Treasure hunting

Two weeks! Two whole weeks, it has been, since Blog week! I'm sorry, you guys, for being absent. These past two weeks have just zoomed by! First, there was the marriage of course. The weekend after was filled with doing absolutely nothing at all. We were absolutely knackered on Saturday so we slept in until 2pm, and did basically the same on Sunday. We stayed indoors on our last official Queens' Day, watched the coronation on the telly, and only left the house to get food. Or, well, I did make it to the gym on Monday, my sister had a big mouth and said she could follow my workout schedule so I took that challenge and made her regret ever saying it! (No, I'm kidding, I took it easy on her and let her lift without weights on the barbell or with heavily reduced weights on the machines. I'm not thát cruel!) But apart from that... The past two weeks have basically been all about working and sleeping.

And some crafting. I managed to squeeze in some knitting during work as a distraction method as sometimes not thinking about a problem can help me solve it. Knitting it is! I learned that I was making my knit stitches the wrong way, solved that, and learned how to increase by knitting in the front and back stitch, and how to do a ssk-decrease! It was a lot easier to figure out once I fixed my knitting technique. I hope to soon start on a nice project, but so far it's just been practice round after practice round. I'm lacking inspiration on what project to begin with, anyway. It'll come again, though, I'm not worried. Until then, I'm content to potter along with my bamboo needles and pink blob yarn!

And speaking of blob yarn. (Queen of segues, that'll be me) My MIL was digging around in her attic because they're redoing almost the entire house and it needed to be emptied, and found a bag of yarn. Now, I don't know about you, but most of the times when someone tells me 'Yeah, so I found this bag of yarn here stuffed away in my attic...' I'm not overly excited from the start, because my first thought is 'BUUUUGS!'. I may be an entomophobe. Maybe. But my curiosity always wins over my aversion of bugs so I took it home with me, and sorted out its contents. It was... Special, to say the least. Let's take a look, shall we?

Oh yes. We're off to a good start. Glitter yarn? Check. Fluffballs? Check. Mystery cakes? Check, check, check, cheeeck... Lots of labels, though, that's good.

Pile o' cakes! Green, fluffy, and shiny. Most of this is wound in a nice, tight, and surprisingly flat-topped cake which makes me think it was done with a ball winder. I should ask her if she has one of those hidden in the attic, too! That would be a real treasure! This, however, is plain strange. I think it may have been a garment, as it looks like there's plenty for a big project, which got frogged, but who knows? All I know is that it's green, exceptionally fluffy, and filled with sparkly bits.

Well now. I hope you're enjoying my baby-pink, fluffy, sparkly balls. Of yarn. There's four in total, of different sizes, so once again this seems to be the remains of something else. This yarn is extremely rough to the touch, though, and only partially because of the sparkles.

What a glorious, glorious fluffmonster... This is the same stuff as the green cakes, only purple! I wonder if it went together... In a big, green-and-purple, hairy sweater, or something. Like a sweater made out of skinned muppets.

More balls! They're baby-blue and green, this time. Oh yes. I am totally blue-balling you. There's two of them, and judging from the wobbly ends, this was also the result of ruthless frogging. Nothing about fibre contents or anything but I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's babby-melting acrylic.

Another cake! This stuff is equally fluffy to the green and purple yarns, making me wonder if there is an amount of angora hiding in its contents. It looks to be wool, at least for a part. Far too fluffy for my taste, though. But hey, at least it's not glittery.

Unlike what the label claims, there really is nothing special about this pile. It's dark red, cotton-like acrylic. Around 300 grams in total. If the colour wasn't so dull I would probably have a use for it, but now... Who knows.

Now, this is somewhat exciting! Not because of the yarn. Nope, that's just more hairy, glittery nonsense. But these balls all have their ball bands still attached! I think it is the same yarn as the green and purple ones, so at least I have an indication of type, content and length, as soon as I weigh the green pile, that is. For what purpose, I honestly do not know, but it's something!

More fluff! This is the first pile that I would actually consider using. It's a 50-50 wool/acrylic blend. I'm thinking new mittens, because it's so so so soft, but there were bits of dead leaves and plants hiding in it so I'm not using it until it's been in quarantine (read: ziplock baggies) for at least 6 weeks.

And now... The finale...

Bam. Oh yes. Is it a rabbit? A bad wig? Nope. It's Patons High Society. Oh yes. High. Society. See that fluff? Apparently that was high society back in the day. I don't even know when that day was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the last two decades.

But can it get better? I mean, if this is already high society, than the next one must be Royalty.

