Spinning adventure and more!

Thank you all for the comments in my last post. There has been little time in front of my computer lately. I went to Lillehammer this last weekend for a spinning class. It was just perfect and I learned a lot and had a great time together with all these enthusiastic spinners. The people at Spinnvilt are very nice and our instructor, Tove, is a very experienced and talented spinner. I tried to pick up as much knowledge as possible.

This is some bouclé yarn made from Mohair, a sewing machine tread and a thin handspun merino. It was so much fun and I am happy with the result. But I had some difficulties with the yarn getting stuck when spinning it.

Here are some more spun yarn. I will need some more practice before I can handle all the methods. It is so amazing how much you can create with a spinning wheel. There are a lot of possibilities. If you would like to find out more, take a look on Toves blog.
Shopping in Lillehammer was very limited. I had to buy something for my kids off course. The only thing for me was this 2008 callendar from Norges Husflidslag. There are one pattern for each month of the year. Oh, I am sorry, almost forgot that I bought some spinning supplies. I will have to take pictures later. It is some acid dyes, wool-cambs, Majacraft Diz and some exotic fibers (soya, bamboo, tencel, ramie...)

Before I went to Lillehammer I finished my third Foliage hat in a child size. Again I am using Wollmeise yarn. To get a smaller hat I used worsted weight yarn, but followed the instructions for the bulky yarn version in the pattern. It is a tight fit, so I could have made it with a larger needles.

Last week I also received another knitting gadget. Its a Knitzi! The perfect storage solution for socks in progress on double pointed needles.
Two days ago another package from far away arrived! More yarn I am afraid :-)
It is a Ravelry-friend, Katrina, that was so nice and bought some yarn for me at the Blue Moon Fiber Art sale. Five skeins of Socks that rock medium weight in very pretty colors. And two skeins in a "grab bag" that I don't know what is. I have never seen anything like it. The shiny one is a ribbon yarn but thinner than I have ever seen before. The other one looks like brushed leather that have been cut in a paper shredder...well it is hard to describe. I will try to knit it to see what happens :-)
Thank you for shopping for me, Katrina!

So what is this? It is my ongoing started-project-without-thinking-nightmare!
A local quilt-store announced a workshop for making a Advent calendar. There is an awful lot of stitching for this project, and I am very, very fed up. But no way this is going to be another UFO. Next Wednesday is our last workshop so I have to finish all the stitching and cutting buy then. And I want it to be finished before December 1! So If I am not blogging so much the next week, you know why!

A guitar for my birthday!

Today is my birthday , but turning 34 is not so special. Even so I got a very nice birthday gift - a new guitar. The old one has not been playable for a very long time . I am not good at playing, but I am able to play easy things . With some practice I hope to do better and being able to play when other people are around without getting too embarrassed. No I do best when I am alone. I also want to play and sing for my kids. They like that. I want to inspire them to learn to play a n instrument them self as they grow up.

In this picture you can see some progress on my modern log cabin blanket. I am on block 4 and was very happy with the colors, but when I saw this picture I was lifting my eyebrows . It looks like block 4 is knitted in two different colors. I have used two skeins, and I thought it was the same dye-lot. But it sure does not look like it. On Friday I went shopping for more Drops yarn for this blanket, but I had difficulties finding the colors. I went to almost every store in town to find the natural white, but when I came home I realized that it was yellow that was the color for block 5. And I don't have more than one skein of this. But now that I see the different shades in my purple I don't feel like mixing dye-lots in one block.


So today was my birthday, but I have not been having a lazy day. We have put together some book shelves for our living room and then I also had to do a little cleaning up afterwards. But in the afternoon we went to a restaurant for a nice dinner with our kids and our parents .
On the top shelves on this one someone has placed his favorite reading - they are all about Computer science. He is such a geek, and everyone that comes to our home will find it out right away...Oh well, then it is OK that I am a yarn-geek, So maybe I should have my knitting books underneath his books :-)
The three skeins on the table are Drops Silk alpaca in dark purple. I have never tried this yarn, but now when they where on discount I figured I would try making the Koolhaas hat from it.

Last week I got these two lovely handpainted rovings from an Etsy-shop. It is Shetland wool and Blue Faced Leicester. Look forward to spinning with these two, but I will wait until after next weekends spinning-workshop. I hope to be a better spinner after the weekend.

I got some more Wollmeise worsted weight, too. Three colors: Dornröschen, Rosenrot and Campari Orange. I am thinking hats and Christmas-presents :-)