The Sunniest Sunday!

Of course I am referring to April the 2nd, which was the sunniest, warmest Sunday you can dream of in April. We spiced up our short spring trips tradition, and went not only to visit our favourite park (as we did countless  times  before), but also...

We went to Narrow-gauge Railway Museum!!! And we managed to buy tickets for a short ride through forest! This place is extremely popular among families, especially on Sundays, so tickets are sold out quickly.

We had to wait for our turn for a while, so we had time to peek into every corner of the station.

We also had the opportunity to meet the dog who lives there. He greets every returning train with his wiggling  tail, and he is not at all bothered by hundreds of people going in and out.

"Why should I be? I OWN the place"

So we finally squeezed into  a tiny carriage, and went for a short, VERY LOUD trip.

It was worth all the waiting, and so so much fun! 

The train part did not take us long, and we continued this lovely afternoon in our favourite park..
We were lucky to find the last parking spot on the parking lot (yay to me for squeezing in!).

This time of the year sunlight reaches the bottom of the forest, so it is full of white and yellow flowers. And it smells of garlic because of the Bear's garlic (or wood garlic) that grows almost all around.

Last week we completed all of our new apartment paperwork, and now we just have to move in.

Unfortunately I will have to leave Korek at my parent's place. He is a 9-years-old doggo, and it would be cruel to take him away from his very own garden. I will visit him often though! It is less than a kilometer away.

I did make him a sorts of a parting gift:

A Blanket of Shame! I started a while ago, and it was meant to be a sweet vengeance for all yarn balls he stole and drooled upon. I used all pinkish acrylics I could find, and combined them in simple C2C crochet blankie. I used the Corner to Corner C2C Corner Start Tutorial by Lauri Bolland.  And I am very pleased with the result.

So is the new owner! :) He took it away while I tried to get a decent picture.

He surely looks great in pink!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

PS.: Guess who's getting a set of interchangeables for birthday next week? Aaand who got himself a complementary skein of hand painted artistic yarn? :3

100th post! And one less WIP!

Yay! Here's my 100th blog post!
I promised something special for today, haven't I?
And what can be more special and appropriate for celebration than...
A FINISHED ADULT-SIZED GARMENT? For me?!

Pattern is called  Ahelad (Chains) by Anna Kuduja. It's available for purchase on Ravelry. Very well written, easy to follow. After one repeat I just tossed the chart in my project bag and worked on my own. It is also easy to modify.

I wanted to make size M at first but ended up with S (both sizes start with the same no. of stitches - lucky me!). It's a wise decision since cotton is quite heavy and it grew faster than I knitted! :)

For this project I used  FibraNatura Cottonwood  in bottle green - 100% organic cotton, DK. Ravelry marked this one as "discontinued" but in Polish yarn shops there's still plenty left! I fell in love with this dark, rich green.
It's very pleasant to work with, splits a bit but nowhere close to what I expected.

What surprised me was the needle size. When I started my knitting adventure I was a tight-knitter. Now I worked DK weight yarn with 3,5mm (flat) and 4mm (in round) needles... and fabric is soft and drapey!

Also.. the stitch definition is just amazing!

I used almost 7 skeins - 350grams. I'm keeping the last one in case I would like to add some length to it after washing.

As always thanks to my husband who took all the pics! This time Korek seemed eager to help...

But it turned out he was just in it for cuddles!

Oh, you!

Now that I completed 2 WIP's over just two weeks I can finally buy more yarn!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

PS.: Spring is nigh, I tell ya! I'm already on lookout for The First Bee of 2017!

Baaaaaaaaa!

I almost missed it! I was so consumed with my last project I just remembered about this year's Yarndale Community Project. Fortunaltely it's not too late to join in yet!

My little sheep is on it's way to Yarndale.
I decided to go with knitted version as I already had some experience with it. My first sheep from Frankie Brow's pattern lives now in a hospital, where I had a part of my internship.

Let's getto some details: for body I used leftovers of Alize Baby Wool (wool/acrylic/bamboo blend) and for the coat the very last remains of Malabrigo Sock. I also added a nice collar to the sweater. In order to easily find my sheep in the giant Yarndale flock I gave it a haircut. Three shorts pieces of Drops Lima, some combing, and sewing... and voila!

Korek wasn't interested in participating so I took the liberty of photographing him in his sleep. Isn't he a cutie? A lazy one, but still!

I had to secure the parcel somehow without using a plastic-padded envelope. After digging through all sorts of materials I found a piece of undyed Crêpe paper. How did it get to my room? No idea. But hey! It came in handy!

Now all I have to do is to keep my fingers crossed for postal service. Have a safe trip, little sheep!

And nice afternoon to you all!

Gosia.

Pincha!

It took 36 days, 97grams of Malabrigo Sock "Playa", one pair of 3,5 mm straight needles and a free pattern  Pincha shawl by Pinpilan Wangsai... But here it is. All ready, soft, warm and squishy!

With 24 feathers!

I'm such a lucky girl! It's really cold today, so I can wrap it around me without the danger of suffocation an overheating.  Also a dim light helps showing off the true color of this yarn.

Working on this shawl was really pleasant, and by 6th or 7th feather I memorized the entire sequence. Yes, I admit I had to go back few times and there is one mistake I know about...

...but I can't find it anymore, so that's good, right?

