Music I listen to...

I actually had to switch on my MP3 player LOL... oh and one of my favorite groups was not available: Wet Wet Wet and of course most of the frenchies/germies/italies I listen to weren't available either.

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

Why oh Why...

did I forget my camera today??? I would have had a great little movie to show y'all!!!

I had to go into town to get my lenses tested. I'm on my 4th pair in 2 weeks time and we finally found the perfect solution. A new type of lens for my right eye and my beloved SureVue for my left eye. Anyways, when I left the lens shop I looked up and saw this really really really posh lady coming out of Louis Vuitton. She was still holding court to the shop assistant and her doggie was already outside. She turns around to say something to the shop assistant and right in this moment her dachshund crouches down and takes a big dump... right on her sandaled foot!!!!!!!!!!!!! The woman starts shrieking and shrieking and flapping her hands and shaking her foot to get IT off!!! As she's making such a commotion a cop comes running and when he sees what's happened he get's his little book out and gives her a ticket for dumping the sh!t and the paper towels the shop assistant is using to clean her foot on the street (we have a law here that you clean up after your dog or you get a ticket). I could see that the cop had a hard time keeping a straight face... Anyhoo, as she doesn't have the cash, she gets escorted to the nearest ATM LOL. You should have seen it... the whimpering lady in her high heeled strappy sandal full with doggy poo trying to walk with dignity to the ATM while being escorted by a cop and the dog that looks at her as if to ask what all the hoopla's about!!! It sure made my day!!!

Actually, I was feeling so great I bought 3 pairs of shoes: 1 pair of very plane jane black sandals, 1 pair of fancier red sandals by VaBene (swiss hand made => expensive, but worth every euro cent) and 1 pair of red Birks with SHEEP on it!!! I'd seen them last year, but they were out of my size... this year they had my size so I didn't think twice about getting them hahaha.
Next I went to the clothes shop (the one for the Big Sized Ladies) and got... 5 pairs of pants (2 all season ones, and 3 3/4s for summer (same model, 3 different colors)) and 6 t-shirts. Guess I'm done for this summer.

From now on no more yarn, shoe or clothes shopping until September.

Cheers Eva - yep I used poopy brown to reflect the doggy act hahahaha.

Shameless promotion of a shop...

Okay, I'm going to share my favorite online LYS with y'all... It is the Germany-based Martina's Bastel und Hobbykiste.

You want to know why I love this shop so much? Easy... the prices are great! And the shipping... I placed an order for some Addi's and within half an hour I got a mail telling me that they were shipped.

She has a great promotion going on right now: 40 100-skeins of sock yarn (Opal, Trekking, Regia...) for 200 EUR. That sounds a lot, but that is 5 EUR per skein! This sale ends today. And if I'm not mistaken, shipping to the US is 16.50 EUR.

Cheers Eva - who will have to move to a bigger place if she decides to adopt any more yarn...

I met a Townie!!!

Okay, I'd written this really really really long post going into all the details, but it bored my own pants off LOL. So I'm just going to share some pics with you.

The Townie that I got to meet was "Deb in Atlanta". She, her hubby and Little Munchkin (I'm not giving out her real name as I don't believe in breach of privacy where minors are concerned) spend a whopping 22 hours in Luxembourg hahaha. But they were charmed by the town :) Which is a good thing.

Oh, for those of you who don't know what a "Townie" is... it is a member of this yahoo group. Of course, I somehow managed not to get a single pic of Deb herself.

Blogger has been true to form and has mixed the order of the pics up to suit its own mysterious purposes... And I don't feel like fiddling around with code to fix it, so you're getting a jumble of pics, but with comments.

This is the Little Munchkin and her Dad close to the entrance of the Casemattes.

This is the view down from where Little Munchkin and her Dad were standing. Isn't Lux pretty LOL?

This is the ship in the playground in the park. Little Munchkin (together with about a hundred other kids) spend half an hour running up and down on it just after they arrived. She'd been "cooped up" on a train for over 4 hours LOL. It is a magnificent attraction. Entirely made out of wood that the got from trees that had toppled over in the park during a winter storm a few years ago. I took this pic a week before they came and at that time of the day there were no kiddies :)

If you look closely you can see the train with Deb & Co arrive in the distance... it's the one with the lights on :) To the left of the pic you can see the train I got in on (yep I take the train to get to my office... 6 minutes beats 32 minutes by bus doesn't it?).


