FO's

I have FO's !! I finished the Stockholm scarf and both the Bella's mittens and hat :) no pices as usual but hopefully that will change.


I started on a little lace shawl called Lazy Katy a cleverly constructed but easy and it shows off the long stripes in my Cranberry Zauberball perfectly. I am using mods that I found on Ravelry to omit the double row of eyelets that are on the shorter end of the shawl edging and it looks good so far.  I think this will be finished soon as it is knit on 4.5 mm needles.

I am also looking my stash for other projects and there are a few that I am thinking about, I feel the need for something beaded so probably a shawl of some sort.

Video Podcasts

For those of you who know my personally and probably others too, you know that I can't knit or spin without watching or listening to something. Right now I am alternating between watching lots os Scifi TV series and Video Podcasts. I

just finished a watching Firefly again and still trying to figure out why there was only one season it is such a great show. Before that I watched all the Stargate series SG1, Atlantis and now I am watching SGU as it runs.

As for Video Podcasts I try to keep up with them but there are so many new cropping up that I probably don't know about yet. My all time fav and one of the longes running is Round The Twist with Carin. I love her show and it always inspires my to knit, lucky for me she is on a yarn diet so no temptations there as I am on one myself.

If you have not tryed those type of podcasts I highly recommend them as they are fun and you always see some new things and watching what other people are knitting is also alway inspiring.
Most of thoes shows have Ravelry groups and are on Itunes as well for those of you who prefer that. I usually just watch them on the blogsites.

As for knitting I am still working on the Stockholm Scarf but I am at the finishing line, the laceweight of doom is not getting much love but I am almost done with the first strand of the 3. I intend to take a brake between the strands and next up will probably be singles spun from some Falkland top dyed by Feltstudio here in the UK. I got this and 2 others of her tops at Woolfest last year so it is high time for them to be spun. David's fiber club from SCF is on it's way from Australia and I am looking forward to that as usual. My friend Jacqui who runs Spinning a Yarn is also having a fiber update later this month and I snagged one braid of super sorted BFL from ther at the last Spin A Rosie. I loveh her fiber and have a plastic box nearly full of it :)

A new Blogpost!!

After 3 years of not blogging I am finally going to revive the blog! mostly for me to keep tally of what I am doing and hopefully get some pictures on. That is not going to happen for a while as my camera is not working :(

I moved to England at the start of last year so now I am much closer to a spinning community witch is great and I have made great friends here and living in England is generally wonderful. I miss my kids of course and my mum and my friends but a change is a good thing and being away from Iceland makes you see what is happening over there in a whole other light than when your sitting in the middle of all the scandals and corruption following the economic crash.

But back to knitting, this is my list of finished objects of the year since I came back from my Christmas holiday in Iceland on the 8th of January:

Lopisweater Hermann	Lopi
Lopisweater Sonja	Lopi
Lopisweater Hulda	Lopi
Lopisweater Abbie 6 years	Lopi
Lopisweater Ben 8 years	Lopi
Merit Beret Kiz	Lopi
Thorpe Chris	Lopi
Hat Ben	Lopi
Hat Abbie	Lopi
Hat Harrison	Lopi
Hat Evie	Lopi
Hat Henri	Lopi
Merit Beret Sonja	Lopi
Merit Beret Hulda	Lopi
Hat Hermann	Lopi
Hat Elli	Lopi
Mittens Ben	misc
Mittens Abbie	misc
Mittens Harrison	misc
Mittens Evie	misc
Mittens Hermann	Lopi
Mittens Elli	Lopi
Shawl Haruni with 16 rows extra repeats	Polwarth Handspun Antartica SCF
Merit Beret Agusta	Handspun
Fair Isle mittens form a kit	Finnish wool
Tea Cosy from Ring A Rosie	Merino and glimmer yarns
Cardigan from Drops bluegreen	Merino Extra Fine Tebe yarn
Cardigan from Drops red	Merino Extra Fine Tebe yarn
Merit Beret for Sonjas mum	Lopi

I have also been spinning a lot and this is my tally for the same period:

My handdyed Shetland in red	Bulky	2 ply	80	yards
My handdyed BFL green and orange	Fingering	Singles	215	yards
SCF Polwarth Antartica blue/greenish	Heavy Lace	2 ply	540	yards
Commercial silk merino rose	Fingering	N plyed	425	yards
Merino Singles multicolored primary colors	Fingering	Singles	382	yards
Lunabudknits BFL Ace green/brown/pink	Worsted	2 ply	170	yards
Downland SAY purple/red/yeallow	Fingering	N plyed	245	yards
Downland SAY green/blues/yellow	Fingering	N plyed	332	yards
Corridale SAY gray/brown/orange	Fingering	N plyed	213	yards
Camel/Silk from Jaquie mother of pearl	DK	2 ply	186	yards
Organic Merino Cosmopolitan SCF	Fingering	Singles	472	yards
Merino/Tensel The Yarn Yard red/pink	Fingering	N plyed	302	yards
Probably Merino Pink/green/brown	DK	2 ply	146	yards
Merino Singles pink browns greens	Fingering	Singles	235	yards
Merino Multicolored	Lace	2 ply	835	yards
Probably Merino Pink/green/brown	Worsted	2 ply	298	yards
Lunabudknits batt with all kinds of fiber	Lace	2 ply	561	yards
BFL and Silk peackoc	DK	2 ply	194	yards
Downland SAY yelow/red/orrange	Fingering	3 ply	284	yards
Superwash merino red yellow orange black	Fingering	3 ply	478	yards
SAY Shetland in blues - blue merino	Bulky	3 ply	388	yards
		Total	6981

On my needles now is a Stockholm Scarf of Sonja my sons Hermann's GF and a Tappan Zee cardi for me in burnt orange. On the wheel is a batt from SCF that I am spinning into 1300 yards single for one of 3 plyes of fingering weight to knit the Galadriels Mirror Shawl in a KAL in the SCF group on Ravelry.