I had a bit of a problem with blocking it. Usually I block my items by soaking them in water with some mild detergent and letting them dry. But yesterday, of all days, a main water pipe was damaged few blocks away. We still get yellow-ish tap water, and I wouldn't dare to put my precious merino into it!

Therefore I just steamed it thoroughly, and I am really pleased with the effect. Here's how it looked pre-blocked:

Not a big difference there, except maybe for the feel of it.

I wanted to show you how good it looks when wrapped around my neck.

But SOMEONE photobombed this pic mercilessly!

I feel like I need to  take a rest from short rows for a while. Maybe I'l finally have time to finish the second pair of anle socks for my mom?

Or write down a pattern for a baby dress I made...

We'll see!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

Summer scarf knitting.

Can you think of a better activity for hot summer day than knitting a warm, snuggly, woolly scarf? I certainly cannot!

I started my Pincha Shawl back in June. At first I planned to use one of my Ciao Mondial skeins, but it turned out to have too long color repeats. So I dug into my Emergency Yarn Fund (also known as my bank account) and got myself a skein of Malabigo Sock in Playa colorway.
After almost a month of knitting, I'm down to 30 grams of yarn:

It's very hard to capture the true color on pictures! It seems my green garden table is the best background. Still, on every pictures shades are a bit different,

Here's the closest to natural look:

And current state of my work. 17 complete feathers. It would already make a nice scarf, but I couldn't bare to waste 30 grams of such wonderful merino.

Pattern  Pincha shawl by Pinpilan Wangsai  is available for free on Ravelry. At first all the turning and wrapping may seems overwhelming, but after several feathers I knew it by heart.
Short color repeats result in feather-like appearance.

Last week I started two other projects.
I want to keep the first one a secret, but I'll show you just a little bit:

Second one is a tunisian crochet doggie blanket for my buddy - Korek. He's already 8yrs old and recently he started to turn a bit grey lately. Also he's extremely fond of my knitting, and tried to steal my shawl few days ago.

I guess despite of not having holidays, July is still one of my craftiest months! :)

Have a nice aftrenoon!

Gosia.

Hasiok's new friend.

Hey, look who I found hanging around in my backyard!

Ok, to be honest I found him on Ravelry (where else?). I was lucky enough to join a free KAL for Owen's Opossum. This cutie was designed by my all-time favorite toy designer: Sara Elizabeth Kellner from Rabitt Hole Knits.

I finished knitting my possum in less than 3 days. I used acrylic yarn leftovers from my Purple Cats, and some pretty random scraps. Since I used smaller needles (3mm for magic loop, and 2,5mm dpns) he came out smaller than original.

 I haven't decided how to call him yet, I was thinking Frank - in honor of Fairway Frank from one of  Parks and Recreation episodes.

While outside, Frank tried to make my dog like him. They didn't get along so well.
Sometimes Korek seems just tired of it all:

"Keep your stupid knitting away!!!"

I went back to my attic and look who showed up! Just in time to meet his new pal!

They seem to be enjoying their company, peeking out of my window. I wonder what are those to up to? I just hope it's not related with my yarn stash in any way.

Well I'm definitely up to making a nice milkshake, with red currants! :3
And making some progress on my scarf. The one I'll share with next time.


Have a nice afternoon!
Gosia.

Springtime Knitting Power-up!

Now that I no longer have to worry about not making a baby blanket in time I have a chance of finishing my WIP's! Or to start new ones...

So about two weeks ago I found this new (to me at least) yarn brand. I was looking for a nice soft acrylic for my Mysterious Purple-Grey Thing, and just by accident I also purchased a skein of Nako Ombre in red-purple. It is a rather cheap 75% acrylic 25% wool mix, and my drop stitch scarf probably won't last longer than one season, but I'd say it was worth it!  Finished scarf is soft, warm, colors are wonderful, and yarn did not break once during knitting. And it took me just one skein and five afternoons to complete:

Of course I had a little helper, who is still dissapointed I didn't let him use Ten Stitch Corner as a doggie blanket. His little paws were reaching to check if the gauge is right.

Before you all think I'm a bad person, who wouldn't make anything for her poor dog:

I DID MAKE THAT *** A SWEATER!!!

It was my very first Ravelry project (ones with earlier dates are from my pre-Ravelry period).

What did I get for my commitment, should you ask?

A nasty growl when I tried to dress him up for a walk!  

See? I'm not the one who's evil!

My Mysterious Purple-Grey Thing is finished, but I'll be able to share it in May, because (again) it's a birthday gift. I decided to make a second, similar Thing, so the first one would have a company.

The yarn I'm using for both projects is a 100% acrylic Nako Rekor. I don't know if it would be nice for sweaters, but for toys it works great!

There's a slight chance we might get through Easter without snow! Last Easter in March ended with us stuck in snow while trying to visit my fiance's granny. Forecasts are more optimistic this year. Weather is still rather chilly, but at least now we have sunny days!

Time to make a shameful confession... When I finished my second ever baby blanket I swore I won't start another one anytime soon. Well, as I learned the term "anytime soon" can mean "at least for one week", because yesterday I ordered yarn for a christening blanket... for my  co-worker's baby-to-be. This needs to be done by July, so there's stillplenty of time left! What worries me is that she picked a lacy pattern, which might cause me some trouble, and that we only got seven 50g skeins - all that was left in yarn shop.

Ahhh, waiting for a squishy parcel to arrive is pure pleasure!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

PS.: Korek says "hello!"