5 Year Blogaversary

Wow. My knitting blog has been going for 5 years. My first entry was on the 9th of April, 2003, at my old location. It’s really odd to go back to read my early entries there, my life was in such a different place. A lot of things happened over the last 5 years. My office at the time was closing and I was one of the last people working up until the end, and then I was freelancing for a while until I got another full time job. It was before I met my soulmate. My ex-husband was still around, and things were just starting to really go downhill.

I’d say that things are a whole lot better now than five years ago.

Now, I wonder how many knitting projects from five years ago are still waiting to be finished.

Oh la la

A while before Christmas Ingi and I were shopping and he saw a sweater he really liked (rare for him) which was overpriced and made in China. It reminded me a little of Cobblestone so when I got home I showed him the pictures. He liked Cobblestone even better. So I ordered some acrylic yarn from Bergere de France (their acrylic yarn feels like wool, it’s amazingly soft) and got the free pattern book for the year with my order. There are some amazing designs. I also ordered Tricot Baby which has some really cute stuff in it (including the hat from this post). Has Interweave Knits gotten better, or are they publishing fewer magazines to create an artificial shortage or what? I had to hunt to find a copy of the issue with Cobblestone in it (a certain LYS had a few copies), since that was out of print, and also picked up the magazine with Central Park Hoodie in it (also out of print).

Anyway, here it is so far, I have gotten to the yoke section, which is a little confusing because it has short rows in garter stitch in the round, so every so often I realise I’ve knit when I should have purled and have to rip out.

The weather here is absolutely lovely today, it is warm and sunny so I finally had an opportunity to take a picture of this black sweater in progress.

Two Socks, Two Needles

I am still not sure how I feel about the two-socks-at-a-time-on-one-needle method, so I decided to try out the basic sock instructions for two socks on two circular needles from Knitting Circles Around Socks. I think I like this method better, although with worsted weight yarn it was a bit of a bulky project say to take on the bus. I do like having two socks finished though!

Yarn is called Moor Ragg (apparently no longer available, this was really old stash yarn) from Green Mountain Spinnery (in Putney, Vermont). (By the way, they have some really cool new sock yarn that I just noticed when finding the link.)

Afmælisgjafir

(Scroll down for English)
Sunnudaginn fyrir Páska átti ég afmæli. Ingi gaf mér ekta silki undirkjól frá Viktoríutímabilinu, nýju Tori Amos plötuna með DVD, og MAC augnskugga. Prjónaklúbbinn minn hefur afmælisleik, og ég fékk yndislegar gjafir þaðan:

Frá Unu:
Kaffi, best súkkulaðihjúpaða lakkrísinn, og frábæran handunninn nálapúða

Frá Sigrúnu S:
Páskasúkkulaði (jippi!) og yndislegt sokkagarn

Frá Hörpu:
Fallegt Rowangarn og skrautprjónar

Frá Sonju:
Elisabet Lavold Silky Wool garn og hugmynd um hvað hægt gera með því, handunna sápu frá Ohio, og poka

Frá Berglindi:
Djúpur OG Lakkris Draumur! Nammi!
Mjúkt bleikt mohairgarn
FALLEG kerti frá Selfossi

Frá Kristjönu:
Kona getur ekki átt of mikinn súkkulaðihjúpaðan lakkrís
Aeðislegt fjólbláat alpakagarn

Frá Elínu:
DÁSAMLEGT Lorna’s Laces garn. Ég hef ekki prófað Lorna’s Laces, ég get ekki beðið eftir að nota það.

Sunday before Easter was my birthday. Ingi gave me a real Victorian silk slip, the new Tori Amos CD with a DVD, and the special edition MAC Fafi eyeshadow

My knitting list is having a birthday game and I got a bunch of great gifts from the participants, including Easter chocolate, chocolate covered licorice, handmade candles and soap, a really nice handmade needlecase, and some wonderful yarn (mohair, alpaca, great sock yarn, Elisabeth Lavold Silky Wool yarn, and Lorna’s Laces yarn, which I have never tried before and can’t wait to try out.) It’s very exciting to have all this fun yarn in colours that I love.

Gleðilega Páska

Garnstudio had some great Easter decoration patterns, and I couldn’t help knitting a few Easter eggs:

One of my friends is from Sweden and she always did great Easter tree decorations. I thought it was so fun, maybe next year I will make some more eggs.

We also dyed some brown eggs, experimenting with some different techniques.

The beautiful blue on the left is from red cabbage. About 4 or so cups chopped red cabbage and a tablespoon of vinegar, simmer in a litre of water for a half an hour, then put the boiled eggs in the liquid (strain out the cabbage) and let them sit in the fridge overnight. The one on top we used a rubber band to make a stripe.

The second one from the left in the front is the same technique but with spinach. Not as interesting a colour. Then the other blue, green, and red ones were food colouring, vinegar, and water. We tried a marbling technique on some by adding a few teaspoons of vegetable oil to the dye. They weren’t that interesting patterns, but the third from the left in the front row we spooned over with leftover bits of all the dyes with oil mixed in and that one came out really neat.

I have to go spice my lamb now or we won’t be eating dinner tonight.

