all twisted

i am giving a talk on Monday. i've got to prepare the power point presentation from scratch, and i haven't even started. it's saturday evening and i have nothing. nada. nic. so, instead of pretending that i am doing anything close to productive... what am i occupied with? he he, of course: finishing ester (now suddenly i like finishing, oh yeah) and knitting twisted. a scarf. cool one.



yep, i bought THAT scarves book. with my love for scarves i didn't have a choice. there is a number of great designs in ~the book and a couple of pieces i am definitely going to knit.

blue top

at last. 6 months out-of-phase, a short sleeve top completed just for the winter.

blue top. started in april

pattern: based on the Lana Grossa summertime 2006 pattern 1
yarn: Tweed Flamme by Unica. got it ~10 years ago (vintage! hehe) 89% cotton 11% acrylic, 95m/50g
needles: 3.5mm for the body and 4mm for the drapey collar (circulars)
comments: i like the cable:


unfortunately, the insufficient amount of the daylight today (Sweden!, no joke, days aren't long these days) made me to shoot these pics in the artificial light. no good.



PS. the leek pie was a success :-)

cap sleeves

remember the blue top ? well, i don't think so, it's been ages. actually, i completed the knitting and the finishing some weeks ago. and after that, i decided that this thing needs... yes, cap sleeves. definitely.
i read this detailed discussion on the sleeve construcion and came up with the short row cap sleeves, made up as i went along. they're knitted on the stitches picked up at the armscye and shaped by short rows knitted at both sides of the center part of the sleeve. pretty spontaneusly, i decided on the middle 1/4 of the picked up stitches as the top of the sleeve cap (1), and shaped the rest with short rows (2-5), leaving some stitches for the final full-length row (6).

3 rows of stockinette followed by the bind off row made the cap, and thus the sleeve complete. pretty easy, considering how long it took me to start knitting them.

the final result:

comfort food

when there is dark


and cold outside, what do we do? turn to the comfort food. such as this pie (prepared for tonight's party):



stuffing:
2 leeks chopped and fried on 3 tablespoons of butter + 150g of canned mussles and 3 tablespoons of cream + salt and pepper; place on a pre-baked tart dough
topping:
3 tablespoons of olive oil + 1 mashed garlic clove + 3 tablespoons of chopped parsley + 3 tablespoons of bread crumbs; mix in a bowl and add to the top of the leek stuffing
bake half an hour

officially, it has come!

winter, that is. yesterday's view from my window:



my blogging sucks. more importantly, my work sucks. the amount of ~free time sucks. there is some knitting going on, and finishing, too. i made some sort of resolution (hehe) to finish the in-progress stuff this month. most of it.

slowly but surely

yeah, this IS Ester. or my version of it , just before the final, triumphant bind off row.



it took a couple of days of the sick leave and 2 seasons of Grey's Anatomy to get there. can't believe it, really.

look! i've knitted fish!

It's more a mandarinfish than a pomatomus, though.


Pattern: Pomatomus by Cookie A for knitty
Yarn: Regia Bamboo Color (1066)
Needles: 2.5mm dpns, bamboo of course

no modifications, no fiddling around with the pattern. just did everyhing as was supposed to. the fish turned out to be nice socks. it's just that i am not so sure about all the colours in the yarn... too much action there.