Advent scarf KAL almost over!

Phew! I am done with the christmas presents, I am done with the decorations and the cleaning and whatever else this holiday brings. I am even done with Christmas Eve!

...so now I've gotta do it all over again...except for the presents...

Now that I am more or less free from chores and stress, I can turn to my knitting again. I've yet to start a real project though since I'm trying to get the scarf KAL done. Part 19 comes out tonight and I am ajour.

Part 10

(Extra part that I added between part 10 and 11)

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

I ran out of green yarn for the last two rounds on part 17, so I had to supply with another green tone I had lying in my scrap bag... It's not really that noticable, luckily...but the flash makes it horribly obvious.

You'll just have to wait a little to see part 18. It it finished, but I need to get into the next part before I can get a clear picture of it. Right now, it's scrunched up, and I did make an error while knitting, so I'll have to fix that with embrodery.

Other than the KAL, I've been snail knitting a hat for myself with some yarn I've dyed. I tried to make camo yarn, but failed...

 

Mysterious advent knitting!

Yesterday was the start of probably the most awesome KAL (knit-a-long) that'll ever exist!
The big advent mystery knit hosted by dearest Bittami through her Facebook page.

This is so cool and so awesome, I really don't have any words. We started off yesterday, but before that, all we knew was the recomended yarn and needle size and the fact that it'll be a looooong scarf. It consists of 20 parts that we will be handed from now until the 19th of december.

We were supposed to get the first part at 6pm yesterday, but it was released early, so I had to hurry up with my chores so I could get started too. I had used the whole day, digging out scrap yarn and winding it all up into neat yarn cakes.

I finished off the first part fairly quickly, and I'm using SO much scrap yarn for this thing! SO MUCH FUN!

The next part will be released tomorrow, so while I'm waiting, I'm working on a hat for my friend Nina. She asked me if I wanted to make one for her, and then she ran off to buy yarn for it. She's all about that blue!

As soon as I'm done with this hat, I'll move on to a sweater for the baby girl for another friend of mine. I ordered yarn for it earlier this week and it arrived today! Beautiful Merino!

First yarn purchase of 2014!

Stupid me didn't get to think about yarn for the skirt until almost a week after I ordered this yarn... Stupid me... I could have saved so much money on shipping...

Oh well... Gotta just wait for the next yarn sale and I "need" more yarn. Not in a hurry making the skirt, it's just that I really want to start it NOW if I got it on my mind.

What I did get though, is baby yarn in superwash merino for baby CarCar! Tried to go for more gender neutral colors that would work great in stripes, but the color choice was pretty wonky and limited, so I just had to take those whom looked the best from the picture. Sadly, the blue turned out too dark for my taste, the website pictured it as a more mellow, sky blue with a hint of lavender. Now, I'll just have to dive into my baby clothing patterns!

I also got some more superwash wool yarn for socks cause I was running out of it in my storage. The best all wool blends for socks in my opinion is Rubin from Spar Kjøp and Karisma from Drops. Not the most excisiting colors, but why not try a color combination that I'm not used to?

And the last yarn I got was Ullteppegarn. At some point, I will be making myself a "lang nisselue", and a friend of mine (the spawn of the Knitting God) told me that this yarn was perfect for those hats. I was originally planning on doing the colorfull version Amalie uses in Amalies Jul, but they didn't have the right shade of green so I'm just making the normal, all red version instead.

Spar Kjøp got this giant sale all though january, not just on yarn, but on all kinds of stuff! So I also picked up a flannel PJ set for 50NOK (100NOK discount so I just had to) and four decorative pillow cases for 25NOK each (originally 40NOK). They're not really special, but they do a so much better job than plain grey or black pillows in our green couch! They're also faux suede so they're soft and purty!

All in all, I got away with 28 skeins, that's 1400gr.

UFO's from 2013

I am working steadily on the Anna mittens still, so I really didn't have much content to bring you guys so far today. And since I got a few UFO's lying around, I've been waiting to blog about them until I had a kinda dry day. What is a UFO you say? Well it's an UnFinished Object. A project you've started but never finished and now just lies there, collecting dust and cat hairs... I got a few of them for myself, and I will finish them off this year...I hope... So why not share them with you and explain them a little.

Let's start of with my most famous UFO that will probably never get finished... I know I've allready talked alot about it so I won't go too much into detail about it, but it's my eternity scrap blanket. I still got some scraps left that I need to work into it, but I'm taking a break since the ones I got left are pretty boring and I'm trying not to overlap each color.

A couple of months ago, I started a Creeper hat which I've had planned on making for about a year allready. I started it out, hoping to finish it and enter it to the hat challenge on dA, but it didn't turn out that great, I had to frog half of it and I lost motivation. I tried again the following month, adding it to the video game challenge, but again I lost motivation and gave up on it. It's been sitting in my UFO basket ever since. Not sure if I'll actually finish it or if I'll frog it completely the next time...

In October last year, it was Bård's birthday. I had bought a bunch of yarn and was planning to make him a Marius sweater, both as a challenge to myself and because he loves wool sweaters. But I came this far and not any longer until I got bored. I was working on another sweater in the same color, and I tend to get pretty tired working in blue after a while. It was actually the third sweater on my needles at the same time, so I guess I just had enough. I will continue and finish it some day though, I'm sure of it!

 

Along side with the Marius above and the other blue sweater I mentioned, I was working on a sweater for myself! Some time ago I stumbled upon this fantastic pattern on Drops and I added it to my "want to make" list. Some time later, the yarn used for this pattern came on sale, so I bought a bunch and started it. The needles are super thick, and since I'm used to 3,5mm and smaller, this was a test, and I failed. I got bored and I hurt my arms working on it for too long. I ended up working on ANYTHING that required smaller needles instead of this monster... But it's pretty though, and I really can't wait to actually see it finished and wear it. One day my friend...one day...

Finished!

 

 This is actually getting extra old... I think I started it two years ago as a pillowcase for Bård... I finished one side, got bored and never finished the other side.  If you can't see what it is, it's Boba Fett from Star Wars, and the other side was supposed to be a Stormtrooper. Again, I started it up again sometime last year for a contest at dA, but got bored and put it down again. Will I ever finish it? I hope so...for Bård's sake...

Not sure if these last two can be counted as UFO's, but still. First of, I started two chair blankets for my mother last easter, but crocheting hurts my arms so I can't do much of it at the same time. I'm missing 10 squares or so, so there's not much left, but it's still tedious work with color change and weaving in ends... 60 squares for each blanket...120 in total...all in kinda earth tones... I'm going to sit down and work on them some more after I've finished this blogpost though, need another break from the Anna mittens.

Finished!

And the last one (that I can find atleast) is a shawl, scarf thingy I started over Christmas. I had a bunch of yarn lying around that I thought would do great for a shawl... Little did I know that my mindless knitting turned out to be boring knitting and I'm almost at 300 stitches now...and it's still too short for my taste...

 

So there! I got alot of projects on my hands. Hopefully, some of these (or maybe all of them) will get finished during 2014. It seems like this is the years to kill off those UFO's...atleast from what I've seen and read on other blogs... Wish me luck, and comment on which one you think I should finish of first along with some encouraging comments and motivation, I need it!