Making the beginning is one third of the work.

Tropical heat finally left us for a while, and I started thinking about returning to my Star Wars Project. The longer I thought about it... it seemed less and less successful.

Let's face it! I'm not skilled in Fair Isle knitting, and Fair Isle in round is even harder for me. I'm one of those so called "tight" knitters. My floats get shorter and shorter and my garment starts to feel stiff like a plank.

I decided to give it a thought, when we went for a small road trip on Thursday.
We drove to the same place we visited on first May weekend. Here's the post I wrote back in spring.

Is it just me, or do the leaves start to turn yellow?

After a long relaxing walk I made up my mind...

... and frogged whole thing. 

I decided to start over with another, decent tension square. I was hardly surprised when my gauge turned out to be off by 2 sts per 10cm. Yay me! 

I also re-designed the motifs on front, and divided my work in two stages. Front and back will be worked separately. Here's the current state of front piece:

I used classic snowflakes chart this time. And I have to admit - I like the result. 

As I'm getting nearer to the intrasia part I'm also starting to feel a bit anxious about it... but hey! I can always start over! 

And making the beginning is one third of the work! 

Have a nice evening!

Gosia.

PS.: Guess who got to pet alpacas today? :)

Winter is nigh... right?

This week we've officially gone from "hot" to "depths of hell". All I can do now is gulp down bottles of water and pretend that turning on the fan helps.

Despite the weather, and all forecasts (saying the heatwave is here to stay) I decided to get ready for winter. I fell in love with this pattern and nothing could stop me from knitting my grey, incredibly warm and soft scarf. And here it is!

Pattern's name is "No Angle Knit Wrap" by Carole Marie. It can be found on Ravelry: here.
It has very interesting construction! What I loved the most is that it does not require a long cast-on. I usually mess this part up by either making a nice, but stiff and too short edge or casting on so loosely it looks like a total mess. And there's no way to correct it!

It took me 9 days to finish it. At first it went slow, but after few repeats I didn't even need to look at the pattern! Which of course led to a mistake, and I have 12 instead of 11 repeats :)

Here's the scarf straight off the needles.

And here's why all knitted items should be blocked! 

I soaked it, pinned down on a bed, steamed with an iron just a little and let it dry overnight. The last part was the hardest! I woke up at 7:30 (on Sunday) and rushed to finish my masterpiece.

What can I say? I was not disappointed by the power of blocking! 

Second hardest part of my work was trying it on. I just wrapped it around my neck for half a minute to take  pictures. I'm surprised how soft and almost translucent it is compared to it's warmth!

Phew! Now I need to find a new WIP to keep my hands busy!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

Time to go!

It's 34°C(93­°F) today... I decided not to risk my well-being by going out to the post office just now. I'll do it first thing tomorrow in the morning.

Why would I even get out of my house on such a hot day?

It's time to send my flowers to Yarndale! That's why!

 This morning I stitched safety pins to all my flowers. I used up 90% of my Mom's safety pins stash, but she knows it's for a good cause! Plus it's way too hot to go out and buy more!

I looked for an envelope without plastic insides. It took me a while, but I found one, whit some stamp on it, but otherwise intact,

The problem was it's quite small and I didn't want my flowers to get all mingled inside. I attached them to a sheet of paper, trying to squeeze them on the smallest surface.

Then there was time for final goodbyes!

Travel safe!

Phew! That did the trick!

I hope I will be able to recognize my flowers on pictures from Yarndale. I will be so proud!

My butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) attracts more and more butterflies every day. They get distracted by the intense smell, and act like hypnotised. It's so easy to take pictures of them! 

I just can't help taking dozens of pictures :)

 The sock-yarn project I mentioned looks like this:

Well, at least it looked like this few days ago, now it's at 60%. Working with wool can be tough when it's this hot!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia

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.