update:

my latest FOs with you... all made with yarns i ordered from richard at ColourMart

except for the cash/silk cardigan which was air-dried, all of these were hand washed in hot water and then tossed in the washer & dryer and came out lovely fulled and soft and warm and generally gorgeous... okay, here goes:

made from colourmart 10/28NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool navy, 5/14NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool nero navy and 6/20NM dk wt 50/50 cashmere/wool fuchsia



my christmas dress! from a drops design pattern that i modified a little and embellished with a lace edging from a japanese knitting pattern book (mentioned in an earlier post, i believe =). i wore it on the 25th for all the family christmas celebrations and i really liked it! now i'm pondering if it's really only a christmas dress or if it could maybe be worn at other times, too...

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made from colormart 6/20NM dk wt 50/50 cashmere/wool fuchsia & greige



the first dress i knit! and not only the first dress, but the first garment i produced that is actually wearable and that people other than me like! and it's soooo warm and soft and nice... of course, i intended to wear it as a dress but it turned out a little short so now i wear it with jeans and i think that looks just fine.

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made from colourmart 10/28NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool navy and 5/14NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool cardinal



a blazer/cardigan "Prepster" by Fay Lin from the "Stitch 'n' Bitch - The Happy Hooker" by Debbie Stoller, which i modified a little to my liking. getting the sleeves to fit in the armhole properly took a few tries on this one, but i'm really pleased with the outcome. i wear it a lot and am already looking at colours for the next one! =)

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made with colourmart 5/14NM heavy dk wt 30/70 cashmere/wool nero navy and 6/20NM dk wt 50/50 cashmere/wool fuchsia & greige



two pairs of mittens, one fingerless and one not. the pattern for the fingerless ones is "Fetching" by Cheryl Niamath, from knitty. the other is "Daisy Stitch Hand Warmers" by Whitney Van Nes from the purl bee and i modified it to make mittens. warm! nice! i wear the fingerless ones a LOT and the others when it's colder. i've also worn the daisy stitch ones over the fingerless ones for added warmth which works fine, until i try to remove only the top mitten layer. =) ah well...

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made with colourmart 10/36NM dk wt 55:45 cash/silk lemonade



and finally and most recently, a cardigan/shrug made from the lovely cash/silk mix that is shiny and soft and a joy to work with and to waer. i made it shrug larger as specified in the pattern to turn it into a cardigan, next time i'd probably just make the next size up and still make the ribbing parts longer, but for now it's fine and in summer over less and lighter clothing will be even nicer. i also made an i-cord chinese knot closure but haven't attached it yet. for now, i'm wearing it open or close it woth a brooch, but open is nicer, i think, because closed it looks like it's just a bit too small... maybe i'll add to the ribbing. we'll see...

my parents came back from japan tonight... and they brought this book back for me.



i only leafed through it so far, but i can tell you this - it's beautiful. the patterns are so pretty, the design so ingenuous, it is amazing.

i had already decided on a pattern for the silk yarn from my last post, but now i'm thinking i'll make a scarf/stole based on three or four patterns from the book. but i think i'd need to practise first, some of these look pretty complex. i'll keep you posted.

the book is absolutely gorgeous. seriously.

i fell asleep yesterday before i could post, so this is oficially the new day four. yesterday, something very exciting happended - it's here! okay, so "exciting" is stretching it a little... let me rephrase, something that made me very happy happened. my yarn arrived! it's here! and it's soooo beautiful. and soft. and it shimmers. now, what to knit with it....





sadly, i don't know how to get the colours to show correctly - both pictures show the same yarn. i think there is just too much blue in the picture. i'll ask boyfriend how to tweak that tonight. (yeah, i know, get the right set-up and put it in a soft box, but that seems like just too much trouble....)




okay, now i gotta work, then i'll go look at pretty patterns while i pat my yarn.

it turned cold in vienna.

it's raining very nicely; and it's been raining all day. have to start my fall/winter knitting. and maybe christmas projects (although most people i know will be happier if i don't knit them anything for christmas).

okay, so while this blog is mostly about knitting and associated stuff, i'm not all about that. among other things, i'm also about street art and this is one of my favourite stencils:



back street beuys. love it. so clever. oh, and also this one:



knitting related - today i organized my printed patterns and put the neatly into folders. and i took pictures of all my wips and fos that were previously without pictures, so my ravelry project overview page looks really nice now. and becaude i'm very tired now, here's a picture of my recently finished bolero (pattern in ravelry), the first item of clothing i made that i actually like wearing for fashion sense and not only because of pride. =) the pattern is great and i love it.



