My very first blogtag :)

Lani tagged me :) I got the questions from her blog. Here are my answers:

1. 4 Jobs you've had in your life:
-- babysitting
-- record shop
-- Substitute teacher (only 1 week)
-- proofreader (for the past 17 years)

2. 4 Movies you could watch over & over ? ( in no particular order )
-- Sweet Home Alabama (with yummilicious Josh Lucas)
-- When Harry Met Sally
-- 3 hommes et un couffin (original french version of 3 men and a baby)
-- Baby Boom (with Diane Keaton)

3. 4 Places you have lived ?
-- Antwerp, Belgium
-- Warken, Luxembourg
-- Pontpierre, Luxembourg
-- Kirchberg, Luxembourg

4. 4 TV programmes you love to watch! ?
-- Any kind of CSI
-- Gilmore Girls
-- Criminal Intend
-- Everwood

5. 4 Places you have been on Holiday ?
-- Italy
-- Maryland
-- Oregon
-- Holland

6. 4 Websites you visit daily ?
-- Yahoo Groups
-- Bloglines
-- EZboard bulletin boards
-- Knittyboard

7. 4 of your Favourite Foods ?
-- most pasta's
-- potatoes
-- chocolate
-- ice cream

8. 4 Places you would rather be right now ?
-- Oregon
-- Amsterdam
-- Myrtle Beach
-- Colorado (never been there yet, but it looks soooo beautiful)

9. 4 Bloggers you are going to tag? ( Hope they don't mind :) )
-- Jenn (Devilwmn)
-- Stacey
-- MrNicksgirl
-- Nancy

Fun :) Off to finish the second sleeve on the sweater I want to wear tomorrow LOL... No me no do blocking so I can wear it tomorrow :)

Cheers Eva

Phew...

I've just sweated for close to 3 hours over adding buttons to my blog :) It was a boatload of work LOL. I've also changed something... because some blogs don't have buttons they were getting lost in the forest of buttons, so I moved them to the top of my list. I was smart before starting this... I copied the whole shebang into Word and there I could copy paste comfortably.

Next I added a couple of groups I belong to too. But before adding those I figured out how to link to pictures on my website instead of PhotoBucket. So next up will be moving all the blog buttons to my website and redo all the links... but that will be next week or so. Have had enough of the scary HTML-stuff.

I'm going to look for a tutorial on button making and I'll make my own button too :)

I found an interesting link in google, but it was broken :( It was a tutorial on how to create your own wallpaper and everything. I'd like to do that as I'm a bit fed up with the standard blogger stuff...

That's it for now, cheers

A quicky...

I came across this article on yahoo.com Odd News and thought that some of you might be interested in reading it... Who says that Cashmere is expensive stuff???

Started another sock...

I know I talked about my third sock in an earlier post, but that sock is no more. I was past the heel, but didn't like the way it looked and so I decided to look into this afterthought heel business and wanted to try that. When I ripped back the sock, I couldn't get the stitches picked up right so I ripped the whole sock.
Yesterday, in the office, I started another sock with a different color of yarn (some Twinkletoes I got from ebay a couple of months ago). Thanks to the computer system being slow and horrible yesterday I got the toe and about an inch knitted.

As I said in my comments to my Knitting Olympics post, I think I'll be knitting one of the sets of cardi-tank-skirt for Dawn's twins during the Olympics... does this sentence make sense???? It is 6.17 am and I'm still half asleep.

Jorun, do you know how to make one of them buttons???

cheers y'all

Sock update...

I washed my socks yesterday... just chunked them in with my clothes. I plucked them out before dumping the rest into the dryer and boy did I get a surprise!!!!!!!!!!!! They were kinda scratchy before washing, but now they're SOFT SOFT SOFT... Okay, I do use fabric softener, but oh boy are they soft!!! If they weren't still wet I think I would have taken them to bed so that I could pet them all night LOL.
I hope that all my sock yarn will get this soft :)

Cheers

Knitting Olympics

On January 14th, The Yarn Harlot launched a new knitting frenzy to take over the knitting blog world: The Knitting Olympics.

I've been wondering if I should apply or not. So far I haven't got a clue about what to pick. Maybe some socks with a lacey pattern and a heelflap or something like that. There's a UK team, USA team and Canadian team out there already... should I be the Luxembourg team all on my own???? It will be very very lonely though.

