something different from what I thought it would. I end up with a different point. If any at all. Often a different story is told.

Sometimes I return to these "texts that didn't happen as intended" and they turn into good pieces. Sometimes they don't.

We'll see what happens with the post I worked on while biking.

WIP - Anemoi Mittens

I started this mitten last night:

Start of an Anemoi Mitten

The plan is to make these for my sister for Christmas. It's my first serious attempt at stranded knitting with two colours. I'm planning on holding one colour in each hand, but I can't master purl stitches when knitting English, so I'm dropping and picking up while working the ribbing...

The yarn is Sierra Andina from Italian Adriafil. It's 100% extra fine alpaca and it's sooooo lovely.

WIP - German Stocking

The first one is done! I did the last knitting while on vacation in Tuscany, Italy, but didn't have a needle with me to graft the toe. The grafting happened at home last week.

My first German Stocking in full

What I see when I look down

I have done the ribbing, the first stockinette section and 16 rows of the chart on the second one. Cables designs are fun to knit!

Writing a diary and notebooks

As I've mentioned before, I like to write. I like to form sentences. To find a rythm in words. I often read my words out loud to make sure there's a certain flow to it all.

I write emails. Letters. Reports. Blog posts. Lists. Various notes.

Diaries? No. At least not in the form of writing short reports on how my day has been in a pretty notebook with a lock on it. I did for a while when I was ten or eleven. But even then I suffered from the not-being-able-to-say-things-in-a-short-way-and-not-having-a-filter-to-screen-details-in-before-sitting-down-with-diary-and-pen-disease. My writing was, and often still is, way too wordy and detailed.

Writing with a pen also makes me very self-conscious as I care too much about what my handwriting looks like, if the page set up with blank rows and margins look aesthetically and if the pen has the right colour...

Periodically, I'll carry a notebook in my bag, taking random notes while out and about, really forcing myself not to turn it into a diary with pages and pages of day reports.

No matter my difficulties with writing a diary, I am fascinated by pretty notebooks. What do you say about these lovely finds over at Etsy?

Gold Red Bars Journal
Urban Wildlife Journal
Mosaic Notebook
Swirl Tree, Leather Journal in Suede
Autumn Leaves Journal
Coffee Drink Notebook
Winter Wonderland Vintage Wallpaper Notebook
or Summer Tree, Painted Fabric Journal

Highlights (3)

Today's Highlights (October 22nd, 2009)

* The meeting we had in my office building about different routines and tasks that need to be done. (I can't put the outcome from the meeting on the list here but the fact that we had a meeting where everyone attended definitely belongs here!)
* The WOWs I've gotten today from a colleague who saw my Sylvi for the first time (I feel like a parrot here!)
* The wind I had from behind when biking to a meeting
* Using boyfriend's bike today. It's lighter than mine and the gears shift easier making for a smoother ride.
* My cat JumJum behaving as if he didn't want me to leave for work this morning
* Finding out that one of my American knitting friends got some good news at an ultrasound yesterday
* Knowing that I'll be surrounded by knitters in about an hour as I'm about to head off to see me knitting group

The yellow house

There's this house I pass a couple of times every week. It's yellow with a black roof and white details. I think a family of four lives in it. The kids I've seen in the garden haven't started school yet.

There's something special about the house. Do you see it? Can you feel it?

I just want to go and knock on the door and ask if I can take a look around. I want to find out how the floors are connected and what all the nocks and corners are. How that extra little room at the end is being used. If the stairs are squeaky. If there's at least one comfy chair placed under one of those windows. What kind of wallpaper they have in the different rooms. Whether it's possible to lie in the bathtub and watch the sky or not.

And the house makes me want to write. I see myself, on the first visit, trying out different rooms and spaces to find the perfect spot for my desk, my chair, my typewriter (yes, this house requires a typewriter and not a laptop), a couple of shelves for reference literature and favourite books, my comfy chair and a side table for my cup of tea. Or bowl of ice cream.

I see myself becoming a great writer in that house.


What do you see?

FO - Sylvi

Back of my Sylvi

Pattern: This is Sylvi by Mari Muinonen

Yarn: Atlantic by Canadian Briggs & Little. The colour is called Sheeps Grey.

Needles: 6,5mm/US10.5

Project time: Last days of December, 2008 - October 18th, 2009

Pattern modifications: Well... I didn't change much. I added a flower design to the right front piece. I started out trying to make up my own pattern, but after a couple of attempts I decided to go for the hood chart.

The right front has a flower design on it and the sleeves have been changed as well

I also changed the sleeves. The original idea is to have sleeve cuffs knit as a rectangle that is sewn together. The sleeve is then knit after stitches has been picked up from the cuff's edge. I found these cuffs way too bulky for my liking and started my sleeves with a provisional cast on so that I could go back and finish the sleeves some other way. I ended up knitting a couple of rows of garter stitch before continuing in moss stitch again. The sleeves are bound off purlwise.

Thoughts: I loved the actual knitting of Sylvi. I seem to "get cables" quite easily and making the back and hood wasn't as hard as it might look. The back also starts out with only 90 stitches that are decreased throughout knitting. A row didn't take long to knit.

Heathered grey!!!

I fell in love with the yarn and I'm glad I decided to order it from Canada. (I ordered from The Woollen Earth and got excellent custom service!) The yarn is almost rope-like in it's rustic thickness. It smells of sheep. It has the oily feeling that true wool can have. And the colour! It's truly the most amazing heathered grey I've ever seen. (Unfortunately the pictures don't do it justice. The coat is darker than it looks in the pictures taken outside.)

So, the knitting was fun. But I had difficulties getting myself to sew down the petals. It truly took forever for me to get those flowers done. And the process drove me to tears more than once. Due to this, and some mishaps with parts being of different lengths when I attached the sleeves and sewed the raglan seams, the making of this coat took ages. All knitting and seaming was done by March but the finishing of attaching the last couple of flower petals and getting buttons took another 6 months.

Picture of the last flower I made

The buttons I ended up buying are wooden. They are all different and it took me a couple of weeks to get them sewn on after having bought them as I wasn't sure I really loved the look. I thought they were a bit too different from each other. But then my boyfriend and my mother talked me into at least attaching them before dismissing them. And I did. And I think they look good. They have the same kind of rustic and natural feel to them as the coat has.

The front with the four buttons I wasn't sure I loved

Sylvi doesn't have any pockets. I know some have added fabric pockets sewn into the side seam and some have added knitted squares on the fronts as pockets. I did neither, but I think I'll be okey with not having pockets. I normally don't use them much anyways.

Now, just because I can:

Playing on a bench

Checking out a mushroom I found in the grass

Don't ask me what I'm doing. I don't know...

WIP - Crocheted shawl

A progress picture. The paws are JumJum's.

This is what my crocheted shawl looks like at the moment. The pattern comes from Drops.

Recognize the yarn? Well, it was supposed to be a striped cardigan that I designed myself... I didn't love the cardigan style and also found the yarn to be a bit too scratchy for a cardigan. So, I decided to turn it into a shawl instead.

A colleague of mine suggested washing the finished shawl in schampoo and conditioner to make it softer. I'll try that!

I'm enjoying the process. Crocheting feels relaxing.