Send from heaven

After my disastrous first experience with felting I went to our local Karstadt and looked for a wool without superwash that will felt well. The bad news: Nowadays even the cheapest and crappiest rummage wools are still superwash… The good news: There was a special stand at Karstadt and a nice lady advertising this new felting-friendly wool by Coats: Wash + Filz – it! (What a great combination of German and English by the way…) It’s superbulky and I had to adjust the pattern for my pumpkins a bit but I felted a testswatch today and it felted incredibly well!!

It was a one-day-only-action at Karstadt and there weren’t many colours left when I went there but I ordered some skeins here and we can all hope that this Halloween-nightmare will find a Happy End.

Eight random things

I’ve been tagged and here are eight random things about me:

1. In case you don’t know until now and ever wondered about my occupation: I’m a Ph.D.-Student in mathematics. Yes, I’m girl and I like math. Try to get over it, will you ?
2. When I was a teenager and during my studies I earned some pocket money as a sales girl at my parents’ market stand where they sold fruits and vegetables. They are retired now.
3. I’m very fond of animals. When I was a child we had some cats and until last year I had a hamster called Floppy. He passed away at the age of two and since I commuting between two cities I can’t have pets now.
4. My father has horses and breeds them. Still, I never learned to ride a horse.
5. I learned knitting and crochet from my Grandmother but taught myself most of the advanced techniques by books and through the internet.
6. I’m a TV-addict and especially enjoy some series like „Desperate Housewives“, „Monk“, „Dr. House“ and „Brothers & Sisters“ to mention just a few.
7. I’m not a coffee-addict (unlike for mathematicians…) but I love to drink a Latte Macchiato after lunch.
8. Want to know more? And speak german? Check out my non-knitting-related blog: „Miss Sophies Blog„.

There’s one thing more – a lesson learned: Never try to felt superwash wool. I knew that before but what I didn’t know was that Superlana by Lana Grossa is a superwash quality. (It said „washing machine proof“ on the label though… blame it on me). The result was catastrophic. The wedges didn’t shrink one single inch and the whole stuff feels like a wishy-washy washcloth.

Now I learned the hard way what I’ve read a dozen times: First try to felt a swatch! But I don’t give up and will try out some different yarns. I’ll let you know.

I will go to the bookstore later to find a nice book for my sister…

Glittering pumpkins

The first four wedges of my pumpkin are done! And yes, those superthick needles have something like glitter in them. I had absolutely no choice at my LYS…

The yarn is Superlana by Lana grossa, 100% wool, and I hope it will felt well. The nice lady at the LYS gave me the hint to throw some tennisballs into the washing machine. I’ll give it a try.

Pumpkin time!

I’m a bit late with birthday gifts this year. Bauble came two days late for my friend’s birthday and today I was thinking about my sister’s birthday (next Wednesday). I think I’m invited for next Sunday and a knitted gift would be fine. She likes decorating and I think this would be perfect! Only problem will be: Those guys are felted. I’ve never felted before (ah, that’s wrong, I needlefelted a little piggy once – won’t help here I suppose…) and I don’t know if I can do it. I have a frontloader washing machine so no „check the felting process every five minutes“. Maybe I’ll try to do it with my bare hands in the washbasin first and if that wont help I’ll give my Mom’s washer a try on Saturday. The washing machine isn’t better than mine but somehow these household things have a tendency to work out better if I do them at my parent’s laundry.
Ok, everybody yells for Beatrix-photos so here’s the slow progress: The left front is finished! Instead of markers (pay for them? No way!) I used some pieces of a baby blue yarn to indicate the button holes.

I’ve started the right front but had to rib back some centimeters (left out one decrease and I’m just too much of an perfectionist to do simply one decrease more on the next row…)

New Magknits – and photos!

The new Magknits is up. A very clever sock design is featured but with the self-striping yarn a bit too wild for my taste. It would be very interesting to see this in a mildly variegated sock yarn. Also very nice is the Burridge Lake Aran Afghan. It’s getting cold again here in Germany but for energy (and especially energy costs) reasons I try to keep the temperature at 21° in my living room. That’s what magazines and experts tell you is an appropriate temperature but somehow my body tells me something different. A big blanket is needed urgently and would also look quite cozy on my sofa. Only thing is that for example for Burridge you need 21 balls (each weighs 100 gr) which would cost almost 100 $. (And that seems to be quite a bargain. 100% wool in that yardage would cost at „Wolle Rödel“ 6 Euro per 100g so I would end up with 120 Euro.) And what if you’ve spend a fortune on your wool and then don’t feel like finishing it?

Now to the photos: The back of Beatrix is finished. The pleats at the peplum might need some good blocking but except from that I’m still very confident.

Bauble, second try

 

My second try on bauble and I’m much more satisfied this time. Still a bit too clumsy for my wrist but it’s not for me, it’s for a friend of mine. The beads are again from Perlenpaula, but match better this time. The smaller ones are 11/0 Rocailles and the bigger ones have a diameter of 6 mm. I used 3mm needles instead of the 4mm the pattern called for and tried to knit more tight (a bit difficult since the beads are strung on elastic cord and you shouldn’t stretch it while you’re knitting). Think it looks much better than the first one.