KnitFreak

Finally, on the last day of october, here is a picture of my socktoberfest sock for my godmother. What you can see is the result of 3 (!(I can't believe I got so much done in such a short time)) nights of knitting.

As you can see, I knit them the 'oldskool'-way with a set of bamboo dpn's in 2,5mm and some plain, but nice and sunny Regia sock yarn.
Check out the pattern

I couldn't get the camera to get the pattern in focus, but I guess you get the idea. I really like it, Ewa called it "Kürbissuppenmuster" - Pumpkin soup pattern. Isn't it cute?

This is one of the yarns I'd like to make socks with:

It's a very plain and simple Regia sock yarn, but I really like the colors! They're so bright and sunny. Whenever I look at the ball of yarn (it's a big one, 100 grams), I think "sunshine!"
I cast on for a pair of socks for my godmother on Friday night, and now I'm about to start the heel (pictures soon!). Can you believe it, I finally cast on?! Shortly before October ends, my socktoberfest starts ;-)

The doorbell rang, it was DHL. First I thought, 'since when does Amazon mail their stuff in plastic bags?' because I was expecting something from Amazon and the packet looked like this (click for zoom):

Then, I realized it was my sockapal2za-socks - all the way from SHANGHAI!!! I was thrilled.

Carola was the runner-up in my Cosmeea yarn-contest, and I awarded her with another yarn from www.ewas-sockenwolle.de. In return, she sent me this yarn from Iceland:

She also sent some Icelandic lollies, and all that was wrapped in a funny Icelandic plastic bag (sorry, no photos). Thanks Carola! I really really like the color of the yarn, it's so cheerful! I asked K if he wanted socks from this yarn (I actually expected him to say no, and then I could keep it all for myself), but he said yes (Doh! said my inner Homer Simpson), so I guess I'll have to make socks for him soon.

As for the Socktoberfest, I have no clue yet which yarn I'm going to use and who I'll be knitting for. I hope to settle this matter this week though!

Check out the decoration I made for my appartment on the weekend. It's very simple, but I love the colors!

Here's a close-up:

www.ewas-sockenwolle.de is going to be in English soon!!!
I'm going to translate it myself. Until then, here's a list of vocabulary that might help you if you want to order something. And, Ewa now accepts PayPal, too!
Stay tuned!

But first, some news... I'm not only going to be an aunt soon, but I'm also going to be godmother! ...you can call me Donna Dorothee, and I'm gonna make you offers you can't refuse... you better not mess with me ;-)

So, what did I finish lately for the baby? Check it out:

I couldn't get the colors quite right, the red is actually a bit darker, and the blue is icier than in the photo. These booties are so tiny, it didn't take long to knit them at all! But with the different colors and you have to seam them together (they're not knit in the round), seaming actually takes almost as long as knitting. I'd like to figure out how to make them bigger, because I really like this pattern and I'd like the baby to be able to wear them when he's a bit older, too. Also, I'm going to make a beanie with this very same yarn (Lana Grossa's Merino 2000, or something like that... sorry, I don't have the name in my head right now. This yarn is soooo soft, it's like heaven to knit with it!), but this time with a little red border and the rest in blue. I've found a pattern I like, but I have to wait with this one until I get back to my parents' place because my mom has a set of dpn's in the size I need.

I also finished the wrap top!

This one gave me a bit of a headache. The pattern said garter stitch, but with this variegated yarn I preferred plain stockinette stitch. But this resulted in the sides, edges, just everything, rolling up; so I steam-ironed it before I knit on the sleeves. That went very well, as the top was then pretty flat and didn't curl any more. Then, after seaming the sleeves when I was about to seam the sides of the top, I noticed that the wrap front parts weren't as wide as the back part. Doh! I thought, I can't frog the fronts and re-knit them, because the measurements will be different, as the back had been ironed. What should I do now? Julia advised me to seam it anyway (I wasn't keen on undoing the seams of the sleeves either), and then block it. And that's what I did, and it worked quite well (thanks Julia!! go visit her blog). I had to undo the right seam though, because I had messed it up a little so that it wasn't flat. At first I thought, oh well, what the heck, but then it kept on bugging me. My nephew and godchild would wear this top after all(at least I hope his mum will put it on him), and I want him to look decent, don't I? So I undid and redid the seam, and then I was proud of myself because I don't like seaming, and I dislike undoing and redoing seams even more. Then, finally, I crocheted (crochet? what's past tense for 'to crochet'? Does anybody know?) around the sleeves, the bottom of the top, and the collar in the blue yarn I used for the pants I'm going to tell you in a sec (the pants and top are meant to be a set), plus, then there won't be any curling any more. I quite like the top now, I might have to block it again or steam-iron the crochet edges because they fold in a bit.

What you can see in the above picture (well, at least a little part) are the pants that belong to the wrap top. I don't think I showed you a picture, and if I did, it got lost anyway because of blogspirit's attack. The pants are done in garter stitch; I made them a bit longer than they were meant to be (in the instructions, they go till the knee, and I made them full leg-length).

