Cottage Garden Sweater

The yoke of my Cottage Garden Sweater

Pattern: Cottage Garden from Twist Collective (Autumn 2009)

Yarn: SoftWoolSilk from Gepard Garn, colours 469 and 81

Needles: 3,75mm/US5

Project time: February 18th - May 10th, 2010

This is what it looks when worn

Pattern modifications: I didn't really change anything. Because of my body shape I had to start out with an XL for my hips and then decrease down to a medium in the waist and a small for the bust. I didn't change needle size when working the second part of the picot edges. The neckline ended up being fastened with a 3-needle bind off as I couldn't get it to look pretty when trying to sew it down. I lengthened the sleeves quite a bit as I have long arms and I really wanted the cuff to hit my hand and not my wrist.

I love the length of the sleeves after blocking

Thoughts: Love!!!

And once I got the hang of knitting stranded with one yarn in each hand, it went fairly smoothly. My knitting isn't perfect, it puckers some and is too loose elsewhere, BUT I'm still proud of myself. It definitely looks good enough for being my first completed stranded knitting project.

Ready for spring

It's March. Time for spring?

This winter has been long. As I've mentioned before, we've had an unusual amount of snow for being in the south of Sweden. Late last week, the temperatures rose above zero and they've stayed that way over the weekend. At least during the days. A lot of the snow has melted and we can now see the ground in about half of our back yard.

We can see green leaves and yellow buds in our flower beds.

Yesterday I let the cats out in the garden for a bit. Skorpan had his first roll on the ground for the year. He looked ridiculously happy afterwards!

I'm ready for spring now. I want warmer temperatures so I don't have to bundle up as much every morning and afternoon when biking to and from work. I want the ground to be dry so I can bike through the park again. I want the trees and bushes to turn green so my eyes get some practise looking at colour after months and months of grey, brown and white. I want the sun to come visit regularly again. I want the days to get longer so I can keep my blog updated with pictures of my projects. I want to be able to sit on our porch reading without being cold or in the darkness.

I want spring.

An FO

Something has been knit. And something has been blocked.

Close up from blocking

Creativity: Hello!

So, I decided to force myself out of the non-creative state I was in. In the last week I have:

- finished all the sewing on my first Roman shade (=hissgardin in Swedish) for the living room/dining area. Our living room/dining area gets ridiculously warm in the summer and last spring I started an attempt at making Roman shades for our big windows. I stumbled on the first one when I realized I had made a mistake when trying to figure out how to construct the shades. I also had problems placing the channels for dowels without having to measure a thousand times for each... Anyways, I got it all sorted out last week and now I "only" have four more shades to go! (Luckily, two of them have the same measurements as the first one so they'll be quicker to make.)

- started to knit a cosy hat for myself in yarn from Araucania. 5 times. Yes, I'm on my fifth attempt to get a hat to fit my head without the yarn pooling... I think I'm on track this time around. The yarn is a mix of greens and browns and is definately more subtle when knit than in the hank. This made my boyfriend happy...

