Jahr: 2009

tadaaa: i proudly present the christmas presents i made for my mum this year. the gloves were planned but i was a little late and only finished  half of the first glove before i went home to my parents over christmas on 18th december. so i convinced myself that it made sense to let my mum try them on and fit the fingers exactly to her hands 😉 and indeed it made sense! if i had fitted them to my fingers they would have been too long!

as i knit the knotty gloves before for myself i knew that it was a great pattern and that the gloves fit very well. and i wasn’t disappointed this time either. it’s really fun to knit. i just hate that i never manage to close the gaps between the fingers without holes. i always have to sew them closed when finishing. you can’t see that there were holes when you sew them up properly, but it’s annoying anyway.

oh, by the way: i used drachenwolle tweed sock yarn in the colourway „pink-black“.

i was a little late too. finished the gloves on christmas day. but it didn’t really matter as my mum already knew what she would get as a present and at least i finished the scarf in time!

the scarf was a spontaneus idea. i had to check out herrenberg’s only yarn shop of course („die nadel“) when i was grocery shopping with my mum on december 19th. i was quite impressed by their good choice of sock yarn but didn’t really want to buy anything (unless anything jumped right into my face which can happen occasionally *lol*). my mum said „look at this pompon yarn. that’s fun. and sooo soft.“ so i just said „do you like it? i’ll get you a skein and knit you a scarf for christmas if you like.“

so my curiousity how this strange pompon yarn would knit up, brought me some more work i had to finish before christmas eve *doh* i wouldn’t want to wear a scarf like this, just don’t like the look of it. but i have to admit it is incredibly soft, cosy and warm. and it was a really fast and fun knit. just took me two days to finish. there’s a pattern inside the banderole but it’s basically just: k1, *bobble, k2* repeat 6 times, k1

i love london. it’s my favourite city in the world. so like the last years i spent some days there in autumn/winter. from 5th to 9th december to be precise. this year my boyfriend tim (= london novice) joined me.

we did all the london basics and a bit more: piccadilly circus, leicester square, trafalgar square, whitehall, downing street, westminster, big ben, london eye, westminster abbey, st james park, buckingham palace, tower bridge, tower, royal observatory in greenwich, camden lock market, spitalfields market… went to get really drunk with my english friend kevin and to see the musical „wicked“ (excellent)….

tower bridge:

view over the docklands from greenwich royal observatory:

view from trafalgar square down whitehall towards westminster/big ben:

big ben:

caro & tim are there:

leicester square at night:

60s christmas decorations at carnaby street:

regents street with christmas decoration:

and of course – why else would i post it here – i was up for some crafty mischief and checked out some knitting/crafts stores! this year it even was 5 shops! not bad, ey?

on sunday i met up with caroline (stagasaurus) who is a knitting pal i know from flickr. we met at iknit, did some yarn shopping and had a chat and a knit in a café (well more of a burger place) next door). caroline was working on transition gloves and i was working on basic socks for my dad. one english and one continental knitter 🙂

the husband/boyfriend were sent away to do guy things while we did knitter things 😉

now a little report about the 5 shops i visited in london:

iknit, waterloo –> link

lovely little shop with a wide range of yummy yarns.  last year i bought 2 skeins of cherry tree hill solid sock yarn there and wanted to get hold of some more. was slightly distracted by those beauties though. it’s scrumptious dk, 45% silk, 55% merino and 220m/100g. caroline bought 3 skeins of the same yarn in a different colour… i’m curious to see what she’ll knit from it (and from my handspun berries skein i gave her for a present!).

all the fun of the fair, carnaby street –> link

tiny shop with all kinds of yarns, buttons, knit goodies and crafty bits and pieces. i bought a bag of „hand made with love“ charms for my knitted/sewed stuff there.

loop, islington –> link

i really liked this shop! it’s about the same size as iknit but a different selection of yarns. i always wanted to get my hands on colinette jitterbug yarn so i picked those lovely skeins. exactly my colours!! 😀 it was quite crowded when i got into the shop but the sales woman was very nice and helpful and there was a lively chitter chatter going on about ravelry, stoles and – what else – yarn. apart from the 3 colinette skeins i bougth a 3-pack of magnetic pattern markers. was looking for some of those for ages. now i won’t be losing track in complicated lace patterns anymore. yay. oh, and i got this lovely fabric bag with my shopping. i’ll be back!

john lewis, oxford street

john lewis at oxford street have a quite large yarn, fabric and haberdashery department and – coming from a country where knitting is considered to be just for grannies – i really enjoyed the range of crafty stuff, books, knitting kits, needle cases, sewing boxes etc. they have there. this is what i got there: breeze by kim hargreaves. 21 modern patterns. i’m especially fond of „georgie“ and „devon“. maybe the next big project…?

the handweavers studio & gallery, finsbury park –> link

they have a wide selection of yarns you can buy by the meter (or g/kg or whatever 😉 ). i was looking for unusual handdyed roving but they only had single coloured non-handdyed ones so i was a little disappointed. i almost bought some 25g packs of multi coloured silk, but reminded myself how badly spinning mulberry silk went. so i also gave that a miss and just bougth a wraps per inch/cm yarn gauge which i was looking for for some time.

so, boys and girls: london is worth a visit. have a look at the world class sights, have a look at the lovely yarn. and enjoy 🙂 xxx

i started to knit these socks in turkey – the night before we had to leave the sunshine and heat to head back to cold and wet germany. the first sock was almost finished back in germany because i only stopped knitting on the plane home when they served food and drinks 😉

they look like really good mood, don’t they? so i called them „good mood socks“ aka „flying socks“.

pattern: basic socks. 64st, herzchenferse, bandspitze (sorry, don’t know the names of the heel and toe in english)

yarn: drachenwolle flamé, 75% wool, 25% poly, white streak merino

needles: 2.5mm dpns

working as a software engineer, i’m a geek by profession. my boyfriend is a pilot but he’s a real leisure time geek. 😉

so it had to be a binary cable hat for the leisure geek to avoid cold ears in helsinki/stockholm/etc! 😀

pattern: binary cable hat

yarn: aldi yarn, julia, have to look up the „ingredients“. but it’s part wool, part poly.

needles: 4mm and 5mm dpns

this is the eyelet cap from vogue knitting, fall 2009. i knew i had to knit this pattern when i skimmed through the magazine the first time.

i definitely wanted to use hand dyed yarn but nothing with outlandish colour combinations. so my choice was the 6ply tweed from drachenwolle. and i haven’t been disappointed! the colours are great, it feels good and was a pleasure to knit. i’m a huge fan of purple/berry colours at the moment. i guess you can see that when you have a look at my recent projects 😉

on the photo you can see the 6ply yarn on the left.

i changed the pattern a little and made the ribbed part shorter as i didn’t want the hat to get too slouchy. i reduced the ribbing from 20,5cm to 17cm and it turned out just as i planned and hoped.

can’t wait for the next cold day to wear it! 🙂