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.