All kinds of updates!

For some reason, I forgot to keep this blog updated with my crafts while dyeing yarn like a maniac over the weekend and then some... So I figured I'd make a little catch up blogpost here...

First off, Pickle's scarf is pretty much DONE! I'm currently waiting for some more projects of some kind to get done so I can wash and block it. The edge are curling up and it drives me mad! But I'm SO darn glad to be finished with this stupid thing! NEVER EVER AGAIN will I make anything with swedish weave! It was HORRIBLE and BORING!

 

The Swing Skirt have stopped abruptly to make room for more important projects, but it's so pretty! I really love the colors and I hope to finish it before may so I can use it for our national day...if I can't find anything else to wear... I keep imagening it with a black west or a poofy black shirt...

And the elastic band for it came in the mail yesterday! Wohoo! I love it when eBay sellers ship out their items quickly. There's 1,82m (2 yards) here and I bought it for about 25NOK ($4), free shipping. It's amazing, I would never be able to find a elastic band to match that price, expecially considering it's a little over 3cm (1.20") wide.

I've so far made 16 granny squares for charity squares + one that needs an extra round, and I've got several more to make. I've almost busted ut all the boring colors in the wool bag! Yaaay!

And speaking of granny squares... I'm ALMOST DONE assembeling the second chair blanket for my mother! I took about a month off from these cause connecting the squares killed me! I've been plowing through the squares for the second blanket over the last 3-4 days now,a dn right now, I only got 9 more squares to connect before I connect the two halves and do the horisontal lines. Hopefully I'll have enough yarn after all that to do an extra boarder around both blankets! My parents are stopping by this weekend, so I was hoping to MAAAAYBE (just maybe) get them done by then so my mom can take them with her...and them remove them from my life...

 

More crochet! I'm surprised of how good I've done with the crocheting on this Lalylala doll. Thanks to Pickle, I've managed to understand and finish the head, the hood and both arms! I've also started a leg, so I got the first boot done! LOVE IT! I really hope I can manage to finish this thing, cause it's so darn cute!!!

But enough of crocheting! Back to knitting! Pickle's friend kinda commissioned me a headband, and I decided to start if when the cowl for Pickle was finished. So here I was, ready to start it off when BOOM! Pattern is finnish... DARN IT! You can find it here BTW... So yeah... Couldn't understand CRAP of the pattern, but lucky for me, there were charts for the cables and stuff! So I'm half winding it, half following the charts and I'm trying my best to make this work! I CAN DO THIS!!!

And one last thing. I'm in the middle of a yarn trade with Brooke, and she sent the package without telling me, so it arrived yesterday and mine are still lying here...waiting... But the yarn trade turned into a sock for cookies trade...so right now I'm just waiting to clear out some projects so I can get started on some Lizzy socks for my 'Murican friend and her daughter so I can get Girl Scout Cookies in return! BEST TRADE EVVAH! ANYWAY (I swear...I'm overtired...) her package arrived today, and she sent me two beautiful skeins from Knit Picks. See, we don't have Knit Picks over here, and they don't send to Norway... I see EVERYBODY gushing over Knit Picks...when they're not gushing over the cheap ass crap yarn from Wall Mart that is...and I've been wanting to see what kind of quality they can bring in their yarn. The skeins Brooke sent was one skein of Palette, which is100% Peruvian Highland wool. It's thin and pretty and soft and I love it! I haven't tried knitting with it, but I'd love to make an everyday jacket in this yarn. But I'm left with only one skein here, so who knows what I'll make of it. She also sent me a skein of Gloss which is 70% and 30%. It is crazy soft and crazy pretty! I want a sea of this yarn and make all kinds of things with it. But again, only one skein...sadly... Both of them are "cream" (aka natur for oss nordmenn) and she told me she thought I would enjoy dyeing them, and therefor she sent me these. HECK YES I WILL DYE THESE! That gurl knows me!

