Sock Thief!

Yesterday I finished my 6th pair of socks. And since my husband got me addicted to Tenacious D's music... I present to you a tribute to the best socks in the world:

Pattern is (again) Vanilla Socks by Carle' Dehning. Letters were embroidered with sock yarn I used for Sasquatch Socks.

While I was busy taking pictures I suddenly heard a quiet chuckle behind my back, I turned just in time to see my no-good dog, stealing my socks. Which was done with my husband's enthusiastic approval.
I'm just glad those weren't the hand made ones!

When I finally managed to get my stolen property back, Korek decided he should apologize for his crime. And this is my dog's idea of an apology:

"I'm sorry!"

"I wish she hadn't notice me..."

For my next project I will make a shawl!

...in sock yarn :)

BTW. Here are tiny socks I couldn't show you last week:

And EVEN MORE butterflies!

Have a lovely evening! 

Gosia

Sock madness continues!

Oh dear...Who am I trying to fool? I am addicted to knitting socks.
And now, when I found a more "mindless" pattern, which I can follow with just minimal attention...

I'm lost.

Pattern's name is "Vanilla Socks" and it uses afterthought heel and is knitted toe-up. It's avaialbe on Ravelry: here.
It's absolutely brilliant! Genius! Amazing!

I knitted those (cotton-acrylic mix) for my Mom. She needed comfy socks for her TV evenings. 

My modification to the pattern was the ribbing on top. *k1, p1, k1* done over top 30 sts.

I decided to continue it also for the cuff. It resulted in very VERY loose cuff. In this case it's an advantage rather than a design flaw!

Picking stitches for heels was a bit stressful! I decided to document the process on pictures to have anything left in case of failure.

I will totally make another pair!

(Ok, I already did, but can't share it with you... yet)

I also need to get back to my AT-AT vest, and since temperature dropped to humble 28,6°C I can work with wool mix again! And Star Wars are just 147 days away!

Before I go... here are some butterflies I met in my garden today:

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

50th post!

As promised I present to you, my Ponchette in Blue:

Pattern name is Lace Cotton Ponchette by windloop, can be found on Ravelry.

I cast on 64 sts, knitted first 30 and done the lace pattern over last 34. Finished after 18 repeats. 

I also did crab stich edging:

It really looks better now, since the edge stopped twisting :)

Korek (as usual) did not want to participate in my photo session:

"Nope."

Now I'm back to celebrating my 50th post on the blog, with my anti-stress coloring book and red currants :3

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

Summer Field Trip!

Last Sunday we decided to abandon Skyrim and let our poor PS3 rest for a while. We also had an overdue anniversary celebration, sooo...

We boarded our faithful vehicle and drove to Pszczyna. According to English Wikipedia it's pronounced [ˈpʂt͡ʂɨna] which sounds like, ummm... pshcheena? It's a lovely town just 60 km from where we live. You can read more about it here.

Our first stop was the European bisons pen. It was their lunch time!  

Fun fact: adult, male bison (like the one in the foreground) can weigh up to 920 kg. Just like me, my husband and our car... together.

That didn't scare away this peacock though! It was standing right by the biggest bull, waving his huge fan of shiny feathers. I guess he was an adrenaline addict of some sort :)

We also made friends with a very nosy fallow deer:

And took pictures of beautiful herd of deer. There were several fawns in the group!

After a short lunch break, we went to a heritage park: 

Beehives

Fun fact #2: I couldn't fit in this cottage's door! I wouldn't call myself tall (167cm), but I had to hunch to get inside. Either people were shorter in the past, or claustrophobia wasn't such a big deal back then.

Local musicians :)

We spent most of early afternoon in the park surrounding the palace:

And visited main square. There was a flea market, so I had to restrain myself from spending more money. Fortunately, my husband supervised my stroll :)

I had such a great time! 

And I came back with a creativity boost, and managed to finish my ponchette!

More pictures coming soon!

Have a lovely day! 

Gosia.

My floral delegation!

Yesterday, while browsing my facebook wall, which is filled with yarns, socks and crocheted goodies, I stumbled upon this post . I read list of countries from which people send their crochet triangles for Yarndale bunting. Poland was missing! I decided to make it right this year!

Sadly I cannot go to Skipton in person so I will send a small (or big - I can't stop making them) floral delegation to Yarndale.

I picked some colorful acrylics from my stash...

Ignored my husbands suggestions about vacuuming... There are more important things than dusting and cleaning! I NEED MY FLOOR SPACE! 

Aaand here's the result of today's work: 

I will need to make some additional flowers to  achieve the required size. And maybe just a couple more...

I have a hard time following patterns from Lesley Standfeld's "100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet". The book itself is absolutely brilliant, the translation however, is not! Only thing that saves me from total frustration is the fact that patterns are charted. Craft-related books should be translated by crafters only! 

And now for something completely different: meet Tiny Tina! Our new pet! She's so shy! :3

Have a lovely afternoon! 

Gosia.

PS. It's such a relief to see cloudy skies again after almost two weeks of hellish temperatures, isn't it?

Going against the heat wave.

It's 27°C/81°F outside today. And all available forecasts show we will hit the 34°C/94°F mark on Monday.
I thought of posting something.. refreshing today. And what could be more cooling and invigorating on such a hot day than a good dose of colour blue?

End of June and first days of July bring the time of the year, when the most shades of blue and violet are present in our garden. Larkspurs (Delphinium - I'm not 100% sure about the common name - that's wikipedia's opinion) almost perfectly match the colour of summer sky. 

Lobelias attracted one of my favourite local creatures. I call him often a "discount hummingbird". I checked for it's English name, and wasn't really surprised to find out that it's called the hummingbird hawk-moth. Taking a decent quality picture of it is almost impossible - it's wings move so fast, all you get is a set of gray-orange patches.

Of course not every flower in our garden is blue. Clematis for instance. This is one of my favourite varieties, also probably the oldest one we have:

And this lovely rosebush, it's shade of pink is so vibrant it looks like it's glowing:

I wanted to give my double pointed needles some rest for a while. I already bent some of them. Now they're "personalized". That;s why I started yet another project - a blue ponchette. I'm using pattern from Ravelry: Lace Cotton Ponchette by windloop. I picked a lovely blue (what else!) yarn for it. It's a bit unpleasant acrylic fiber, but hey, I had it in my stash, and it's not like I will be wearing a ponchette as only clothing anyway. :)

Work progresses slowly, but maybe I will finish it before Autumn. This one... or another. 

That's all for now! It's slowly getting a bit cooler so I might be able to go outside, before mosquitos wake up :)

Oh, and I did not abandon my crocheted shawl. It still is my faithful journey companion. It just so happens, I do not travel a lot lately - oh sweet idleness!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia