A sleeve for Mom

Look!




I love the pattern, but working with cotton (in this case, Dalegarn Svale) is irksome.

Need to do some grafting

Monkeys are excellent!

Finished object

Just to show you that I have been knitting during September, even though I haven't been posting about it. It's foliage from the latest knitty. I loved this pattern. Here's another view:



This is the less bulky version of this pattern, made with one skein and just a little bit of a second of Létt-lopi. I enjoyed this pattern so much that I think I want to try to knit the bulkier version too. We'll see.

I recently got a very helpful email from an unnamed fellow blogger who encouraged me to get over my obsession with knitting the same damn cardigan (in this case, my beloved Callie. I've known forever that my cardigan obsession borders on the ridiculous, but somehow, I've always managed to convince myself that I really do need to knit one more. My boyfriend has occasionally asked: "Do you really need another cardigan?" but I've never really listened to him. He's not a knitter, and so, in my warped mind, he simply doesn't understand the urge to knit cardigan after cardigan after cardigan.
But having a fellow knitter sweetly point out to me that perhaps it's time for me to move on really got to me. Probably because I know that she understands the urge one has to knit a certain project. But it's also important coming from her because she knows that there's a whole world of wonderful patterns that I'm missing out on if I just keep knitting the same one over and over again.
So. I'm going to try to cut down on the cardigans. Even though I find this one rather enticing. But I'm really going to try, very hard, to do other stuff. I'm thinking mittens.
Oh, I probably should tell you, though, that I do have a cardigan on the needles at present. Well, make that two. But they are neither of them Callie. And one isn't even for me. But more on that later.
I don't think I've ever said this, and maybe it doesn't really need saying, but thank you for your comments. I really suck at getting back to you guys, but I appreciate every single one. So thanks, and keep'em coming!

Springsteen was right:

I get up in the evening
and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired
Man, I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

I so know how this guy feels. I'm just tired all the time. Working really takes it out of you. I had no idea.
But I knit to forget. Recently I finished this:



It's clapotis. It took me a while to get around to knitting this pattern, but it's been on my to-do list for a while.
I've decided to express my feelings about the knitting of this piece in a poem, both because I was feeling particularly lyrical today, and also to pay homage to the third annual Nýhil international poetry festival which starts this friday and I'm sure will be very fun. Fun fun. Good fun. If anyone should find themselves in the Reykjavík area this weekend, I recommend it.
Anyhoo, here goes:

Red Wrap

Stitches march
down
leaving in their wake a ladder
unused
cat burglar
opportunity
I will never return to
this voluptuous pattern

Working girl

Ah, jeeez, no sooner had I recovered from the flu than another occurrance put a huge dent in my plans to be the most prolific knitter, ever.
I was offered a job. A real job, with good pay, nice colleagues my own desk and direct line and everything. A grown-up job. Not only that, this job combines two of my biggest interests (apart from the whole yarn thing, obviously): culture and the media. People, I tell you, I am now a fully employed cultural journalist. Writing articles about literature, ballet, theatre and opera is now what I do all day, from 9 to 5.
I´ve only been working for little over a week, but it so far it seems like the perfect job for me. It's just thoroughly interesting beginning to end. But I think it says something about my priorities that when I was offered the job the first thought that popped into my head was "Darn! Now I won't have as much time to knit!" Then the second thing I thought was "But this means I'll have more money, which means I'll finally be able to try out some yarns other than only the cheapest ones!" So clearly, this situation has its pros and cons.
However, I have managed to finish a knit recently, believe it or not. I proclaim the following:
Callie by Cosmicpluto is the fastest knit and the nicest fit I've knit in a long time. Look!