I have now recovered

nicely from that nasty case of Romantica and I am now listening to books by James Rollins where the men are manly and the women are deadly. This is the author that wrote the story/script for the fourth Indiana Jones movie.
While recovering I managed to buy a lot of Posh Yarn that is seriously addictive and I also completed the first 10 kilometers in the Eat.Sleep.Knit yarn marathon. This marathon is just my kind of sport so no wonder I am currently in first place and I even got a badge to prove it!

Between shopping sprees I have managed to knit Laminaria from Knitty, and it looks wonderful even unblocked. I knit it with Baby Lucia from Posh Yarn and this yarn is turning out to be one of my absolute favorites.

I am now knitting Mrs. Lamberts stole from Victorian Lace Today while waiting for David I NZ to get his yarn so we can start our mini KAL, knitting the Knitted Veil from VLT.
I am also going to do the Swallowtail KAL with my Posh Yarn group on Ravelry and I have the yarn and the beads picked out.

To enable all this yarn buying I have been destashing like mad on Ravelry, purging my stash of everything that I am never going to use and turn the money from that into yarn I will love and it has been a great success so far.

Love is in the air....

or so it seams since it is almost spring, or it might be just the 4 Nora Roberts romances I listened to in a row. Personally I have not even had a whiff of it, so I have been thinking and wondering about those date sites, ma by they have one for farmers in Wales or Scotland, I could work with that I think, and I really, really like to relocate.

I am of course picturing here the dark brooding Heathcliff type strolling along the moors. But then again, I am afraid of sheep's and the brooding types would probably drive me batty in no time.

What I have come up with is a list of things that qualify me as a great catch without interrupting my knitting time too much. The things in the brackets are the things they don't need to know about.

• I can have a hot meal on the table every evening ( why do you think they make all those TV dinners, It doesn't take a rocket scientist to push the buttons on the microwave )
• I keep a clean house ( just give me the number of the nearest cleaning service and I can knit while they clean )
• I am interested in cars ( Is it pretty, is it shiny, is it RED, those kind of questions show a definite interest to me + you can knit while driving around looking at cars.
• I adore men who like to watch football every weekend over the season ( as long as it is far, far away from home in a pub somewhere and I can knit in piece and quite at home )
• I understand completely that men have to go to the pub and meet their mates a few times a week ( that counts towards lots of quiet evenings with my knitting )
• I like men who have hobbies, I am thinking power tools and other expensive things here ( this will kill the Stash discussion in no time )
• I am very mild tempered and sweet ( as long as I get things my way and you don't make me mad )
• I like macho men ( this is just for the fun factor, I like to see a grown men cry after I give them a piece of my mind about that macho crap.
  
• I like S.E.X ( I don't have to disclose that the sex in question is an acronym for buying more stash.

So what do you think, am I a great marriage material or what.

Meet the Stash

Since I have been blogging for a while now I only think it's proper for you all to meet the stash that is the source of my nickname. So here it goes, first I like to introduce the Stash Wall, all the ugly stuff, the average stuff and most of my sweater yarn lives in the Ikea boxes, the plastic ones are reserved for more quality yarns and the one with the top open is where most of my Posh and Yarn Chef stash lives. The bale on the floor is where the FO's go until I decide what to do with them or in the case of lace until I block them.

Next up is the mini stash wall and some of the books, magazines and binders that can also qualify as stash with a little bit of my cross stitch stash spelling out of it's hiding place. There also seams to be a few of my scissors hanging out there with the books and the tiny speck on the floor is a basket with fabric that has the ambition to become project bags when I get the urge to give the sewing machines a whirl.

The next one is the stash that lives in a part of the closet, its very shy and delicate as it is mostly cobweb yarns in silks and cashmere. The stash does take up more closet space but its not housebroken yet so it stays locked up for now.

Last but not the least is the not so tiny wire basket holds all kinds of yummy sock yarn, it stacks 4 balls high so it packs a lot of punch when it is let out of the closet.

Now that you all have been introduced you can safely say hi to the stash in the comments and I will pass it along.

A friendly disclaimer from the Guardian of The Stash:
You may covet The Stash, but if stuff starts to disappear I will be forced to take measures. Since I know who you are and where you life the punishment will be the following, the most horrible yarn in the Stash including the cursed carpet yarn will be sent your way. When you have knitted that up the leftover stock of MCY will appear at your house and we all know how that stuff behaves in the dark, so you will have it on your hands for the rest of your life.

The Garden Party is over

and done with except for blocking of course, I finished the shawl this morning and now it is resting with the six other unblocked shawls in my FO basked. I highly recommend this pattern for those who like lace since it is clear and flawlessly written and charted. There are also other bautiful patterns by it's designer Laura of Fiber Dreams and I am planning on knitting some of them soon.

This is a picture of it in its unblocked clory , this will be a big shawl once blocked I am sure and below is a close up of the part where the leaf section and the rest of the shawl meet.

Now I am off to knit Laminaria from Knitty, in fact I have already cast on, so now I am off to knit on it.