(The picture was taken when blocking.) I still need to insert a rubber band somehow, otherwise the little one will lose his pants all the time. The instruction really sucked here, it only said something like "insert a rubber band through the stitches". Hello? How am I supposed to do that? I haven't seen any rubber bands that were so thin they would go through stitches. After all, this was knit on 3.25mm needles; the stitches don't form big holes. I might get some help from my mom, I thought I could fold about an inch of the top, sew it either by hand or with a sewing machine, and then insert a rubber band through that... I'm not sure, I might do that. I'm just afraid that when I sew with regular sewing yarn, it's not as elastic as if I use the yarn I knitted with. Well, I'll see, maybe one of you has an idea. I also crochetet the leg edges with the yarn I used for the wrap top. Both colorways are from the same brand, Wolle Rödel's own Baby Supermering yarn (Wolle Rödel is a chain of yarn shops in Germany). The pattern actually called for a different yarn, but this one had the same weight, colors and length, and it was cheaper, so I got this one.

I'm just about to seam my grey cardigan (pictures soon!), and then I might start Josephine from knitty... I'm still thinking about it. But until then, I joined Lolly's Socktoberfest, so I should cast on for some socks soon. I only need to decide on the yarn, and on the person I want to knit socks for. More on sock thoughts soon.
I also cast on for a new project, a very instant-gratification-scarf for my sister. I use 7mm needles and a nice yarn from Wolle Rödel, it has 10% Alpaka (and some other stuff).

It was really hard to get a photo that shows the pattern well. I tried the flash - only then the camera would focus - but then the pattern was blurry. I tried without flash - then the camera wouldn't focus - and the pictures looked blurry. So, for this pic, I used the flash but covered it with my finger (hehe), that's why the photo is so dark and has a red shimmer. And it's still a bit blurry, but pattern-wise, this is the best shot I could get. The actual color of the yarn is eggshell, or cream, or whatever you'd like to call it, and I made the pattern up myself. The scarf is about 16cm wide, and I'd like to make it quite long, and then add some tassels so it seems even longer. I'm now in the middle of the third ball of yarn, and it's quite long already. I might not need more than 5 balls for the scarf itself, and another one for the tassels; the good thing about this scarf is that I can knit up almost a whole ball per night, so I guess it will be finished real soon. And then I'm (almost) out of projects. I need to decide whether I'm going to knit Josephine, then I need to decide on sock yarn+pattern+person who to knit for, I need to wait to start with the baby beanie until I get the right needles. I had actually wanted to knit another pair of pants for the baby, but now I'm not sure if I still want to do that as the pattern is for very short dungarees. It will be a winter baby, so either I alter the pattern or I don't do it at all. And, I had wanted to make a blanket as well, but I don't think I can to that in time (the due date of the baby is November, 14), and actually I'd like to have everything done in advance. Apparently, I'm free for new projects... but I think I can find something to occupy myself. There was a sweater vest for myself for example, I need to frog what I knit of that so far because I have to figure out how to knit two colors at the same time with the thing I'm knitting being flat... that would be something.

I'll better get to work now... my group got an extension for our papers, and I still need to finish mine. The next posts will be about more swap yarn (thanks Carola!! You rock! check out her blog), hopefully about a finished scarf, and about the question if blocking can do wonders or not.

... it's so beautiful! One of my holiday pictures from Venice. I thought, if I don't show you knitting photos (I don't keep up taking pictures of what I'm knitting on lately), I'll show you something else you might like.

Dear sockpal,

Alison told me today you emailed me some time ago. Unfortunately, that email didn't reach me, it must have got stuck in my spam filter :-( So, just in case you read this and want/need to get back to me some time, you might want to try and leave me a comment on my blog or use the email address on this blog. I check this one daily, too.

Most important, I now know that there's somebody out there knitting away on socks for me :-) Please do not feel pressured to hurry, I don't mind waiting at all. I'm happy to receive socks at any time ;-)

Cheers,
Dorothee

Blogspirit has been attacked (by who? who does something like that?), and all my photos from August onwards have been deleted. Blogspirit is trying to restore them, although they do not guarantee that it will work. So I was thinking, should I sit down, try to remember which photo I used for which post, or should I just leave it like it is and be happy that I have some more disk space? What do you guys think? You can leave your vote in the comments (as I don't know (yet) how to make such a nice poll-thing). What would you do?

As for the rest of my life, I'm busy blocking stuff, blocking some more stuff (yes, I will post some pictures soon), knitting a scarf for my sister (all of a sudden, I was out of projects (seaming, weaving in ends and fixing mistakes don't count as projects... or do they?) - can you imagine that??), maybe taking up making some golf club protectors (or whatever these things are called) for my dad for Christmas, thinking if I want to knit Josephine (erm, I think I do want to knit it - but do I want to spend so much money for the yarn?), etc.
Anything else? Oh, and uni has started (yay.). And I need to finish a paper this week (double-yay.) So I guess I better get back to work, don't I?

(did you see how big my yays were? I guess you can feel my enthusiasm jumping in your face from your screen, right?)

Back from an extended weekend at my parents'.
Didn't do much knitting, but finished pants for nephew-to-be.
Have to start seaming lots soon. (And I'll hate it)
Pictures will follow.
Received something nice in the mail - details soon!!! Thanks Carola!!
Have to go back to my paper for Uni (hate that one, too.)
K is sick (well, I finally managed him to stay at home and rest, and go to the doctor this arvo).

Expect a decent post soon!