I'll continue to ponder about it.

Cheers

A manly yarn...

Look like Colleen's encounter with the Media while knitting in a LYS in New York wasn't the only one... Look what I found while reading through the Yahoo.com Odd News section: the article's pretty good... don't understand why they put it in Odd News though.

Just had to share...

Cheers

Is it a plane???

Is it a car??? Noooohhhh............ it is a sock!!!! Oops correction... a PAIR of sockS!!!



Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you my first pair of handknitted socks: Knitted using Fortissima Colori Disco in ??? color. It's got glittery stuff in it and it is fun as the colors are pretty muted and classy looking. Pattern: my own... I casted-on 6 stitches, increased every other row til I had 32 stitches on both circs and knitted till it was long enough, did a double wrapped short row heel, knitted some more, did 16 rows of 1x1 ribbing and used a crocheted bind off. Right now I'm perfecting a few things though (yep a new sock :))

A blurry picture of my feet in the socks. Don't ya just love those little sparklies?

Another pic of my feet in the socks... They're a bit big and slouchy, but me loves them... especially those sparklies hahahaha

A pic to show that they match... upside down. I did that on purpose. One of the reasons I want to knit my own socks it is to be able to mismatch them hahaha.

I have 2 more colors of this stuff and I'll make more socks with it. I had a 100 g ball and I have enough yarn left over to make a third sock. But hey, I'm just like any human and have only 2 feet, so why should I make a third sock? Any ideas what I could do with the 32 g left over?

Right now I'm working with some Lana Grossa Meilenweit Fantasy self striping yarn. It is light pink, medium pink, purple, orangey yellow and lilac colors. A bit funky, but still cute.

Guess that's it for now.

Cheers
PS: Stashalong Kim, I've got a question. 2 of my coworkers want me to teach them how to knit socks. They asked if I could buy them yarn and needles (they'll pay for them) as they both live out in the country where there is no LYS. Would I be breaking the rules of the game doing so? I explained this to them and they had to laugh about it, but understood if I said no :) They're willing to wait til the yarn fast is over if it is necessary.

Another week's bitten the dust...

I've been meaning to post since last week Sunday, but I keep "forgetting" :) I have some pictures of my Ene blocking to show. I liked knitting it a lot, but it is soooo lacy that I keep getting stuck in the yo's with my fingers or rings or whatever. And then of course I've got the hardest time ever to try and get the thread back in. I'm also scared that I'll break the yarn one of these days. So for now it is just lying around, unused.

Here are the pictures: The first one shows it draped over the chair my mom used to sit in, with part of one of her quilts showing. You can see how lacey it is... Next up, having a flirt with my dad's computer chair. And the last one is a upside down picture of it on my "blocking table".








What else have I done... well the Shetland shawl has been ripped as I didn't like the plain garter middle and I didn't feel like picking out a lacy something for it instead. I'll do that some other time. I did start the Spirit of the Southwest by Fiber Trends using that shade of KnitPicks Shadow. This shawl's a pain in the you-know-what. I'm having the hardest time possible with the corn part. I've put it aside as I'm really not enjoying working on it for the moment.

I've also started another shawl, Wings of Fantasy by Hazel Carter for Blackberry Ridge Yarns. The picture on the site doesn't do it any justice... Off to find a better one. Found a gorgeous picture of it on someone's blog... she's done it in 3 shades of lilac yarn... absolutely gorgeous. I'm going to make a second one using 3 shades of a color too... it is just too beautiful like this!!!!

Oh... and as I'm yarn shopping deprived... I've gone and spend LOADS a money yesterday on a DVD recorder (I could have bought several hundred skeins of my beloved KnitPicks Shadow for that kinda money). I got one with a 200 GB hard disk... imagine I can record over 350 hours of stuff!!! and I've been fooling around with it a bit. It does all kinds of nifty things, like downloading the channels from my TV. Oh and last night I was watching a movie and had to go do something else, so I hit record and 10 minutes later I started watching what I'd taped while it kept recording the rest of the movie!!!!!!!!!!!! I do realise that those of you who have Tivo can do the same thing, but we no have such thing here in Europe (yet).

I saw 2 good movies this week (both dubbed in German): Switchback with Dennis Quaid and Sidney Poitier and Down with Love featuring Renee Zellweeger and Ewan McGregor... I want to get both on DVD.