- started a Citron shawl. Like everyone else. I blame my start on the three or four women working on Citrons at knit night last week. I realized a ton of stockinette would do wonders to my tired brain and my frustration with not producing anything. I'm using blueish-turquoise lace weight wool from Handpainted yarns. The yarn comes from a yarn swap with friends. (Did you know that citron is lemon in Swedish?)

~~~~~

My online Creative Writing-class officially started today. I logged on this weekend and found our first assignment; write a text in which you introduce yourself through the eyes of a neighbour (real or made up). The neighbour is the I in the story. A kiss or a crime has to be included and you should use approximately 2,500 characters (including blanks).

We have until next Friday but I thought I'd at least make a start yesterday. After an hour I still had nothing I wanted to save. I shut down the computer and casted on for Citron... Instant gratifiction.

One of my anxieties when it comes to this class is the fact that we will write and make our texts public. Or sort of public at least. They will be read by others. They will be critiqued by both students and teachers. My texts will be graded. Performance anxiety: Hello!

Not very creative...

Time flies. And I feel frustrated with how little time and energy I have for making something creative.

Work has been busy since coming back from my vacation. I thought things would calm down over Christmas, but I was wrong. One of my big projects is in an important phase and it makes my phone ring a lot and my email count to rise. And most people contacting me are upset. Or sad. Or angry. Or frustrated. Or mean.

Usually I can leave work stuff at work and focus on other things when I'm home. But it's hard now. I can't relax like I usually can. I can't shut down my brain when it starts to spin with thoughts on how to deal with the phone calls, or how to reply to a certain email, or how to prepare for yet another meeting, or...

I just don't feel comfortable knowing that my work tasks and my project is upsetting people and making things difficult for families. 'Cause it is. But on the other hand, it's also helping 55,000 people on the receiving end.

These last two weeks I've spent my evenings watching tv, working a bit on my writing project, sleeping (or some evenings and nights; trying to sleep), cuddling with cats and playing boardgames with my boyfriend. I've searched the Internet to find something exciting to knit. I've gone through all my pattern books and I've looked through my stash numerous times, trying to get inspired to work on something. But nah. It hasn't worked.

I'm trying not to feel stressed out about it - I don't need the added stress to my life right now - but it's hard to accept that I'm not using my time to be creative.

I'll let you know when things change.

Highlights (5)

Highlights from this past weekend (December 11th - December 13th, 2009)


* The feeling of satisfaction as I got coming out of the grocery store (with everything I needed!) at 8.20am on Saturday.

* The blue sky and bright day we had as we biked into town.

* Hearing my sister's choir sing some Christmas songs.

* Having a friend/colleague and her daughter over for dinner on Saturday night. I made parmesan cheese pie with parma ham salad on the side. Delicious! We had Ben&Jerry's for dessert. Delicious as well!

* Being able to show pictures from our vacation in Tuscany on our flat screen TV. We laugh at ourselves everytime we connect our MacBook to the TV as we can't help feeling excited over being so modern...

* The two hours of watching a movie after the guests had gone home and boyfriend had gone to bed. I had Skorpan on my lap and JumJum right next to me the whole time. (Not wanting to move Skorpan when he was sleeping made me sit through the sappy and awful ending of Stepmom. The ending makes me want to puke...)

* Sleeping in on Sunday and not dragging myself out of bed until 11am.

* Being able to stay from fainting when cleaning out greenish-grey puss and skin from a scratch-wound on my right knee-cap. (I stumbled and fell at work on Friday. Tore my jeans open...)

* Knitting three rounds on my sister's Anemoi Mittens!

She hasn't been knitting...

I haven't knit a stitch in 10 days. I've looked at the two projects I'm supposed to be working on, but that's it. No knitting.

I have a deadline for my sister's Anemoi Mittens and it's only 14 days away. There's no way I'll be able to finish the pair up by then. If I get the first mitten done I'll be super proud of myself. I've knit about 10 rows passed the thumb gusset, but there's still at least another 20 rows left to knit before starting the decreases for the top and then the whole thumb. Knitting stranded takes time for me. And I'm not in love with the final product. The pattern isn't as clear as I'd like it to be...

And then I have my German Stockings. Some time a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd aim for having the pair done by Christmas. I'd love to wear them on Christmas Eve. But that won't happen. I've reached the easy part of them, working on the leg, but I don't have enough time. Knee socks have a long leg part...

So, why haven't I been knitting lately? Despite deadlines. Well, I wish I could tell you I'd done a million other exciting things instead, but sadly, I've just been too tired. Too tired. November was awful at work and December isn't much better. When I've come home in the evenings I've just crashed. The last two nights I've fallen asleep on the couch before 21/9pm. And that has been after severe struggle to keep my eyelids open fo quite some time.

The thought of knitting something that requires me to look at charts (as Anemoi Mittens and German Stockings do) has been too overwhelming. And knowing myself, I know that even the smallest mistake would leave me swearing in tears. I'm not a charming person when I'm tired. So, for the sake of my own, and my boyfriend's, sanity, I've kept from knitting.

It feels strange though. I haven't particularly missed it.

Maybe 'cause I've been creative in other ways? I'll tell you more about it some other time, but it involves trips down Memory Lane, a MacBook and the software Scrivener...

Anna goes grocery shopping on a Sunday

I went grocery shopping earlier today. Boyfriend and I had decided to make potato gratin with some meat to it. I wrote my shopping list and took the car to the grocery store.

Half an hour later I was home again. Proud of myself for making it so quickly. And then boyfriend asked for the potatoes...

I'd gone to the store to get things for a potato gratin. And forgot the potatoes.

And... The thing is that I made the exact same thing five weekends ago... Just like last time, I got on my bike and got potatoes from the corner store...

~~~~~

A nice thing happened at the big grocery store though. I was just stepping out of the revolving doors when the woman behind me complimented me on my Sylvi; she said I was wearing an extraordinary cardigan. I turned around and thanked her for telling me. She asked me where I had got it and I told her I had knitted it myself from a pattern I had bought online. The short and round 60-year-old woman looked impressed and went on to tell me that she thought the cardigan suited me perfectly as I was so tall. I couldn't help but grin as a fool when I thanked her again.