The Little Munchkin enjoying her apple juice at La Table du Pain (a rustic posh place to have breakfast... actually it is a bakery LOL). All those jams and jellies you see are home made.

Deb gave me my own skein of STR (Socks That Rock) yarn... I do now understand what the fuss is about LOL... It's been lying here on my nightstand so that I can pet it when I wake up and just before I go to sleep. The colorway I got is called Shibui. It's got tans, blues, greens and greys in it. I've tried to take a pic several times now, but the light here is so awful that I just can't make a pic that does it justice. I will get one up soon... the sun should be out tomorrow... I picked a pattern out of Nancy Bush's Vintage socks (can't remember the name right now) and am waiting on my needles to arrive (2.5mm addi circ to do the magic loop thing).

I will post more pics and a bit of our adventures (you won't believe what we managed to do during those 22 hours - 11 of which were spend "sleeping" hahahaha!!!) later this week. I will also add some more pics!!!


Oh and before I leave y'all... I must admit that the Little Munchkin is the most well behaved and polite nearly 5 year old (tomorrow!!!) that I've ever met!!! I mean we spend a lot of time walking (mostly uphill, cos somehow here in town you seem to be walking uphill which ever way you go) or in restaurants. No fussing, no tears, no tantrums... Deb & Pete, you really are doing a wonderful job raising her!!!

Cheers Eva

Wow...

I'm normally not into weaving, but I found this site through Knitty.com board. If you go to the Galerie you will be able to have a look at this lady's work. I find it truly amazing. I'm totally in love with the first shawl/scarf in her Schals und Schultertüger gallery.

Just wanted to share :)

Cheers Eva

A quick answer...

Diana, you can still join the KAL if you want. Go to Risa's blog and drop her a note. I think I linked to it in the post. She might not get back to you immediately as she's in the middle of moving :)

Cheers Eva

Quick update...

yeah yeah, I should post a bit more often, and have some pics ready and so on, but... guess what??? I am basically a very lazy person LOL.

Anyways, you wouldn't have known it as I totally have forgotten to tell y'all about it, but I'm in a KAL called WIP Wipe-Out. Basically we're working on our WIPs to get them done. No restrictions on buying yarn or starting new things or whatsoever.
I think I was one of the first people to sign up, but I keep forgetting to send my weekly reports to Risa. Every time I think about doing it, the weekly update is the next blog entry I read :)
I don't even have the button or the link up yet, so I'm just going to link to Risa's blog.

Well, so here I'm going to try and remember all the WIPs I've got going right now.

1. Seascape Shawl by Fiber Trends, done using Knitpicks Shadow in Jewels. I started this a little over a week ago. Finished the body of the shawl in 4 days. Then I started the Old Shale border (or whatever it is called...). I ended the body with 325 stitches on the needles. Read the next line "after row xxx there will be no more increases". Sooooooooo I thought 44 rows of 325 stitches... I'll zip right through it and while I'm at it I'm going to make the border longer. So I get to row xxx and BANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What I didn't realise is that in row xxx I had to increase... 160 (one six oh, or one hundred and sixty, or honderzestig, or cent soixante or...) stitches. So one row of the border is 485 stitches long. And 44 times 485 stitches equals 21340 stitches which is about as many stitches as I've knitted in the previous 150-something rows!!!! So guess what... I've done about 8 rows of the border so far and started something else.
2. That something else is Fiddlesticks Lotus Blossom Shawl using Handpaintedyarn.com laceweight in Orchids. Apparently I'd started this shawl a little while back and forgot about it. I was picking up some needles on my couch and hey, discovery, they had the starting of the shawl on it. I'd made a mistake somewhere a few rows down, so I ripped it all and promptly started over again. That was on Thursday night (at about 10 pm) and so far I'm at row 89. It is pretty repetitive, but not boring. I hope to get through all of the stem charts today.
3. One of Sivia Harding's faroese shawls in Sage Zephyr. I started this a while back as a present for my Gran. But my Gran made me soooooooooooo darn mad 3 weeks ago that I doubt she will be the recipient of this shawl. She does not deserve my knitting time or Zephyr. Might sound harsh, but hey we don't get along and after that phone call I've had it.
4. Second Feather and Fan sock using Trekking XXL #67 (I think). I don't know what I keep knitting Feather and Fan or Olde Shale (they're pretty much the same pattern) as I hate knitting it. I've done about 1.2 out of 3 repeats on the leg so far.
5. Bavarian lace sock from Red Bird Knits March 2005 sock-of-the-month club. I'm nearly done with the first repeat of the lace pattern on my first sock. I'm doing these on 3 DPNs as each repeat is 22 stitches for a total of 66 stitches on the sock. I greatly dislike using 3 DPNs, but I started out using 4 and kept messing up the lace.
6. A simple sock for Daniela, my coworker. They're done in Regia Canadian Fashion Colors in I think Calgary as colorway (or Vancouver). It is BRIGHT red, orange, yellow, pink and peach stripes. I was past the heel turning and working on the gusset the other day when I ripped way back to the leg part as somehow my stitches were all loose before the gusset and it kinda bulged.
7. Some socks for my friend Lani. She's in the middle of moving from one military base to another and will soon be sent to a warzone (I don't know if I'm allowed to say where, so I won't). I believe she needs some handmade socks to take with her. She won't be able to wear them with her uniform, but maybe as bedsocks or on her time off (I don't even know if they get time off). They're not 100% what I wanted colorwise, but they've got some of her favorite color in them and I'll look for nicer and more Lani-like yarn soon and then I'll knit her plenty more socks.
8. Second Knitpicks sock that I still need to start.
9. Cardigan for JuJu or Juliette, my coworker Karine's 1-year old. This is a cardigan that I "designed" myself. It is a top down raglan in 2 colors of pink yarn. I need to find my notes again and work on it so that the kid can still wear it before she's too big LOL.
   