That's about it for now folks,

Cheers

May I present to you...

Pacific Northwest Shawl from Fiber Trends. This version's done in KnitPicks Shadow in Sunset.

(Intermezzo: Blogger's being a real pain-in-the-you-know-what and I've lost this post more than once... the pics are not in the correct order any more, but I'm too happy that I actually could post pics to fiddle around with them.)

I made this for my aunt for her 60th birthday (last year september). I got the pattern while I was in Oregon and when I saw the yarn I knew I had to get these two together. I used inox needles in 2.75 mm. I'm going to make this one for me too, but using bigger needles.

I didn't block it very severely as my aunt's petite and I don't want her to drown in it. I mostly blocked the body but not the border. I kind of like the way that the border looks "denser" than the rest. I haven't measured it yet, but it goes from hand to hand on me and ways down over my popo in the back. I'll try and find my measuring tape and get real measures.

I use my mom's quilt cutting table to block my shawls. On it I put a piece of batting. It kind of grips the knitting. To get a straight top edge I use the Yarn Harlot's trick by weaving a piece of string through it and then I attach it to 2 drawerknobs at the 2 sides of the room. It's funny to see LOL. But it's faster than having to pin it all out and hey, the table's too short anyways :)

This picture shows detail of the fishies, water, sand dollars and trees

Over my head shot to show you the shawl in most of it gloriousness. See how the edge softly ruffles? I stretched it out a bit more and now it ruffles a little less.

A detail shot of the trees and the gulls... the gulls that made my life hell :)

A picture of how I tied the shawl to the drawer knobs.

And another shot to show you most of the shawl.

I really this pattern :)

Cheers y'all...

hihihi...

I added a site meter to my site yesterday (duh, isn't that logical?) and I've just had my first report... I just LOVE it :) It does register me as being at Niedercorn, Lux. (which is about 10 miles off) but hey, this country's sooooo tiny that that map is allowed to make a mistake.

It does make me curious to know who else is reading my site... I recognised one person (Hi Jenn) though and I've got an idea about another... but those 7 other people??? Who oh who are they LOL. I'm already very pleased that there's 9 people out there reading what I'm writing :)

Okay, some "sad" knitting news. Yesterday afternoon, I decided to put my Feather and Fan shawl on waste yarn and have a good look at it off the needles. And just as I feared, it looked horrible. I'd added a 3 stitch garter border because the Kfb on the first stitch looked horrible in the (slightly) thin/thick yarn that I was using. The fact that I added a border wasn't the problem... what I did that created a problem was slipping the first stitch. I shouldn't have done that (I always forget if it adds or takes elasticity... If I'd thought about what I was doing, I'd know the answer before starting). Well, whatever I tried, I couldn't get the curve to straighten out enough and deciding that I couldn't live with the way it looked not straightened out I (drumroll please) ripped it all. All hunderd thousand something stitches I'd made. I was at 24 rows from the end... 24 rows of each some 500+ stitches... The yarn's already wound in balls again. I've mourned it and decided that I didn't like the contrast between the black and medium grey anyways. It was too stark. And then between the medium grey and light grey there wasn't enough contrast to balance the contrast of the black.
I have some of that same yarn in Paris nights which is like a dark antracite color and which will look gorgeous with the 2 other greys, so keep watching this space... I might start the Feather and Fan shawl once again in the weeks/months to come.

As I was shawl-less I started making a traditional shetland shawl using the pattern in The Best of Knitter's Magazine Shawls and Scarves. It is the pattern In the English Tradition by Elisabeth Zimmermann. I'm using KnitPicks Shadow in Vineyard. I'm still working on the center square... I enjoy this working in biais :) It's fun and you don't have to think LOL.

Oh and on the Hot Chocolate front... it's been languishing in my bedroom for the past week and a half. I thought I'd finished the body over xmas and I bound off... threw it over my head and whammo... It ends just on my fattest part. So it is not flattering at all. I need to "unbind" it and knit 10 or so more rows so that it will end at a more flattering length. One of these days I'll do it. Would be neat to do it soon as the winter cold is known to get here end of Jan/beginning of Feb.