I'm really glad I finished my Sylvi. She was worth the tears.

Simpler knit project

The two knitting projects I've been working on this last week (my first Anemoi Mitten for my sister and my second German Stocking for myself) both require me to be very focused and follow charts. Sometimes I just want to work on something that doesn't make me think too much. I've tried to come up with something for myself but today my boyfriend asked me if I could knit him some fingerless mittens as he gets cold in his office.

Two hours later we were in my favourite yarn store (Fröken Garn) buying him some yarn. We came home with two skeins of the same kind of alpaca yarn I'm using for my sister's Anemoi Mittens. They're even the same grey colour. I'm mixing it with a merino lace weight yarn I got ages ago in a yarn swap. It's hand dyed in an olive green. (Hi Katie!)

Four fingers have just been joined...

WIP - Anemoi Mittens

I started this mitten last night:

Start of an Anemoi Mitten

The plan is to make these for my sister for Christmas. It's my first serious attempt at stranded knitting with two colours. I'm planning on holding one colour in each hand, but I can't master purl stitches when knitting English, so I'm dropping and picking up while working the ribbing...

The yarn is Sierra Andina from Italian Adriafil. It's 100% extra fine alpaca and it's sooooo lovely.

WIP - German Stocking

The first one is done! I did the last knitting while on vacation in Tuscany, Italy, but didn't have a needle with me to graft the toe. The grafting happened at home last week.

My first German Stocking in full

What I see when I look down

I have done the ribbing, the first stockinette section and 16 rows of the chart on the second one. Cables designs are fun to knit!

Highlights (3)

Today's Highlights (October 22nd, 2009)

* The meeting we had in my office building about different routines and tasks that need to be done. (I can't put the outcome from the meeting on the list here but the fact that we had a meeting where everyone attended definitely belongs here!)
* The WOWs I've gotten today from a colleague who saw my Sylvi for the first time (I feel like a parrot here!)
* The wind I had from behind when biking to a meeting
* Using boyfriend's bike today. It's lighter than mine and the gears shift easier making for a smoother ride.
* My cat JumJum behaving as if he didn't want me to leave for work this morning
* Finding out that one of my American knitting friends got some good news at an ultrasound yesterday
* Knowing that I'll be surrounded by knitters in about an hour as I'm about to head off to see me knitting group

Highlights (2)

Today's Highlights (October 19th, 2009)

* Reading your very generous comments on my Sylvi. Thank you!!!
* The WOWs I got from people at work who saw my Sylvi for real
* Being able to go through my emails at work and process five old ones that have been left unanswered for too long (and therefore have left me with a bad coinscience)
* My lunch today (fried fish with mashed potatoes)
* The look of the autumn coloured leaves on the trees outside our house
* My cat Skorpan's stubbornness when it comes to wanting to be on my lap when I sit down (even if he has to share it with a laptop...)
* The bowl of Ben&Jerry's Half Baked I've eaten while writing this post

(For the story behind my Highlights posts, see here.)

FO - Sylvi

Back of my Sylvi

Pattern: This is Sylvi by Mari Muinonen

Yarn: Atlantic by Canadian Briggs & Little. The colour is called Sheeps Grey.

Needles: 6,5mm/US10.5

Project time: Last days of December, 2008 - October 18th, 2009

Pattern modifications: Well... I didn't change much. I added a flower design to the right front piece. I started out trying to make up my own pattern, but after a couple of attempts I decided to go for the hood chart.

The right front has a flower design on it and the sleeves have been changed as well

I also changed the sleeves. The original idea is to have sleeve cuffs knit as a rectangle that is sewn together. The sleeve is then knit after stitches has been picked up from the cuff's edge. I found these cuffs way too bulky for my liking and started my sleeves with a provisional cast on so that I could go back and finish the sleeves some other way. I ended up knitting a couple of rows of garter stitch before continuing in moss stitch again. The sleeves are bound off purlwise.

Thoughts: I loved the actual knitting of Sylvi. I seem to "get cables" quite easily and making the back and hood wasn't as hard as it might look. The back also starts out with only 90 stitches that are decreased throughout knitting. A row didn't take long to knit.

Heathered grey!!!

I fell in love with the yarn and I'm glad I decided to order it from Canada. (I ordered from The Woollen Earth and got excellent custom service!) The yarn is almost rope-like in it's rustic thickness. It smells of sheep. It has the oily feeling that true wool can have. And the colour! It's truly the most amazing heathered grey I've ever seen. (Unfortunately the pictures don't do it justice. The coat is darker than it looks in the pictures taken outside.)