Oh yes, people, we have hit the motherload! The trifecta of gaudy: it's a weird wine-red colour, it's fluffier than an angora rabbit, and it's got sparkles. If that's not the pinnacle of High Society, I don't know what is.

Seriously, I have no idea what to do with 90% of this stuff, so I don't know if I'll keep it or toss it. If you see something you really want, though, leave a comment or message me on Rav or something and maybe we can work something out!

Blog Week Day 7: Looking Forward

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments yesterday! Tim and I had a great time celebrating our wedding with our family and friends, our photographer-friend Mike from Pasarella Photography took a veritable ton of pictures because, in his words, how often would he get the chance to follow me around all day with a camera and take tons of pictures of me looking pretty in my gorgeous hair and make-up, (done by Mike's wife, the lovely and talented Adriana from Mysterious Mind) without me getting the chance to run away and hide from his camera? Not that many, indeed! We had a ton of fun, going out for a High Tea lunch, a visit at the local bird zoo and dinner at a nice little restaurant, and I hope I'll be able to share a few shots of yesterday with you guys soon. Ish. Mike's a bit of a perfectionist, so he'll be editing photos first.

Well, after that little preface, let's get back to business, shall we? As always on the last day of Blog Week, I look forward to next year and think about where I want to be, craft-wise, in one year. I think the answer this year is simple: I want to embrace my inner Monkey.

 Sorry, House of Bee. I know I vowed my allegiance to you, and I will wear your yellow-and-black stripes with pride until the day I die, but that doesn't mean I can't flirt with other houses, right? A bit of inter-house-bonding, if you will?
The House of Monkey, if you remember from Monday, was described as follows:

"Intelligent and with a fun loving side, Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting. "

 It's the idea of liking the challenge of something new and interesting that so far has eluded me a bit. And that's what I'm going to be working on this year.

© Elin Berglund

Earlier this year, my eye fell on this gorgeous knitted cropped cardi called Cecilia, and I actually went through with my intended plan to make one up to the point where I bought yarn and needles and the pattern and had everything up and ready to go. But something in me held me back from actually casting on, and that was the Fear of Fucking Up. I'm pretty sure most of you have experienced this in one way or another, as it can range from a light shudder and be easily shook off to a full-blown crippling stunning fear that stops you dead in your tracks. I think this particular fear was somewhere in the middle: I found myself making excuses for not casting on, but I still really wanted to! I even planned for this to go with my wedding dress. Well, my wedding was yesterday, and I still haven't even cast on.

© SpillyJane

Similarly, I once, in a previous edition of the Blog Week, proclaimed that I was going to make these Swedish Fish mittens. Never even looked back at the pattern because all those colours, all those strands, oh my, and knitted too?!

© Alexandra Tinsley

The Most Bespeckled Hat by Alexandra Tinsley is another one of those projects that I just really, really want to make but somehow, the concept of hats is daunting to me!

So, I hereby vow to you, dear reader, that I will be embracing my inner monkey this year. I will cast on for complicated things, I will crochet big, exciting projects, and I will flip the bird at the Fear of Fucking Up. Check back in this spot regularly to see how well I'm doing with this plan, okay? Okay.

And that's it! The last post of this year's Blog Week! I can't believe it has already come to an end! The week flew by so fast, wouldn't you agree? Even with me barely being able to keep up with the enormous host of posts. I hope you all enjoyed reading my take on the topics, I really enjoyed reading your posts and comments and I hope to catch up with reading a lot more over the next few weeks. See you next year, Blog Week, I'm looking forward to it!

Blog Week Day 6: A Tool to Covet

After yesterday's extraordinary interruption, let's get back to business, shall we? Blog Week still has 2 days to go after all!

Today's topic is A Tool to Covet and it has proven to be a difficult one to write about! I don't own that many crafting tools. Most of my tools are needles and hooks, but they're mostly boring aluminium. They bend, they scratch easily, and the numbers on the end of my knitting needles that have been pressed into the plastic knob that indicate size have faded after a single use. They were cheap, though, and that's why I own most of my tools.

Nothing like a tall, refreshing glass of needles.

I keep most of my tools in a half-pint glass on top of the bookcase that contains most of my yarn. It's turned into a bit of a gathering place for other random crap, though: There's pens in there, chopsticks for some reason, and a plastic yellow clothespin. I'm pretty sure there's a lighter in there, too, but it's probably hiding. Then there's most of my crochet hooks, a sewing needle or two, and all my knitting needles not currently holding any yarn. As you can see, it's really not a good place to keep them. The needles are too tall, and the hooks are too short, it's easy to throw other random stuff in there.