Eris is languishing in her ziplock bag. I'm not too happy with the fabric I'm making with the size 6 needles. I find it a bit holey. I don't know if Cascade 220 fluffs up with washing or not. If it does then I'll continue, if not I'm going to try and use my 3.75 mm needles.

Ene's done and will be blocked today. Ha, blocking's something else... I'm blocking my aunt's shawl right now and you should see the construction I made hahaha (pics to follow in next post). I'm using my mom's fabric room. This time I put some batting on her designing table and then I used the Yarn Harlots method of threading a crochet thread through the top and stretching the shawl alongst it to get a neat top edge. But as it is not a mattress, I have attached the thread to 2 cupboard drawers at 2 ends of the room.

This is all for now... guess I'm more chatty at 10.30 on a Friday morning than I expected to be.

Cheers

Once again...

I'm a day off :) I knitted and knitted and knitted and didn't finish the shawl... the rows are never ending with over 500 stitches a piece and each row adds 4 or 2 stitches. I've got another 24 rows to do. The more I knit the more I fear that I'll have to rip everything as soon as I'm done... See, I didn't like the Kfb to start the rows with so to make it look nicer I added 3 garter stitches at the beginning and the end of a row. Because of the curving nature of the Feather and Fan lace that the bottom constitutes I fear that the border is not stretchy enough. So far it really really really puckers awfully and it doesn't look like I can block it out. Anyways there's something that boggles my mind. The drawing of the shawl shows that the top is straight... but what I'm knitting doesn't make for a straight top edge... I mean every row I'm starting and ending with a Kfb... which of course creates a curve.

Ah well, enough rambling... of to the knitting I go again. Who knows, I might get it off the needles today.

Cheers from snowy (once again) Lux.

Technical blogging questions...

Hey folks,

I know not many people read this blog (yet), but I hope one of you can help me... I'm wanting to add a couple of things and need someone to tell me how to :)

1. I want to know how to add one of those little calendars that shows when a post has been made;
2. I want to know how to add a button for a knit-along or something similar to my sidebar
3. Some people make comments on how their blog was found through google or something like that and they also know how many people read their blog... where can you find that information

That's all for now I think...

cheers again

I already messed up my first...

new years' resolution... I was going to blog on Sundays and on Wednesdays. Before I knew it it was Tuesday LOL. I'll try and do better from now on.

I have a FO though... Ene's done finished but not blocked yet. I'm going to my dad's place tomorrow and block her. My apartment's too small, and as he's not home right now he won't know :)

I finished Ene last week Wednesday. On Thursday I casted on (is that the correct way to say it???) for one of the Faroese shawls from Best of Knitters Shawls and Scarves using Indigo Zephyr. And on Saturday I started the Feather and fan triangle Shawl from Folks Shawls. I'm using handpaintedyarn.com's laceweight in Black, Pearl Ten and Pearl. I set the goal of finishing it tomorrow... but I doubt that will be the case. It is already 8.40 pm and I still have 37 rows to go... Each 2 rows adds 6 stitches and the row I'm doing now is 459 stitches long already.

I'm participating in a stashalong at this blog. We're not going to buy any yarn for the next 13 weeks. It'll be very very very hard because a) there's a sale going on at one of my favorite ebay stores (she has Cascade 220 for 4.85 USD a skein) and b) a sale at my LYS (who only sells Lana Grossa). I'll try to be strong...

I've also received the scarf from the International Scarf Exchange I am in (no, mine's not done... I'll be picking it up soon again :)). Rose from Enchanted Ewe spun and dyed the yarn herself... it is absolutely gorgeous!!! Oh and she's in the process of getting her own store up through her website.
I made this picture last week wednesday. I draped it in a tree on my way home from the bus stop... I got lots of weird looks from the cars driving by. Oh and all the snow you see has melted since. It was very windy so I had to poke the branches partly through the scarf to avoid it flying away.

The second picture's taken from a different angle and the sun disappeared just before I pressed the button to make the picture. Oh the pattern's Feather and Fan and it is LONG LONG LONG... I can wrap it 3 times around my neck, or twice around the collar of my coat and still knot it so that I don't loose it. It soft, warm and smells gorgeous hahahaha. I took it to the office on Thursday and Friday and my coworkers kept coming to my desk to pet it and smell it hahahaha.

Well folks, I guess this is it :) I'll post more tomorrow... as it will be Wednesday.

Cheers