Yarnlove

Yay, I got my first SP12 parcel today!


OK, shitty picture, but the stuff is good! My SP sent me two different cottons (three balls burgundy and two balls peach), candy (Gummibärchen!), a really cool sewing book, a notebook with a sock monkey on it, a cute tote bag (good for knitting on the go) and a matching set of fruity shampoo, shower creme and leave-in conditioner. It was so funny, I was actually sniffing hair treatment the other day, but found myself too cheap to buy one... And this one smells so much better than the ones I was sniffing!

The peach yarn goes great with a lilac cotton I got last summer from my then spoiler, Melissa, and I can totally see them make a girly baby set... Supercute!

Sweet SP, thanks so much for great package, so many nice things! I really love adding more yarn to my stash, the shower stuff smells so nice and the monkey notebook is really crazy/cute... Thank you!

Yum.

Quite a while ago I found a post on Strikke-Tantens blog with the same title as this very post, and this is me paying it forward. It is such a nice idea, and I'm happy to have been one of the three first to have posted a comment on Strikke-Tantens blog and I'm happy to do the same for you.

This is the deal:

I will send a gift, hand-made by myself, to the first three people who post a comment to this post. The conditions are that
- you pay it forward by doing the same thing on your own blog
- the gifts are handmade by yourself
- the gifts are sent out within 365 days

So, post a comment!

I'm back from a great week in the Stockholm archipelago. We were eight girls, of which five were knitting! It was the knitting gals from this winters baby blanket project, and I'm so happy they got bitten by the yarn bug because it makes me seem less crazy.

Jenny knit her first sock, and even though it might not look exactly like the average sock it was more than OK for a first sock. More importantly, she had excellent yarn, and today I went and got some for myself: Regia's Kaffe Fassett sock yarn. I present to you my very own Kaffe sock:
(Jenny's sock had much more vivid colours, but they were out of it at Wincent, so I went for the dusty pastels, like always.)

During the week in the archipelago I finally made some progress on the big aran sweater I'm knitting for myself and desperately hoping to finish in time for winter. As for now, outlook is good -back and almost front are finished. When I get past the sleeves I'm looking forward to knitting a ribbed collar big enough to double as a hat.

SP12 is going great so far, even though I don't seem to get all the SP12 weekly questions mails. I've sent my first parcel and my spoilee was so happy it totally made my day. I've already started shopping for the next one, and it's so much fun! Melissa's great packages last year taught me that it's more fun to just buy the stuff you think your spoilee will like, rather than keeping track of keeping the $60 limit.

I just had a quick look at my Sitemeter, and I found the "By referrals" section. I hereby apologize to all of you (possibly one out of four hits...) who find this blog by googling "Guichie guichie ya ya da da". You must be so disappointed.

1) Where is your favorite place to go for vacation/holiday?
2) Where is one place you’d like to go?

I haven't found that favourite place yet (dreaming of a summer house...), but I always like to go see my mum up north. The one place I really really want to go, which isn't really a place but a whole lot of places, is the Trans Siberian Railway. Not only would I see a lot of exotic places, I would also have a lot of knitting time on a trainride that takes over one week...

1) What yarn (that you don’t have/haven’t used) would make your stash “complete”?

I've never knit with linen/flax, so that would definitely complete my stash. I'm also imagining having a special stash of mitten yarn in a gazillion of different colours. Having enough yarn for bigger projects is also something I like. Mostly I only have one or two balls of something nice, and it's never enough to do anything that's not just an excuse to use up the yarn in question...

2) What yarn do you never want to be without?

I'm not a very faithful yarnlover, but right now I'm thinking it's good to always have sock yarn in the house, for when you run out of inspiration for whatever you're knitting. Who would have thought a couple of years ago I'd be a sock knitter?!

I've been thinking about a simple/basic round-neck cardican with set-in sleeves, little buttons and no fuss. A classic, if you will. I had a look at Yll o Tyll, my former LYS, and the had some tasty dishes:
I think I like the blue one the best, but I'm not sure. It's knit in SilkeAlpaca, which I can imagine would work. It seems to give a good drape to it. But then I also like the green one too, knit in Malabrigo. (I'd knit the sleeves longer though. Sweden is cold in the winter.) The last one is knit in Garnstudios Alpaca, a classic yarn that works for everything. I like that the top two have pockets. Pockets are both useful and stylish.