Swatching...

Please stay with me today... it will to be a very long and wooly story...

For a long time I have been looking for a wool that is thin. About 30 stitches on 10 cm and would be soft and with a slight heathered look. I was hoping that Jamiesons of Shetland would have their shade cards ready... but no they have been working on that for 2 years. Then this lady came along and I am happy. The yarn Holst 100 % uld is perfect and she sells it already rolled up in 25 or 50 gram and in 96 different colors. To start with I ordered 24 different colours in 50 gram balls.

It was just perfect. I could start the little plan I had been working on in theory:

One basic wool to be knitted with either one or more strands...

Make swatches in all the colours available.

Every swatch should test either a technique or a pattern.

Wash the swatch and block it.

Every swatch should have a Little tag with the most important information.




I keep all the swatches in a plastic box. So far there are only 12 swatches but I am already enjoying taking them out, looking at and feeling the texture. I keep a notebook while knitting and it has all information about the swatch being made.

So far I have mostly been testing basic stitches, basic techniques for casting-on and casting-off and different types of decreasing.




I am trying to get a collection of knitting books that will make me design as freely as I want to. I needed some good books on stitch patterns, and I havent seen anyone as good as Barbara walkers A treasure of knitting patterns volume 1-4. I ordered the books from schoolhouse press and just when we came back from a week vacation in Sweden they had arrived. When I took them out of the packaging they reminded me off going to the university library picking up books for the new semester. I have studied Pharmacy for a short time before i realized that was not my call...I used to love the smell and feeling of new unused student books. So much knowledge all packed together in that thick book... its just beautiful.

Inside the book Meg Swansen has written a few words:

Thirty years ago Barbara Walker dedicated this book "... to the creative knitters of the past and the creative knitters of the future."

I hope I will be one of the creative knitters of the future...




Volume 3 and 4 has a complete list of symbols. All the symbols are simple and hand drawn. Why is that important? well It is if you yourself has to chart some of the symbols on a pattern of your own it is actually possible to copy the symbols with a pen and paper...




Are you still here... If so, thank you... It is nice to know I am not the only obsessive person in the world...

Building the greenhouse part one...

This posting starts with a picture of a lot of painted pieces of wood, -why ?! Well I just want to remember the nice feeling it was when I finished painting them. Let me tell there was A LOT of wood and they all had to be painted with one layer of oil and then two layers of a very strong greenhouse paint that took forever to dry. I could only paint one side at a time, then wait one day before turning the pieces to paint the other side. One batch took me 5 days to finish. Everything had to be done inside because of the slow drying process. I painted 2 hours every day for one month and then the painted wood had to harden for another month.




The wall had already been made and finally we could start to mount some of the pieces of the greenhouse. It was just so exciting...




Half of the rafters mounted...




Today's work done. All the rafters are up.

In Denmark we have a tradition of having a party when raising the roof tree: beer and hot dogs. So family was invited and flowers were hung by the rafters. We all sat down and enjoyed the moment. Well the others sat down, I just had to walk in and out of the greenhouse.. such a good moment...




Now I just cant wait to see it finished.

Oh and I forgot to tell you it is measures 8 by 4,2 m on the inside. 35 square meters.

Holiday time...

Do you ever get the feeling that you are not really in charge ? Well we do.

I love this little boy so much but he is 2½ years old and thinks he knows how everything should be done. Like a little master he is telling us what to do and especially what not to do...NO NO NO are words we hear quite often. It is also a lot of fun but one really has to gain the control at least to avoid the judging from other people out there in holiday country. An advice from a friend with three kids was : Dont forget to bring your wallet,cause there is no such thing to solve a conflict as...icecream... !!! She is right ...

We went on a short trip to Givskud zoo and decided to stay at the hostel there for one night. Just relax and figure out all the practical stuff down the road. Just let the kid sleep when he is tired and will fall asleep all by himself. Eat whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. And so on... But no it doesn´t function that way. Guess what... He didnt wanted to take his nap so we skipped it. The result was one angry little kiddo terrorizing the hole zoo and probably also causing the mother elephant to the cute little Dumbo to neglect her little baby. Great frustration for the biologist who had spend so much time on this project ( NOT really the truth but could have been... ) . So we went to the restaurant. The buffet had just closed so we had a not so good pizza trying to make the combination tired kid and restaurants not to tiring.

Next day was great. Seth had a good time. He is not so interested in all the exotic animals but birds and fishes... thats his thing...

The place is great. Big enough to make it possible to have a nice and relaxing time. It can be very streesing to be in crowded places with kids. Grown ups get this very tired look on their face and the childrens are fighting over the few toys, screaming and crying. In the zoo is a huge play area with lots of space and toys and many seating areas under shady trees. The more foreseeable parent had coolers with food and drink in their wagons. They were eating sandwiches, drinking coffee and having homemade cake. well I don´t know if it was homemade but the next time we go we will do the same and yes, the cake will be homemade. The kids were playing happily aronud. One could probably spend 3 enjoyable hours in that place reading books and perhaps knitting...




So the conclusion is : Bring food and a cooler. Dont skip naps and bedtime procedures. Plan just eneough to let the trip be as unplanned as possible. Am I making any sense...?
You see you are out of the usual enviroment and all the habits are out of the game for a while. Thats a good thing but it can also put you in some type survival situation ( a pretty strong word but you know what I mean... ) where you spend all the time on things like : Where can we eat ? Buy diapers ? Wash little sticky fingers and so on. So here it goes, besides the usual stuff here are some essential things to bring on a two day trip to the zoo ( or some other place... ) :

In my handbag: kleenex, towelettes, cash for icecream, one ( maybe two... ) diaper.

Dont forget to get the wagon equipped with small blanket, little pillow, sunhat, a book for John and knitting for me and offcourse the cooler with food and drink.

In the car:

One box with toys for Seth. One box with toys for me. One box with- going on a trip- gear. I will tell you more about these boxes another time...

Electrical Cooler with food to bring to hostels or wherever we are staying. A smaller normal cooler to bring to parks and so.




Bye bye...