Yarnlove

I've been to Iceland. It was beyond awesome. I didn't get to see much in two and a half days, but what I saw was beyond my expectations and I'm determined to go back, find an Icelandic sheep farmer and settle there for good. Until then, I give you tiny/blurry Icelandic sheep and I'm off to Trondheim and another conference.

I guess it's a matter of general well-being. I do feel OK, but when summing up this summer I realize how far it is from what I expected it to be eight months ago. I separated from my boyfriend of three years, he moved to Brussels for an internship and I moved to Stockholm, all make-believe temporarily. The distance gave a new light to our differences and our new lives weren't so bad after all, so we split up over the phone in March, for the best but still very difficult to get over. I have a more than decent job and now I have my own place, but it's a place with loans and mortgages and all such adult s**t. I thought I'd be with him again by now, I thought we'd have grown back together. Instead I have by myself what I wanted for us. It's not really the same thing.

I had a friend here for a few days a month ago or so, and after she left she sent me this sms where she asked me how I actually felt, because she didn't quite recognize me. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I guess on a deeper level I'm quite far from where I used to be. I just hope things will settle and I will get comfortable in with my new life, even though I'm panicking over being 28 and single in Stockholm. I wanted to be 28 and cohabiting in Uppsala.

So I guess it's not that strange I'm not really getting my knitting mojo back. I see pretty stuff on blogs, but I don't think "I love it, what yarn should I get?" but "That would take ages to knit and when would I actually wear it?". I feel bad about my UFO's and I should be knitting a baby sweater for a dear friend who's having her first baby in just a few weeks and I don't feel like it but she expects it and I said I would do it. I have an almost finished Bayerische sock that's one centimeter too short but is only elongated by 4 centimeter pattern repeats. My needles are nowhere and everywhere. My stash is pathetic and consists of mostly half balls and scraps.

But I didn't log on to Blogger to whine, but to share with you this pretty beret by Ysolda which actually seems like a reasonable project for someone like myself. (It was in desire of this object I realized my stash sucks, because I don't have anything I could use for this.)

Days like these there's really nothing to do but to listen to Rebecka Törnqvist and bake yourself something sweet.

Did you know Garnstudio has released their winter pattern collection? And oh my God is it awesome?!
These are just a few of an enormous collection. Fresh and free patterns ladies! (They should pay me for this.) It seems they have quite a lot of patterns for Eskimo, which is a quite chunky single-ply yarn. Fast knits, in other words. And they have also tried to make the most for Fabel, their new variegated (sock) yarn. I'm not thrilled, but at least they don't seem to have any creativity issues, and that's always a good thing.

My favourite so far is the first cardi up here on the left. What are your favourites?

As even Beyoncé pointed out, it's the one on the left that belongs on my Salina. It won a landslide victory - 14 to 0!

Tonight I'm treating myself with nine hours on a bus to my mum's, where I'm going over the weekend. Wouldn't it be great if the Salina was done (buttons and second cuff) when i got back home on Monday, so I could blog it? Yeah, about time.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm going to celebrate it with a picnic with my best friend and two of my three godchildren by a lake in the forest. Having a new camera couldn't feel any better.

In more than one way - I'm back, although you might not have noticed I was gone, but I was, because I was waiting for my new CAMERA, to make my blogging so much better. As I've been taking the first photos I realize it might take some time before my photography enhances my blogging, but I'll get there.

Until then, I could really use some help from my few but muchly appreciated blog readers. I'm in the delicate position of having two pretty buttons to choose from for my Salina (who is only one cuff-sewing and a few buttons away from wearable glory). The ones on the left was found in my stash, and are plastic mother of pearl buttons on a brown background, which kind of picks up the brown tweed flecks in the yarn. Not bad at all. On the right we have newly procured grayish plastic buttons, slightly smaller but also with a pearly finish, and with three holes and an interesting triangle in the middle. Intriguing and kind of retro. Please vote below!