Yarn!

I decided on the spur of the moment a couple of days ago that I wanted to knit a Christmas gift for Thomas. I am going to make him a Knitted Companion Cube, from the video game Portal. Unfortunately I didn't have any yarn in my stash that really fitted, at least not in all three shades, so on Saturday when my parents, grandfather and godmother came for a visit, us women went on a real shopping spree, and I brought some yarn home with me. I'm knitting the companion cube in Drops Karisma, which is a 100 % superwash wool yarn in sport weight. I bought three colours:

Dark Gray

Light Gray

Pink

I have only knitted a little bit on it so far, as I have to do it a bit in secret, but it's looking pretty good so far. It will be my very first time steeking, which I'm kind of nervous about, but I have researched  on line to make sure that it is possible to do this with superwash wool  too. I'm thinking that a small project like this will be a perfect trial for this very scary method! 

Then when I have cut all of the pieces, I will have to mattress stitch them together, which will also be a first for me. Yes I know, it's a bit weird to have knitted for almost five years now and managed to avoid this, but I have never sewn anything together like that. There are plenty of good tutorials on line though, so I think I'll be fine.

It is very practical to knit for Thomas in secret, because he couldn't be less interested in what I'm working on. So far I've knitted about six rows or so, in all the correct colours, but he hasn't even glanced at it! I think he will be surprised, although I think I'll have to be more careful once the pattern starts to emerge a bit more. 

Oh, I also brought home a skein of crazy pink sock yarn, Austerman Step, which I haven't tried before.

It is the standard 75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon, and feels very soft in the skein. It will probably mature a bit in my stash a while before I decide what to knit with it, but I'm pretty sure it will become a pair of socks at some point.

Saturday turned out to be a real shopping day for both me, my mom and my sister. I bought a new pair of winter boots, some new underwear and of course all the yarn. I really didn't need any new shoes, but there you go. They are very pretty! 

You won't get to see the underwear though, this is not that kind of blog :)

Oh, and last week I also suffered from a bout of startitis, and I decided to make something really small. I cast on for some Christmas ornaments, from my 55 Christmas Balls to Knit book that I got for Christmas last year. The first one I'm making is looking a bit wonky, but I think my increases are a bit too tight so that they are scrunching up the fabric. 

I think I might rip it out and start again, which is fine as I think I might have spent two hours total in making almost an entire one! When I was in the yarn shop on Saturday I also picked up a package of mini wool skeins from Järbo, which is a package with 10 mini skeins with 10 grams in each. It is perfect for making these small types of projects! I already had a package of similar mini skeins in 100 % acrylic, and I plan to use them up too. As this will be our first Christmas in our new house we have decided to have a tree of our own, so I'm thinking I'll decorate the heck out of it!

Oh, and last week I also ordered me some more Soak wool wash from Garnkorgen, and of course some yarn had to accompany the detergent. I bought two more skeins of the Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend Fino yarn that I got a week ago in Uppsala, so now I have six skeins of this gorgeous yarn. 

I think I'll try to find a nice cardigan pattern for this. I wear cardigans A LOT, if you wonder why I seem a bit obsessed with them lately.

I also got two skeins of Regia Design Line sock yarn (75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon), in the colourway Exotic Pool, designed by Kaffe Fassett. 

I love the colours in these skeins, and I actually bought them with a specific project in mind (for once!), namely the Carousel Socks from Knitty. I think these look like so much fun, and you  know I like to try new techniques so these will be very interesting to make. I just need to finish the Faramir socks (and do you know it's been so long since I worked on those that I had too look up that name.

Ok now it's dinner time. I might be back pretty soon, as there might be another package fro Wollmeise coming my way...

/ Jenny