She also sent me a bag of buttons, 5-6 of which I will use for my Tanja jacket. When we started the trade, she asked me what I wanted for the yarn I was giving her, and I told her some buttons for this jacket would be nice cause I have none! So she whipped up some buttons in the size I needed and added a bunch of extra buttons. Thank you Brooke! You're awesome! You will not be dissapointed with what I'm sending you back! Promise!

Packages from good friends!

I can't believe that I forgot to blog about this yesterday! I recieved a package from my dear friend Tiffany and I ment to post pictures of everything on my blog, but it totally slipped my mind!

First off, she sent me the package cause of our share-a-square event in our chat group. Two gorgeous squares and the first two to arrive at my door step.

A quick little explarnation about this event. We started in...when was it? April/may last year where we all would make atleast two squares for each of the other participants of the event. We started off pretty rocky, with three people quitting the party and others being too busy, so we decided to extend each turn a bit. The last turn ended on the 31st of december with me, Tiff and Car being the last people up to recieve squares.
We are supposed to each make a blanket out of the squares we've recieved and we should have 24 squares at the end, making a huge blanket! Each square measures 30,5cm x 30,5cm (12" x 12").

One of them are sadly a little loopsided. so I will have to redo the boarer a little so it will have the same shape as the rest of the squares, but I love them both so much! Thank you again, Tiff!

Tiff and I also decided to do a candy exchange since she lives in America and I live in Norway. She sent me the following snacks.

What she sent me is two boxes of thypical American flavoured Pringles. I was pretty psyked about this since we only have three flavours of Pringles over here (paprika, salt and sourcream&onion). The first time I tasted Ranch, I liked it cause it reminded me of the sourcream&onion one... But the more I ate, the more I could taste the vinegar and for me, they got worse and worse from there. The pizza one was the totally opposite! Starting off pretty odd and not so good, to then taste like the Chicken Pomm's from Maarud that we have over here, but with a more pizza sauce kick to it. I like it!
Then there's a bar of Hershey's...the...worst...chocolate...I've...ever...tasted! It was an experience, that's for sure. Need to send her back some of the real chocolate we got over here. She also sent Caramel Creams, which tastes exactly...though a little less dry...as the Cow Tails that Pickle sent me and a box of Wether's Original hard caramel candies which tastes and looks exactly like some kind of caramels we had over here when I was a kid.

If all of this weren't enough, she also sent me a few items.

At Tiff's part time job, she got a bunch of these note books one day that they were going to toss out. The pages are lines and organized in a way that it would be perfect to use for my knitting projects, just like the little purple notebook I'm using allready. She also sent me a apple flavoured chapstick, which was well needed and dang sweet and a ball of Caron Super Soft, an acryllic yarn brand. We had an discussion about acryllic yarn some time ago (note to self: need to start working on the syntethich vs natural yarn blogpost soon), and she said that when most people prefered Caron Super Soft, she liked Red Heart better cause it didn't split as much as Caron does. So she sent me a ball of some she had lying around to try out for myself... Now, I'm not that big with acryllic yarn, so I don't know when I'll get to use this, but I will try it out sometime.

Thank you again, Tiffy! This is all so wonderfull!

But that's not the only package I recieved from a friend yesterday. My old school mate and IRL friend, "Bale" sent me a belated birthday present. A beautiful, green fountain pen with one blue ink cartridge and six black ones and green note/sketchbook. It was sent directly to me from the people she ordered it from so I also got a "free sample", a simple "normal" pen as well.
All the awesomeness! Thank you so much, Bale!

But it doesn't stop there! Today I recieved my share-a-square square from Susan! Another member of our little chat group, and another American friend of mine. She's a sweet heart and decided to make each of us in the last round (since we were the people organizing this event) four squares each! But instead of making me four individual squares, she made me a huge one instead! A long time ago, I mentioned for her how awesome this techique was but I could never make it myself since it's a more advanced type of granny square...aka crochet... So she took that and made me a gigantic square with it!

I haven't measured it yet, but it should measure about 61cm x 61cm (24"x24").

So thank you everybody for these wonderfull gifts! Tiff, I will be sending yours out with the squares as soon as I've gotten my candy shopping on.