The question about what my favourite tools were is therefore not as easily answered. Right now, my most favourite tools are one simple set of bamboo needles that have some sentimental value, and a shiny steel 3.0mm crochet hook.

You have no idea how hard it is to photograph a thin, shiny metal stick. No idea.

Sinterklaas over here is giving me a hand in showing off my favourite crochet hook. It's not too big, 3.00 mm, but it's the material that makes this one stand out over my other hooks. It's steel. Shiny, gold-coloured, cold steel. It's heavier than the aluminium hooks, which I think is a good thing, and I love the feel of it in my hand a lot more. I might be alone in this, because I know people usually like their hooks on the light and soft side, and since I have yet to try wooden crochet hooks I don't know if I would like those better than the steel one, but for now, this little hook is my go-to!

Yes, that is indeed another pink blob!

It's funny that I choose a steel hook over lighter aluminium ones, yet of all my knitting needles I am most fond of these bamboo ones! These are a bit special, though. I got them as a gift from two of my friends for my birthday along with a pattern and two balls of yarn to make my first ever knitting project, my Little Green Bag. They're 5.0mm needles, they are a bit grabby and don't feel as smooth as you would expect from bamboo, but they're perfect for random projects! I've been doing test-runs with the pink babbymelting acrylic yarn from hell on these and while normally, I would have to worry about stitches slipping off the needles, or not being able to see what I'm doing because the stitches are too small, with these needles I can drop them mid-row and don't have to worry about losing a stitch.

For actual knitting projects, I suspect that these would not be my first choice because of those 'features', but as test needles, they're perfect.

Because my crafting tools are mostly cheap and only bought because they were what was on hand in my LYS or the hobby corner of a cheap shop and they would get the job done, (there's that House of Bee-personality rearing its head again!) I do have a big lists of tools that I do covet. For instance, a proper set of knitting needles that comes in a case, like a set of circulars in every size you can imagine, along with a whole host of DPNS ranging from tiny tiny tiny to huuuuuge, especially if they come in a pretty little box. And of course, since I'm bicraftual, a complete set of crochet hooks would be glorious too. And as long as I'm listing tools I covet anyway, a good ball winder wouldn't go amiss either!

It's a shame I just had my birthday, really.

Blog Week Day 5: And now for something completely different

Day 5 is usually my favourite day of Blog Week because I just love how creative people can get with as open a prompt as 'Do something outside your comfort zone'. Last year, I went with a talking ball of yarn, but this year I'm going with something truly different. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who has a post like this one today...

And because today's post is special, it's being posted a tad later in the day than my other posts because, if everything goes well (fingers and toes crossed), as of 11 am today...

Tim and I will be married!

Naturally, I don't have any actual wedding pictures to share yet so you'll have to make do with tiny Tim and mini Me in our wedding getup and tiny glasses! 

Loving, kissing, dancing, holding hands!

I hope you'll excuse me from being absent today, since I'll obviously be a bit busy, eating delicious cake and sandwiches and drinking delicious tea, and making memories with my family!

(obligatory selfie is obligatory)

Regular programming will resume tomorrow!

Blog week Day 4: Colour Review

"What are your favourite colours for knitted or crocheted projects. Have a think about what colours you seem to favour when yarn shopping and crafting."

That's easy. Blue and Grey. And black, but let's focus on the blue and grey here.

I tend to lean towards cold colours a lot for some reason:

My last pair of glasses were framed in ocean-blue, most of my wardrobe is blue and grey, and the first thing I do when I'm shopping for clothing is search for blues and greys and greens. It's one of my mother's major annoyances because she keeps trying to get me to wear horrible colours... like purple and orange. Not my thing. At. All.

(favourite shoes, however? Bright yellow. Go figure.)

It's hard to look through my latest projects to see what colours I use most because I hop from project to project depending on what I grab from my stash and not because I shop for it. That, and most of my latest mini-projects that I've actually finished were plushies. My granny square stack is very much in theme, though:

With a lot of greens mixed in, too.

But when I look at the handmades that I've used most over the past year that were either made from stash yarn or that I purchased yarn for (like the knit hat), they're all in this same colour style:

My mitts and my crocheted hat... (god I miss that fluffy red hair!)

And my knitted hat and crocheted shawl!

It's no surprise that that shawl and hat are still getting a lot of use. It may be a surprise, though, that none of these pictures actually do justice to the colours because, thanks to today's topic, I found out that these types of blue are almost as difficult to photograph as bright reds! But that's just a minor setback that only a blogger would be bothered by.

Naturally, these colours couldn't be farther from my house's 'colours', but they do have in common that most projects were made from yarn I had on hand. The Bee strikes again!