Marta's knitblog

I haven't had much time for my WIPs, but I found the time to put on my Audrey and to model a little bit. I have to say that I am not photogenic at all, so that my hubby had to take a unbelievable number of pictures in order to get a few that I can show in the blog.
Here they are:









Yesterday it was so cold that I could wear Audrey at work. But I am a little disappointed by Rowan Calmer: I have the impression that the yarn keeps losing its elasticity while wearing. Is it just my impression? It feels wonderful on the skin, and it is a pleasure to knit it, but if my impression gets confirmed I don't think I will use this yarn again. It is too expensive not to be perfect. Maybe I shoud have used thinner needles and knit it tighter, but since I got the gauge with my 5mm needles, I kept knit it with it. Well, post-work-wisdom doesn't help anymore.

This weekend I will not have much spare time for knitting. But next week I am on vacation and I will have time to dedicate to things I like. The last weeks (months?) were so stressful, I really need it.

Have a stressfree and knitful weekend!
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I have added 100 things about me. |

In spite of all the projects I had in my head (and in my sidebar), yesterday evening I decided to knit Tina.
I cast on and knitted a little:

The colour you see in the pic is NOT the real colour. I wish it would! The real colour is much more pinkish. As I often read in other people's blogs, digicams seem to have problems with some red shades.

I am using some Schachenmyr nomotta cotton from my stash - I purchased it last summer in some different colours through ebay. I liked the colour but I didn't know what to do with it. Tina seems to be a nice and fast project to knit.

I would finally like to knit a bottom up BOC, but yesterday I realised that I don't have the right sized needles for it and I have ordered them.

I also made some progress with Leaf:


I usually just work on one project at the same time. I am not good in multitasking and - even if I knit for the fun of knitting - I am always impatient to get the project finished as soon as possible. Since I am a quite slow knitter, I then prefer to concentrate on one project. This time I want to try two projects at once, and I think that a knit and a crochet one are the right ones to start with. |

Yesterday evening I finished my Audrey:



Sorry you cannot see my face, but it was late at night as I compelled my husband to take pictures and I was looking awful...
But my Audrey is nice, isn't it? It is a little big... maybe I should have knitted it in XS instead of S, but it's ok. I am happy with it.
I wanted to wear it today, but - you will not believe it - the weather was too cold for it. I really hate the German climate.
I am proud that I have knitted this beautiful sweater and I think it looks quite good, even if not really perfect.

Now I have to find another project to knit! There are some things I am thinking about, but maybe I will knit a pattern of mine. In my university time, as I started to knit - I NEVER EVER followed a pattern from a book or a magazine, I always created patterns by myself. Well, just 50% of them were wearable actually.... But since I have some beautiful sky blue cotton with a gauge that does not match to any of the magazine patterns I like, I will perhaps try to use my own ideas. We will see.

I have also made some progress with "Leaf", but I will save the picture for one of the next days...

But I don't want to spare you my kitties....
Camilla is hiding herself:

and Didone looks satisfied:


And since you cannot see my face up there, here a picture of my husband & myself that someone took last week at a salsa party:



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There is a problem with my homepage server at the time being, so you can not see the pics....
I will post again as soon as the prob is solved. Please be patient. |

...and luckily the sun is shining again. The rain was making me sicker than I anyway already am.

As foreseen, I did not have much spare time for knitting during the weekend.
I crocheted a few rows on Leaf, but they are not worth a picture yet.
I started the neckband of Audrey, but I had to rip it out twice! I usally have no problems with lace patterns, but I seem to be out of exercise. As usual, I was knitting and watching TV at the same time, so I got distracted and made a mistake. I wanted to rip out just a couple of rows, but I wasn't able to pick up the stitches again, because of the yfwd-stiches. I got crazy and ripped out 9 (---> nine!) complete pattern repeats the first time, two the second time. Then I stopped knitting and went to bed. I have to try again when I am less tired and more concentrated.

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I'm still sick and I hate it. Friday is my favourite day, since I usually work until 12:30 and in the night, after giving salsa classes downtown, I go dancing with my friends. Today? Nope. I am still weak and have a sore throat. I hope I'll feel better tomorrow, since there is a big salsa party in Ulm organised by my husband, who is also the dj. We will see.

Yesterday I made some knitting, even if I wasn't feeling well. I made a little progress on the 2nd sleeve of Audrey:

But I'm getting tired of the ribbing. I'm looking forward to knitting the neck, seaming it all and wearing it.

So I decided to start a new project. This time I will crochet again. Crocheting is fun, because is not so hard for my poor hands and arms and the progresses are quite fast. I'm anyway a better crocheter than a knitter... a pity you cannot do many fashionable and wearable things crocheting.
Do you remember this?

It is a cotton crochet skirt I made last year using a pattern of Junghans Wolle and varying it a bit.
The picture is blurry, but here you can see a detail:


Actually I get a lot of compliments when I wear this skirt and nobody believes I crocheted it by myself (people are convinced that knitting and crocheting do not match with my character).
So I decided to crochet another one using the new green GGH-Roma cotton I got some days ago from ebay:

I made more progress yesterday evening, but I had to rip it out completely, since I was so stupid and twisted it!

And since all bloggers give their knit and crochet works a name, I decided to call this skirt Leaf because of its colour. I'm relieved that I have a name so fast, I am not that creative with names...