My Knitting Is Going To Be On TV

…but I probably won’t see it. Ingi is going to be in a TV commercial for his work, wearing a hat that I knit for him. However, it’s going to be aired on cable channels that I don’t think we get, so I don’t think I will get to see it. (Plus I don’t usually watch much TV anyway).

Friday night I made some really great lentil soup. I used Better Than Bouillon vegetable base instead of broth. It was much cheaper than packaged broth and way better.

I also made a a really nice bread.
Honey-grain buns
50 g pressed yeast (or 17g dry yeast + 24 ml extra water)
3 dl milk
1 dl súrmjólk (buttermilk)
70 g butter
2 Tbsp honey
150 g rye flour
25 g wheat bran (I used wheat germ because I had no wheat bran)
300 g flour
1/2 tsp salt

Heat milk to lukewarm, add yeast, and let proof. Melt butter. Add buttermilk and honey into milk mixture (plus additional water if using dry yeast). Once it is mixed well, add rye flour, butter, wheat bran/germ, and half the flour. Now add the salt (in general, salt retards the yeast action, so it’s nice to not mix them directly). Mix everything well, then sprinkle the remaining flour over the top and let rise, covered, for an hour to an hour and a half. Knead the dough lightly, adding more flour if needed. Divide it into balls (around 22-24) and set into a greased sprinform pan (10 cm). Let it rise for around another hour. Brush the bread with an eggwash and sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Bake at 200C (400F) for about 50-60 minutes.

I forgot the eggwash and seeds because I was in a hurry to get it into the oven, and it actually cooked faster than 50 minutes (maybe 40 minutes), so I would keep an eye on it as it finishes baking. I was amazed that a dough with rye flour would be so light, but it was a very light, airy bread (yet with a lot of substance at the same time). I would like to try it in a loaf form (not really sure if this amount of bread makes one loaf? More?)

Baby Gifts

I am cursed. One reason I have not been posting much, is Ingi’s laptop died. While trying hopelessly to diagnose it, I decided to fix my other Windows machine. This just completed this week. (160 GB HD + old BIOS = Bad Combination). Then. My work laptop HD died. Luckily there was another machine I could use while it was being fixed. Now my Mac just spontaneously died. That’s MY machine. The Windows machine is just the extra machine for freelancing. Clearly, I have some kind of EM fields problem with my body and should not work with electronics.

Another reason I haven’t done knitting posts in a while is my knitting project was Top Secret. The recipient reads my blog on a regular basis, and she’s having a baby girl, and the project was pink, and I KNEW it would give it away. So now that she’s received her gifts, I can share.

The hat pattern is by Bergere de France, from their cute baby magazine Tricot Baby #137. I used Katia Mississippi yarn, a lovely cotton-acrylic blend… I think this is my new favourite baby yarn.

The sock pattern was a modified version of a pattern in 2-at-a-Time Socks. Yes, I knit them at the same time, with the magic loop technique described in this book. This was my first foray into Magic Loop, and I don’t know if I like it. It remains to be seen.

I’ve also acquired some fun new CD’s:

Kate Nash’s House of Bricks, which reminds me of a cross of Björk, Fiery Furnaces, CocoRosie, Feist, and the Arctic Monkeys. (If you know these bands and think, wow, that’s a very odd mix, you would be right, but it’s still really fun.)

and of course Tricot machine, which starts out with a great song with the lyrics (translated), “Do you know how to knit? To your needles!” This album to me really is the album of the year.

Pedicure

I’ve been wanting a pedicure, but I am getting paranoid of all the nasty chemicals that they use at salons. So I gave myself a pedicure today.

Step 1: Soak feet in warm water with 1 Tbsp of baking soda, 1 tsp of almond oil, and a few drops of lavender and peppermint essential oils

Step 2: Scrub feet with:
Brown sugar and honey scrub
1 cup brown sugar
3 tsp olive oil
1 tsp honey
2 drops lemon essential oil
3 drops lavender essential oil

Step 3: Soak feet in 1 tablespoon of
Sea Salt Soak
1 cup coarse sea salt
2 drops lavendar
2 drops tea tree oil
2 drops eucalyptus oil

While soaking, take one foot out and scrub with a pumice stone and trim nails, then switch feet, then continue to soak.

Step 4: Dry feet. Moisturize with The Body Shop Hemp Foot Protector

My feet feel SO GOOD right now.

(If after the all-natural pedicure you want to paint your nails, I recommend using Honeybee Gardens nail polish.

Tea Time

My mother’s birthday was yesterday and I made her a tea cozy with some sweaters that I bought at a thrift shop and felted in the washing machine:

I’m really happy with how it came out.

However, I am not happy at all with any of the computers in my house. Never try to put a 160 GB hard drive into a several years old machine unless you have hired someone to do it. Apparently, the machine is too old to see the whole hard drive, and I’ve been trying to jump through hoops to get it to work ALL WEEK LONG.

Hilde posted about a knitted video from a band from Montréal called Tricot Machine. I discovered them last week, and I ordered the CD. I am really excited about this band, they are really fun (at least the songs that I have heard), and their name means Knitting Machine…how cool is that?

RIP Matt the Rabbit

31 March, 2002 - 16 February, 2008

He wasn’t the most friendly Angora rabbit, he never got entirely used to people, and when I groomed him, he would bite holes in my pants (he ruined a skirt this way once). But he would always come over to take treats from me when I fed him and he will be missed.