This is going to be a long one...
After testknitting for Kimberley I was so happy with my shawl that I endeavoured to get another testknitting done, this time for ravelrys HellsBells. The pattern is called elemental Things and looks just beautiful on her. So I got some fitting yarn from my stash and started right away... first I tried Sekku from Noro in a really beautiful colourway, but jeez.. that yarn is brittle it broke two times in the first three rows... So I decided to use a different yarn. I took out some dark red Lacelux from Lana Grossa, also a beautiful shade of colour but not as colourful as the Sekku. The knitting turned out to be far less demanding then the other had been, due to long stretches of garterstitch and fishnetting. I must admit that I got a little bored with it.. In the end I liked the lace edging though, but I most definitely hated the ruffled fringe, had I not been testknitting I would have omitted that.

This time I didn't even meet the dealine, for which I am very sorry...
Sometime in April I think it was when in one of the forums I frequent a knitalong was started for a Wingspan and here you see the first of my Wingspans, I fell so in love with this pattern that I am already knitting my second, they are done in plain garterstitch, which allows me to read while I knit them.. ;)

Being a frequent ravelry user I found Kimberly Gintar (The Giving Flower) sometime in April... and since she was still looking for testknitters, I volunteered.
So on May, the 9th I got a much anticipated email with the pattern attached. I had already chosen a yarn from my stash - merino with rayon - in a nice bronze hue. I got started right away.
It is a Faroer shawl - my first one - and I really loved knitting it, the pattern has just the right amount of interesting features to keep me fascinated without being  difficult.
The pattern called for 1200 m of yarn, I only used 700 m, which seemed odd to me, but is probably due to the fact that I used a sightly thicker knitting-needle? I tend to knit very tight, thus I always have to use a knitting-needle one size larger than is called for.
The Pattern will be released on June, the 1st.

Prayer Shawl for Simone

I know, that I suck at blogging, but I will try to get better with time...
I am a member in this Forum and we had a Mystery KAL all through December. As anybody who knows me would expect, I was first intrigued but didn't like the idea of a time-table (doesn't go well with my inner chaos... ;) ). So I did think about it for a while and than made a late start on the second Sunday in Advent, thus abandoning all hope of finishing my hubbies socks in time for christmas.
I love starting new projects, so I was real energetic at first and knit like 4 inches in the first two days, but then I found that I had made a grave mistake in the first inch, that I knit, so I ripped it all out and didn't like the project anymore. But then on Christmas Day I thought of a real dear friend of mine, who had to spend Christmas in hospital because she is very weak, suffering from ovarian cancer and chemotherapy. And I remembered that I had read somewhere about prayer-shawls. So I decided to do a prayer-shawl for her and restarted the abandoned KAL project on the exact date it should have been finished... The wool is a very soft, gorgeous hand-dyed Filigran lace yarn by Atelier Zitron, dyed by Helgard. I loved the way the colours changed and I really liked the pattern, but I must admit, that I am completely head over heels in love with the result of blocking lace, it does even more wonders to a piece of lace than everybody says. A real ugly duckling transformation on something that didn't really look ugly to begin with:

What can I say? The loveliest knot I ever tied from a string of wool... ;)
This will definitely not be my last lace-knitting project.

Yesterday my yarn-order from ebay arrived. I love shopping for yarn and I tend to buy too much...
This is the ebay-shop where I bought the yarn. I'm so in love with my new yarn, especially with this:

It is a blend of three strands of Lambswool and one strand of an 80/20 wool-polyamide mix. It is very soft and I simply love the colour. So I went ahead and cast on for a Juno-type cardigan. Since I never really follow a pattern, I usually only pick up ideas from knitted clothes that I see.... like the Juno-Cardi on the Yarn-Harlots Blog and remodel it into whatever crosses my mind.

A new blog

Hi,
until I accidentally stumbled upon a book written by the Yarn Harlot, I always thought I was the only crazy knitter and that there was something seriously wrong with me. I seemed to collect wool wherever I went and felt seriously depressed when I had no knitting project with me. This book really fascinated me, because it was fun to read and made feel very close to the writer who actually seemed to have a similar approach on life. It made me curious about the Yarn Harlot's blog that was mentioned on the books cover. I then found myself reading the complete archives of her blog and enjoying myself tremendously while doing so. I love her unique concept of life just as much as her wonderful humorous pictographic language. Reading the blog made me think, that there probably were quite a few others like me out there, even others who might have the same qualms about their state of mind that I have.
Knitting and reading the blog I felt that in order to get in touch with others like myself I should start a blog, too.

My whole life away from work is dominated by knitting (I like to think it is to better keep in touch with my inner equilibrium) and though I am by far not as fast nor as good a knitter as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is, I pride myself to be quite an experienced knitter.
I was taught to knit at the tender age of 6, but I somehow didn't like it then. 5 years later I needed something to occupy my mind while I was hospitalised for about three weeks. So I asked for knitting needles and yarn. My Mom brought both, but I seemed unable to even cast on. So I asked my Mom to bring me a scarf that was knit by my Grandma and started reverse engineering. And it worked, with a lot of trial and error accompanied by frequent swearing I taught myself to knit. My first knitting projects were rather crude and not very shapely but luckily my knitting skills have improved some in the last 37 years.
When I am not knitting I am a general practitioner. I have been married for the past thirteen years and I have two daughters, one aged eleven and the other eight years old.