Have a nice (and healthy) weekend! |

I'm sick again and I am lying in bed with a sort of flu. This is the third or even the fourth time this year! I cannot believe it.
Of course this is no excuse to me to neglect my blog, so here are some pics.


Blocking Audrey, I realised that the result is a little tighter and quite longer than it shoud be. My gauge was right! Misteries of knitting. It must depend on the fact that the sweater is ribbed and the gauge was plain stockinette stitch. Mmmmh?

Even if it has been very unconfortable knitting in bed, I finished the first sleeve yesterday. Here a detail of the dicreases:


And today I got this with the mail:

This is 500 gr of GGH Roma cotton. I bought it at ebay for just 9€! I still don't know what I'm going to do with it.

Well, I feel weak now..... go back to my warm bed.... ::cough::cough:: |

My weekend wasn't relaxing, since we had some health problems in the family. So I had not much time to knit. Last week I finished the front of Audrey (did I mention it??) and started the first sleeve. Yesterday I knitted for just about two hours, this is the result:


Audrey's first sleeve

Didone keeps loving Calmer:


and Camilla still doesn't care:


I hope I will have more time to knit this week, since I am longing to finish Audrey and to wear it (it is so cold right now, it would be the right sweater!) and I would like to start a new project soon. Mmmh... but which one? Anyway, I'll probabily rip out the poncho, since it is simply too boring to knit. I must find another pattern for it.

Have a nice week! |

Well, my week has not been too hard, but I'm happy it's friday. Weekend! Going dancing*, sleeping a lot.

There is not much I can tell about knitting. Yesterday I completed the front of Audrey and I begun a sleeve (did I already mention how I hate knitting sleeves?).

There's something else I would like talking about. And I tell you: it is a pity that English is not my mother tongue. I am a good speaker and writer - in Italian, my mother tongue, as well as in German, my second language. My English is rosty. I used to translate and comment Shakespeare during my university studies - but it was about 15 years ago. Sometimes I feel really sorry that I am not capable to explain what I feel and think as I would like to. But today I will try.

The "Wendy issue"
Wendy's blog is one of the reasons why I wanted a knitblog too. I discovered it by chance some months ago and since then I have been reading it every day. She usually writes very early in the morning in the East Coast, that is at about 11 a.m. for me (Middle Europe). When I work in the afternoon (I am a teacher), I run to my PC in the morning at that time. When I work in the morning or the whole day, the first site I have a look to is hers, even before I read my e-mails.
Not only I like what she knits (she is a very fast and capable knitter), not only I like her numberous pictures of her knittings and her lovely cat, but I especially appreciate the way she writes. She seems to be a straight person and has a wonderful sense of humor.

Well, let's come to the proper "issue": Wendy has been knitting some ponchos with a Colinette kit. She bought the kit, used it and is now using the pattern knitting ponchos with other yarns from her stash. These ponchos are chic and stylish, so that she got many mails by people asking her to share her pattern. I wrote her an e-mail too, not asking her for the pattern, but asking her why her link to the shop "knithappens" did not work, since I wanted to order the kit, too. I got two friendly mails from her as a reply - what surprised me a lot, since I know she gets plenty of comments and e-mails from her blog readers daily. NEVER, I say, never I had thought about asking her to send me the pattern.
In the meanwhile I know that the Colinette kit is quite expensive. Well, I am not going to buy it. There are so many poncho patterns in the www.... I will pick one (as I have already done) and I will use yarn I have in my stash. I don't have the money, so I simply won't buy it - and I won't urge people - who do not even know me - to send me a pattern they bought. It was their money, and there is a copyright. Does everybody know what a copyright is....?
Wendy wrote something about it in her blog yesterday and she got offensive e-mails blaming her for not being generous. Well, people, what's wrong with you?
If you feel offended by her because she knits with expensive yarn, well, why do you keep reading her blog? This is her life, her blog, her money. I haven't the money to buy luxurious and expensive yarn. Should I make her guilty because she can?
I can just shake my head and feel compassion for people who are envious. Envy must be something that makes one feel really bad.

Enough for today. A nice weekend out there! Hope you are not having the Flood like we are here in Germany.

* I am a salsa dancer and instructor. |

First off, I would like to thank Thuy and Froggy for the birthday wishes. As I see, two persons sometimes read my blog. I do not write just for myself (::cough::cough).

Yesterday I played a little with my new toy (my Nikon Coolpix3100), so I can publish some pics today.
Let's start with my progress on the Audrey front:

It is not a lot, I did not have much time.

I am looking forward to completing Audrey, so that I can wear it (the weather turned cold, as expected). Besides, I am longing to start some new projects (----> see my sidebar).

As I often mentioned, my stash is quite big. But I would like to knit this:


or this:
.

I am thinking about a pattern from the last Rebecca or maybe about this:
.

Last week I also bought this magazine:


...and found this pattern in it:

I feel tempted to knit something lacy...

Well, I do not have to decide immediately. I still have a lot to do with Audrey, think about the sleeves.... (did I ever mention I HATE knitting sleeves?).

And what about a Bottom-up BOC?
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No knit progress to show today - but something much more interesting to tell:
for my birthday (yes, today...) I got a brand new digital camera by my husband and my in-laws!
It is a Nikon Coolpix3100.
So, today I will be busy playing with it and won't knit :-)) |