(I realize I´m reverting to my old and wicked photobooth ways, but to get a picture of the sweater on my camera I'd first have to stand up and get the camera. Then I'd have to get someone to photograph me or try to do it myself with the timer and fail miserably. Then I'd have to find the cable to attatch the camera to the computer and...you know, photobooth may be inferior when it comes to picture quality but it's a godsend for people like me who don't like it when they have to get up).
Well, as you see I've made a few modifications. For one thing, I tried the three-quarter length sleeve and didn't like it, so I just went for a full length sleeve which I like. I also tried out the picot trim, but I felt it made the bottom of the cardigan kind of bulky, so I just went with seed stitch. Lastly, I totally hate picking up large numbers of stitches, like buttonbands, so in patterns that require this of me I usually just crochet a buttonband instead. I did that here. It kind of looks like seedstitch anyways, so it doesn't bother me.
All in all, I heartily recommend this pattern. It 's simple but still has a few interesting features, so it never gets boring. It's a quick knit and, best of all, it's a really flattering sweater.
I liked it so much that as soon as I'd bound off the final stitches I used the same needles to cast on for this:



It's another Callie. I need help.

Arise from the muck

Yuk. Not a very pleasant headline, but kind of accurate, as arising from muck is pretty much what I've been doing for the past couple of days. Just as I had handed in my thesis and was excited about all the knitting and relaxing I was about to embark on, I was struck down with a very nasty flu bug. So for the past week or so I've just lain around like a slug, watching DVDs, blowing my nose and feeling like a small fire was burning inside my head. I was too sick to knit, if anyone can fathom that level of sickness. The mere idea of knitting repulsed me, so weakened and delusional was my state.
Yesterday, however, I knew that the flu was receding because the urge to knit had returned. I knit a few rows on the sleeve of the treeline striped cardigan as I watched The Bourne Identity (refreshing my memory of Bourne's previous adventures before I go see The Bourne Ultimatum). Then last night I finished the cardigan's sleeve and began to work on the body. This morning I woke up and, although my nose was still runny, I had an unrelenting urge to keep knitting. Clearly I'm recovering at a steady rate.
Anyhoo, aside from the striped cardigan, I really want to begin working on the Callie cardigan. Although I didn't have that much luck with the other cardigan pattern I've tried from Cosmicpluto, I accept that it was completely my own stupid fault. The Callie pattern is top-down, and so it should be easier for me to see early on if something catastrophic is going on with the sizing or fit. Mostly I want to knit Callie because I love V-neck cardigans. I think they make the wearer look smart. I imagine myself sauntering about Downtown Reykjavik in my Callie, and everyone I meet will assume I have read the entire works of Proust because of my cardigan's fetching V-neck. So, in fact, I imagine that knitting this cardigan will save me the trouble of reading all kinds of books. Hooray for that!

Sweet Freedom!

Well, well, well. It's been a while.
I apologize for the monstorously long absence, but I've been writing my thesis for the past month and a half. I mailed it off yesterday and experienced a rush of freedom like you wouldn't believe. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining and to celebrate the end of my toils I spent all of yesterday hanging around downtown Reykjavík, going to bookstores and cafes with my knitting, my brother and my boyfriend. All without my camera, of course (I took it to a repair shop, and it works! I can finally post decent pictures! If I can be bothered to take them, that is.)
It is amazing how time-consuming something like thesis-writing can be. For me at least. I couldn't bring myself to blog because I spent 10 hours a day at the computer working on my paper. Spending additional time writing something that isn't mandatory somehow lost its appeal. But I did manage to get some knitting done, although I mainly worked on small projects. Such as these:



These are Thuja socks, knit in Sandnesgarn Smart for my brother's birthday. He liked them alot.
Then there are these:



These are the Dashing armwarmers, knit in Trysil Garn Arctic for my boyfriend's grandfather. I haven't given them to him yet, so I can't tell you if he likes them or not. But I sure hope he does.
I did some more knitting that I haven't photographed yet, but I'll get around to it soon. As is to be expected, a lot of knitting features in my immediate future since I now have until the end of August to just hang around and relax. Two whole weeks of just knitting, reading whatever I want to, watching movies, spending time with friends and family. I think I may be in heaven! The bad news is that all the project I want to work on in the immediate future are cardigans. And I think I want to try my hand at that Clapotis that everyone was knitting back in the days. I didn't catch the fever then, but am becoming more and more interested in the pattern. And it will be really cold here in Iceland in just a month or so. So clearly I need more cardigans and shawls...