So, the knitting was fun. But I had difficulties getting myself to sew down the petals. It truly took forever for me to get those flowers done. And the process drove me to tears more than once. Due to this, and some mishaps with parts being of different lengths when I attached the sleeves and sewed the raglan seams, the making of this coat took ages. All knitting and seaming was done by March but the finishing of attaching the last couple of flower petals and getting buttons took another 6 months.

Picture of the last flower I made

The buttons I ended up buying are wooden. They are all different and it took me a couple of weeks to get them sewn on after having bought them as I wasn't sure I really loved the look. I thought they were a bit too different from each other. But then my boyfriend and my mother talked me into at least attaching them before dismissing them. And I did. And I think they look good. They have the same kind of rustic and natural feel to them as the coat has.

The front with the four buttons I wasn't sure I loved

Sylvi doesn't have any pockets. I know some have added fabric pockets sewn into the side seam and some have added knitted squares on the fronts as pockets. I did neither, but I think I'll be okey with not having pockets. I normally don't use them much anyways.

Now, just because I can:

Playing on a bench

Checking out a mushroom I found in the grass

Don't ask me what I'm doing. I don't know...

The cardigan that is no more

Remember this?

Well, that doesn't exist anymore. I frogged it the other day.

I had a look in mind of a cardigan with horizontal stripes on the yoke and over the bust and then vertical stripes on the "skirt" part beneath the bust. I imagined it to be flowy and A-line.

After several attempts I gave up. I had finished the skirt part without too much hassle, but making the yoke just turned out to be too difficult for my brain to work out. *I measured. I calculated. I casted on. I knitted. And I frogged*. Repeat from * to * a total of 6 times. Then I decided to knit it bottom up instead by picking up stitches along the skirt part. And I knit a couple of rows before "trying it on". Twice. And then realized I didn't love it. It wasn't as flowy as I wanted it to be. It wasn't as gathered and A-lined. It just wasn't what I wanted.

So I frogged.

And now I think I'll try to turn the yarn into a shawl instead. A crocheted one. Wish me luck!

Yarn swap in September

Yesterday a group of us met up for a yarn swap. We each brought at least three "yarn packages" that we wanted to part with and we all came home with at least three new "yarn packages". I think we were all happy with the swap!

I brought 4 "yarn packages"; 2 hanks of Malabrigo Lace, 2 hanks of Manos del Uruguay wool, and 2 packages of 4 skeins of Knit Pick's Wool of the Andes. A "package" is defined as "enough yarn to make something decent", so it doesn't have anything to do with price, weight or quality.

We put everyone's names on small pieces of paper and then draw in what order we get to chose a yarn package. We do three rounds, with a different order each round, and after that it's usually "take whatever you want"...

I ended up going home with the following:


My yarns!!!!

There are two skeins of Gjerstad's soy and wool, in a darker grey. Gorgeously soft! Might end up being a hat matching my Sylvi...

There's a yarn cake of a very colourful Noro Kureyon sock yarn. For some reason, everyone at the yarn swap agreed that this was Anna-yarn... :) I don't know if I'll end up making socks from it. Think I'd like to hear/read more about how the yarn's holding up with wear before deciding. It could end up being some kind of scarf as well.

My first pick was the hank of Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn. I love the muted autumn colours! (And I wanted to come home with at least one hank of yarn that my boyfriend wouldn't shake his head at... )

Last, but not least, there's a wounded hank of Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock. This was a peace offering from my friend Carina after we had been picking at each other the whole evening. All with love! She ended up choosing yarn I wanted, and I ended up taking the hanks she had in mind. (And I won't even mention the fact that she's planning the opening party for her yarn store to take place the only Friday this year that I'll spend in Italy....) Anyways, there's only one hank and that's not enough for a pair of adult socks, so we'll see what it ends up being.

I'm very happy with my new yarns!!! :)


(You're not forgetting about my give away, are you???)

Here it is: Anna's anniversary give away

Last week I posted my 300th post and celebrated my 2nd blog anniversary here on Anna's Corner of the World.

I decided to make that a reason for a give away.

Thinking about what I wanted to offer as a prize, I tried to find something that would suit most of my readers. I know some of you are crafters and some aren't. Some are Swedish but most of you aren't. I decided to give you a choice...


First choice:
A $40 order in any Etsy-shop with an owner willing to agree to letting me pay for your order. My favourite Etsy-shops are: weeones (fantastic stitch markers in clay), littleputbooks (pendants and lovely photo blocks) and unaodd (pendants). There are numerous gifted women and men over at Etsy!!! (Note that this prize has its limits as the seller has to agree to me paying for the order. I haven't made arrangements with anyone.)