i'm thinking i'll make another one! maybe with a few modifications.... but

boyfriend and i are watching "bullit" with steve mcqueen and i'm trying to get all my project pictures updated. turns out, i have yet to take most of the current projects pictures, so taht will be my goal for tomorrow (when there's daylight).



but for tonight, i'm going to show off two pieces i finished in august. one is a wips-wrestling ravelympics project that didn't quite make the finish line (i finished it a few days late). it's a ribbed scarf i made purely because i got the grey and the pink merino wool cheap (turned out the grey had a few cut strands, i repaired as best as i could as i went along. the pink was perfect, though) and the black wool came from my stash. i didn't weave in teh ends but knotted them to little bows along one egde of the scarf - i have yet to decide wether i like it or not, it was more a choice out of convenience and lazyness than of personal preference. if temperatures keep dropping at the current rate here, i'll have a chance to wear it very soon. =)




the other one is the second pair of baby booties i made from an online pattern by sock pixie (via ravelry) for friends of ours who have a new baby - the first pair turned out rather too big, was finished with the recipient in the next room and the two booties somehow weren't the exact same size. i don't have any pictures of those (my first pair of booties ever!), but these are of the second pair i knit. this is pre-wash, so the still look a bit lumpy, but they will be fine i guess. i used a heavier weight wool than appropriate for the pattern, so i had to change it quite a bit. i'm thinking of making up my very own baby bootie pattern, actually. i'll keep you posted on how i'm getting along. i also made a matching bib from a pattern in ravelry, i'll show you pictures of that tomorrow.

until we meet again - be happy!

okay, so i didn't keep my promise to post more often - but i'm trying! knitting keeps getting in the way. and singing. and life in general.

i have a few FO's that turned out rather nice - tell you what, we'll make a deal. starting today, i will post something everyday to get this blog going once and for all. i'm changing the title of this post from something even less original to "day 1". (no, i won't tell you what it was. i would be embarrassed. maybe i thought of this posting-thing just to hide that title from you. nah, okay, i didn't. do you know why? because i'm more lazy than embarrassment-prone.)

annnnnnyway... i joined two KALs in september, a loosely organized one on ravelry to do the celtic knot stole and a really very pretty, interesting and exciting one, the mystery stole 4 kal, which i both love. but i have to admit, i like the ms4 more because - it's a mystery. and i love surprises, especially nice ones.

i'm doing the celtic knot in a navy laceweight 50:50 silk/wool blend and the ms4 in a cobweb weight cashmere yarn with 15% lycra (i really don't know why i picked that, except it was the only yarn i could find that came in the colour i was hoping to get). i had the cobweb wight yarn wound double stranded so it's an untwisted 2-ply and it looks and feels great. i ordered both yarns from colourmart, they were quick, friendly and i think their prices are awsome. i'm impatient to be finished knitting, so i can watch the yarn bloom to full glory - their yarns are oiled for machine knitting and have to be washed to bring out their full glory. i washed the swatch and the yarn went from "nice looking and very soft" to "dreamlike". ms4 comes with beads, i swatched with different colours and setteled for black in the end - it's looking really good. will post photos tomorrow.

oh, and i ordered another yarn from colourmart, simply because i could. not. resist. i tried for two days and then i stopped trying. i was just going to post a picture, but appearantly the yarn has already sold out and then the pictures are no longer available. instead i'll post a link to the page where similar yarns are listed, so you can have a look and i'll show you mine as soon as it gets here. oh, and i nicked a picture of my ms4 yarn for you to drool at:



okay, so my resolution for tomorrow is getting my project pictures up on ravelry and writing another blog post, this time with my own pictures.

until we meet again - be happy.

okay, so i didn't make it to the top three winners at the mochimochi photo contest (and i don't know how or why my last post got duplicated, but there you have it... ), but i'm going to see this olympically and declare that "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!" (DeCoubertin) - and i DID make it to the top ten, so i'm happy. =)



and now to something completely different! who knew there was such a thing as a less territorial and thus less threatening breeds-well-in-captvity pocket-sized hippo? well, okay, not pocket-sized, as such. depending on the size of your pockets, of course. it's a pygmy hippo and if you go to its wiki-page, you can watch a video of it dipping its head in the water. i think it's cute.

on the knitting front, i'm working on my crochet-cotton-in-different-colours scarf-thingy experiment, i've decided to double it. i'll show you pictures and explain my master plan in my next post...

my three of hearts in heels, as featured in my previous post, made it to the mochimochi photo contest finals! yay! *does happy dance*

my three of hearts in heels, as featured in my previous post, made it to the mochimochi photo contest finals! yay! *does happy dance*