A ray of sunshine

 

The last couple of weeks have been cold and miserable. We had a very warm week in March and since then it has been cold (but dry), but the last couple of days we also got rain. Of course we should remember that April is the cruelest month, but this year it really was. One of those years that Easter was actually colder than Christmas day….

So today was a typical day, it just started with torrential rain and barely 8°C, so I feared that it would be a total inside day once again….. but it became dry and the sun came through and the temperature raced to a whole 15°C…. and it started to smell of earth and growth and spring. So a good moment to make some more photo's of Melkweg, another contiguous cardigan with a bit of textured stitches. 

I do need to tune a little, mainly more stitches to add under the arms, but for M it is OK since she is so narrow.  But for the pattern and for the next one I will add those stitches. I do need to move some of the buttons as well….. I was tired last night when I sewed them on and I didn't do them right. I couldn't be bothered to redo that this morning, but I really ought to do so…. But on the whole I am happy with this cardigan especially with the textures.

One advantage of the cold weather…..much longer blossom time:

Progress

 

Melkweg is getting on its way. I had to think real real hard what to do about the borders but last week I got the Jananese1000 knitting stitch pattern book and browsing through gave me some inspiration. The funny thing is that the stitch  I am using at the border is actually not in the book, but I suddenly knew what to do :-)  I do like that kind of things coming together. I do like Japanese stitching books, there are indeed unusual patterns in it and sometimes things I hadn't thought of before. They are very clever with wrapping stitches and forming unusual patterns. I also have two Barbara Walker dictionaries and an old one from the 1980s which is called Vogue steken bijbel. All of them are so very nice to go to… well apart from the fact that one of Barbara Walker ones is an old book with a real strong smell (bough second hand). 

On the other hand, I am not complete sure what to do about the closures at the front. Right now I am thinking 3 or so from the top and probably small buttons on each side, with some kind of strap between them. I guess some pearly buttons should do it, since the ivory-colour of the yarn seems to demand that.

Today we finally had M's birthday party, yes only 4.5 months too late. But December is really a tough month. Her best friend at the moment also has her birthday in December and she also didn't get a party…. So now they had the party together today. And as things go, better late then never!  

We did go to one of these indoor playing area thingies, and for once that felt really good. It was a dreadful day, with basically rain from morning till now, so being inside with a bunch of kids who could run around and go into a huge climbing constructions with slides and such felt quite ok. After the party we went to a concert of S her viola teacher (well an orchestra she plays in), so a bit of culture too… It was Peter and the Wolf, so a very appropriate family concert! Perfect rainy sunday…..

Springdance

 

I do have a lot of very nice "sock" yarn and while I have knitted many a sock, at the moment I am not into sock knitting at all. But I do try to knit from stash, so there remains the "sock" yarn. Small little shawls are the right solution!

This one is called Bakersfield and is a bit special since it is in stockinette and not garter. An easy knit, with an easy lace repeat and a very nice result. The yarn used is Blue Hand Fibers sock yarn in the colour "Sunflowers". It fits really well with the daffodils flowering right now :-) The colour is probably most like the picture below, a real nice sunny yellow with a bit of spring-green. Just the colors to make me happy (spring does that to me, especially here in Sweden). It also does that for my eldest one, who grabbed this little shawl the moment it was finished and has been wearing it since…..

Now to my big fall from grace….. I did want to knit from stash until June, but I have failed…. After all the experimenting with the contiguous method, I got an idea in my head of a pattern for a cardigan going from 7-year old sizes to adult ones. But I did not have the quantity of yarn that I wanted to use (my utmost favourite yarn Madelinetosh merino light) nor the colour for the smallest size I wanted to int. So I ordered some, and some for me and some for my eldest…. So I will knit 3 sizes of the same cardigan in 3 different colours in the same yarn. The start is here:

 

Frilly

 

I'm still learning how to do knit set-in like sleeves with the contiguous method and this was the latest effort. It's roomy right now, but I guess with M in a grow-spurt it is better like that. Other than that, I think I now know what to do and what not. It is not really hard to do and I think a saddle type of sleeves are really the nicest way to knit with this method. The shoulders slope more then with a seamed treatment and depending on your body build that can be a disadvantage.

I have another idea in my head for using the contiguous method and since I didn't have the color of yarn I wanted to use for that right now in my stash, I actually broke my yarn diet vows…. Well not completely, since I have said that I could buy new yarn if it was for a new design...

In this case, it is not a new yarn, in fact it is a yarn I bought years ago. It is Ella Rae, Shibu a worsted silk-viscose mix. Quite a nice rustic type of yarn, with quite a bit of character, but somehow I wished it was a sport or light DK weight instead of worsted….

Since it is a sunny spring day:

For the season...

 

Made for lunch….

Paasbest

 

Harmony, finished. Kim Hargreaves is my favorite designer, who I will come back to, time after time…. This project shows why, just a very good fit, details well placed and timeless classic projects.

I also like Summer Tweed a lot! There is something about this yarn that divides people into two camps, I love the dryness of the yarn, the colors are just great and it is a real summer tweed!

The buttons are wooden ones from Etsy, I think they work really well with the yarn.

So I am ready for Easter and on my "Paasbest"...

Work Fun

 

Normally I wouldn't really write about my work here, but since this week we had such fun visiting the building site for our new laboratory I thought I would put some pictures here. Basically we are involved in a very big science infra structure project and along the way we need to have promotion material. The planning of this facility started almost a decade ago and we became involved about some months before my 2nd child was born. For many years it was just planning and grant writing & writing, but now the building has really started, so it is very exciting for us.  A new stage in the building process is coming near, and for the occasion we went out and took some fun pictures.

This is the place where our bit of the facility will be placed, so we mark it out , where exactly it will be built. This is probably one of the last times one can see the soil, soon it will be dug for the laying of the foundations which will actually be some meters thick. The science we want to do is in the micron to sub-micron size, so things need to be very very stable.

It was actually my first visit to the site since building was started. There were earlier visits, but I couldn't go since on both occasions I was away. This time I was lucky though! In about 3 weeks I will go again, will be fun to see the changes….

 

There is some part where one has come a bit further, and one gets also a better feeling how big this will be.