Second choice:
A mystery package of either yarn, fabric or beads to a value of $40. I will get you something that I think suits you! If this is the winning prize, I expect the winner to tell me a little about themselves so I can pick yarn or fabric that I think is right for them. If you ask for green, I'll try to get you green. But I won't "take orders" as this is a mystery package!

Third choice:
A mystery package of books to a value of $40. I'll get you something I think you'll like! I'll expect to get some ideas from you (used or new books, in Swedish or English, crime or romance, fiction or craft, or what ever) but I won't take orders... You might end up with books from an author you've never heard off. I might get you something you're not expecting. Just for the kick of it.


Boring but important stuff:
This give away is open world wide. I'll ship your prize out to any address you provide.

I need some contact information to be able to reach you if you end up being the (a) winner. If I don't know you in person, please add your email address or post where your blog is so I can find you.

The prize might end up going through my home where two cats live. If you're allergic to cats or if cat hair disgust you, please keep this in mind before entering.


How to enter:
Tell me (in a comment) in what order you would pick the prizes. You can add all three choices or stick to just one. This way, you won't end up with something you don't really want...

I also want you to tell me about something you do to pick yourself up when you're tired, gloomy or sad. Is there a certain book you read? Do you go out for a walk? Grab yarn and needles? Turn on the TV? What do you do to pick yourself up???


If you post about this give away in your blog or on a forum and come back and tell me where I can find the information, you're automatically in for two chances to win.


Entries will be accepted 'til September 13th. Winner (or winners - I haven't decided yet) will be announced here one or two days later.

So, go over to the comments and tell me what prize(s) you'd like to win and what you do to pick yourself up!!!

Think I can see the light

This could've been my give away post as I had my 2nd blog anniversary yesterday. But it isn't. I haven't been able to set things up the way I had planned and need a couple of more days.

Hang in there. :)

~~~~~

I think I can see the light at the end of the overworked-at-work-tunnel. I'll get on a train in a couple of hours to go out of town. I'm going to attend a seminar tomorrow and in order for me to avoid flying and still be able to get there when they start, I have to take the train today and spend the night in a hotel. I'll be back home at about kl23/11pm tomorrow night. And at 9/9am on Wednesday, I'm expected to present my major project for our management group. (Or at least, the scope of it now. We're far from finished.) The presentation will take place about 1½ hour drive from my house which means I have to get up early. Boyfriend has taken the day off work and will drive me up there. After my 2-hour-presentation-and-workshop (now, does that sound posh or what?) I'm taking the rest of the day off too. Boyfriend and I have planned to eat lunch in a restaurant and then spend the afternoon outdoors. Just the two of us. On an ordinary Wednesday.

I need it. 'Cause this girl is tired. And slightly overworked.

~~~~~

My plan was to spend the train ride knitting on my German Stockings but I won't have much time for that. Unless someone sprinkle me with Energizer and Inspirational Sparks. I must work on my Power Point-presentation for Wednesday...

I'm more than halfway on my presentation but I think it still needs another couple of hours. And finishing it today means I won't have to work on it on the train coming back tomorrow after having spent an entire day listening to different speeches. And finishing it on the train means I can spend time in the hotel bath tub reading my book (Ken Follett's Svärdet och Spiran/Pillars of the Earth) without any stress...

And I'm looking forward to that.


(By the way, I have turned the heel on my first German Stocking - after having reworked the heel three times - and am working on the gusset.)

She's awake again

At Knit Night last week, Trasselsudd asked me - very apologetically - how Sylvi was doing... She didn't want to nag. But she was curious.

Remember Sylvi? I started working on her just before New Year's. The first pictures you saw were on January 5th. On January 19th, I showed you some blocking pictures. A week later, on January 26th, I told you about how she made me cry. I decided to not give up on her and said so on January 28th. Mid-February, I was scrambling to get her finished before my trip to Canada and the US. And after that, you've heard nothing...

I didn't make the deadline with Sylvi and my trans-Atlantic flight. Sylvi stayed home. And she slept very well in the cardboard box her yarn was sent in.

Sometime after coming home I made sure to finish everything on her except for sewing down the last 10 petals and finding buttons. End of May, Sylvi made me cry again when I tried to make the last two flowers look alright. I spent ages on sewing down two petals that just refused to co-operate. And I decided that Sylvi needed to sleep some more.

But now... She's awake again. I made Trasselsudd a promise to bring Sylvi, yarn, tapestry needle and scissors to work and get those last 10 petals sewn down during breaks.

As of now, I have 8 more to go! (And the two I have competed against have not made me cry!)

My new cardigan project

A glimpse at my new cardigan project.