Home again

Well, it's really really really good to be home again!

This weekend I was officially distracted from all plans by a last minute invitation to a ball (my husband looks dead sexy in a DJ) and some friends arriving for the weekend and lots and lots of white fresh powdery snow. We went cross country skiing and it was fantastic. Even the sun shone, and for scotland it wasn't that windy.

But more importantly, I have assembled all that I need to finish off the entrelac bag. It is finally felted. It took some felting, at 30 deg it just went a bit fluffy, at 40 it might have shrunk a little, but by the time I had run it through the machine at 60 a couple of times it was finally properly felted. And my towels have never seen this much washing in one day!

I have been on the internet, and ordered some leather straps, some handbag feet and a magnetic clasp. I have found a folder to massacre, and my very limited fabric stash had a yard of shot silk in a great colour that will be lovely for the lining.

I am going to do a double lining, with some cotton as well, just to give a bit of extra strenth. The folder is going to be the base and possible might make some sort of reinforceing at the top of the bag. I haven't quite figured how I am going to attach the handles, but I'm sure somthing will come to me.

I'm really looking forward to doing this over the next couple of evenings..... now that I am no longer distracted by the snow (it's melted) or diy (do you like my new hardwood flooring in the photo above?)

Significant milestones

I seem to mostly have had mindless knitting on the needles recently. But at least one of the projects is now off the needles.

Meet the entrelac bag........

Oooo - closeup!
I have been going round and round in circles making squares for quite a while. 5 balls of kureyon's worth of round and round. I have learnt to knit backwards nearly as fast as forwards, and don't really have to think about it anymore.

Tonight the bag has been introduced to it's nemesis - the washing machine - for a little felting fun. It's in a pillow case and it's doing one cycle at 30 degrees, see how that goes and then maybe send it through again.

I am almost exited about the washing machine being finished. This is not normal so I think I am going to have to have a cup of tea to recover.

It's quite hard to take photos of your own head

A better knitting week for me this week. I seem to have rediscovered some of my mojo anyway! Mostly I decided to raid the stash and see what there was in it that I could make presents from, or at least small items that would give some sense of instant gratification rather than the rather daunting task of starting a sweater.

So I present the Koolhaas hat copy that is destined for my brother for his birthday. This is the only photo out of about 50 that actually came anywhere near having my whole head in!


Pattern - it's a rip off of Brooklyn tweed's Koolhaas hat, which is included in Interweave holiday gifts. I didn't buy the pattern I just saw the pictures on his blog and copied it. I totally love the way it is so architectural (being an engineer I relate to clean lines and symmetry) and interesting though suitable for a man. I cast on 132 stitches, worked in P4,k2 rib for a bit and then started twisting stitches every other row. Decreases were worked by doing a K2tog instead of a twisted stitch once every set of diamonds. I had to play around with the crown a bit to get it to lie flat, but once this has been through the machine it will be pretty good.

Yarn - some random 100% machine washable DK weight wool/acrylic mix that came from the old lady next door when she moved out. But it's machine washable, which is important for my brother, and one of the only things that I have in the stash that is man coloured.

Needles - Addi turbo lace 3.75mm - 100cm long, meaning that I worked on the magic loop for the whole hat.

Cast on - last thursday - 18th october
Cast off - Monday - 22nd october

So for this week's challenge I am experimenting with entrelac. I have never done it before, though it's rather fun. I am utilising some of the balls of kureyon that I have left over from making my lizard ridge blanket. It is a total of suck it and see really...... but fun! I am going to felt it in the end to make something nice and sturdy, that will either be so fantastic I keep it or will be a christmas gift for someone. We have a tradition of only ever giving home made presents so I really do need to start thinking about christmas now.

The other great thing that happened is that I finally managed to get my KTS4 package from the post office......... I am drinking a cup of tea from it as I type, and have just finished a chocolate from the world's most northern chocolate company!


It's been such fun swapping with Else - a fantastic match if ever there was one! Check out her blog to see the great mug I found for her!

I got all sorts of things.... drops alpaca in a fanstastic burnt orange, the most delicious cloudberry sweets, lots of cute chocolates, a great mini tea filter so that I can brew the (very lovely) loose leaf tea! A tea tin with a massive variety of different tea bags in, some norwegian snacks and more chocolate. Mmmmmmm. Thank's Else!