I think this is about all that I have on the needles right now. At least this is all I can remember right now.

I'm also swatching like mad as I want to make a couple of cardigans for myself. I ripped Eris last night. I loved the cabled collar, but the fabric of the body of the cardigan was horrible. I knit too loose to use Cascade 220 with a 4mm needle. I could read the paper through the fabric... without stretching it. I also want to make Bristow. I'm swatching some Cascade Eco+ for that. I do have a small problem, because my swatch (after being washed and dried) stayed the same stitch wise, but shrunk row wise. If I make Bristow I was going to make it longer anyways, but now I have to figure out how much longer I will have to make it so that after washing it is still long enough to my taste. I've also got some Jaeger Aran yarn in a burnt orange that I want to make a cardigan with. I am thinking about doing a top down, round yoked cardi using one of my sweater design programs and maybe add some cables or so to it. I still need to swash (swatch & wash) that yarn though.

Pics might come one of these days...

A couple of pics...

Okidoki... some pictures... sorry for the mumble-jumble, but those of you who use blogger know that blogger doesn't always upload pictures in the way you want them uploaded (or am I the only one struggling with that?).





These are my finished socks... yes they're short. Even a bit too short to my liking, but I can live with it. They're done using Trekking XXL in color 05. The picture makes the colors look nicer than they are. In reality there's a peach in there that I greatly dislike... me don't do peach. Ah well, I'll survive...



This is the kiddie sock using the left overs of the yarn above. I made a ruffled edge, 10 rows of k2, p1 (as the ruffle's also on a 3 stitch basis this looks best), heel flap is sl1, k1 and next row purl. The rest is plain st stitch. Star decrease toe.



I'm going to call this picture "unorthodox use of knitting appliances". I couldn't stop laughing when I saw what my coworker Hanne used for the safe transport of her Aloe Vera plant :) Lone (other coworker who's going to look after the plant) didn't understand why I was laughing. She always uses knitting needles for plant support. She asked if there was any other way for using them :)


Here you can see one Feather and Fan sock that is finished. Cuff done using a 2mm needle, heel flap using a 2.5mm needle and foot done using a 2.25mm needle. Don't know why I changed needles so much on this one, but I just liked the fit best that way. The yarn used is Trekking XXL in colorway 67... To be honest I like the striping on the bottom of the foot best :) Guess I'll be ordering some more to make plain socks with. You can also see that I really did start the second sock. But I haven't worked on it since Wednesday... the shawl's taking up all my attention right now.

And this last picture shows my sock (the finished one in my previous pic) while I was working on it in the office. It has become a joke... every time the system slows down or crashes I get my sock out, get ready to knit a stitch and the system will start up again LOL. It is really funny. Anyway, here's the sock reclining mid-sock-mojo on my keyboard and on some work.

Cheers Eva