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...

July

I only have one thing to say:
Bulky yarn is annoying and hard on the hands.
End message.

No knitting, but cookies.

Absolutely no knitting content today, I'm too busy doing other stuff, like writing to bother much with knitting. But no matter how much I write I still have to eat, right? So today I bring you: My snacks: A photojournal.
My grandparents brought me this yesterday:



They ran into it in some store, and since they know how much I love Moomintrolls they bought it for me. This is an appropriate snack for me since I am about to start a Ph.D. in literature, and these cookies are based on some of my favorite book characters. Let me introduce you to the family:



Meet Moominpapa. He is a philosopher and the author of his most excellent autobiography "The Exploits of Moominpapa." I highly recommend it.



This lady is the love of Moominpapa's life. His account, in his autobiography, of how they first met is very dramatic. She is, serendipitously enough, called Moominmama. Do you see her handbag? Well, let me inform you that she is a serious knitter, and she carries her knitting with her wherever she goes in that handbag. I would love to be able to peek into it.



This fellow is their son, Moomintroll. He is a good soul, but sometimes he gets into trouble by accident.



This girl is the Snorkmaiden, and she is Moomintroll's girlfriend. Well, I don't really know how serious they are about each other. We'll see, they're young still. Her hobbies mostly revolve around her looks; she enjoys combing her hair and being admired for her taste in jewlery.



I don't know what this guy is called in English, but here in Iceland we call him Snúður. He is Moomintroll's best friend, but he has a wandering spirit and cannot stay in the same place for very long. This troubles Moomintroll, because it means that his best friend is seldom with him. I have a friend who's like that; it's kind of difficult.



Finally, my favorite (characterwise that is; they all tasted the same). This is Mía Litla (in Icelandic). She is a close friend of the Moominfamily, so close, in fact, that she lives with them. She's not really a burden because she's so small. She likes to take naps in the yarn in Moominmama's handbag. She has a mean streak, and can be kind of snippy, but she has a great sense of humor. Because she's so small, she often gets misplaced and the Moominfamily has to spend alot of time looking for her, but they don't mind.

Not only are these characters entertaining, they make a great vanilla-flavored snack.

Infernal Internet!

I came here to the National Book Barn (Iceland's national library, I have no idea why it's called a barn) to escape from all the distractions at home that are keeping me from working on my thesis, not least among them knitting projects and the wonder that is the internet. But of course they have wireless intenet access here at the barn, so there is no escape. Blasted technology! A pox on modernity.

Procrastinating...

It's noon here on the calm little island we call Iceland. I've been up since early this morning, busily picking at my computer's keyboard and mousepad. The closest I've come to doing any actual work on my thesis, though, is opening the Word program. Then I instantly went back to Ravelry!
Oh, Ravelry, what a delightfully useful tool for procrastinators who want to look and sound as if they're working, but are really just salivating over pictures of knitted goods produced by othersI It's addictive and inspiring and fun, and I'm really going to have to summon all my willpower and stay away from it if I want to finish my thesis by August 15, as planned. If I'm good I'm going to allow myself all of August 16 to knit and lounge around the internet. Oh, but the pull of Ravelry is strong when faced with the prospect of writing about television history all day.
Despite all this working and pretending to work, I've managed to get some knitting and finishing done. Does anyone remember a gray Létt Lopi cardigan I began back in March? Well, I finished the actual knitting and end-weaving back then, but then I had to go to Denmark for a month, and I sensibly left the cardigan in Iceland. Upon my return to my native land, all I had left to do was blocking and sewing on some buttons. I've done that now, and so I give you:



The great thing about Iceland is that it's totally cold enough to wear this in June. All knitters should live here, wool is useful year round.
I've also finished a shawl called Hálfskák from the book Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl. Here it is:



It's unblocked so it will become much nicer. I'm a little worried about the blocking, because the shawl has a very nice frilly edging at the moment that I don't want to lose. How can I stretch out the shawl without killing the frill? Any ideas?
I apologize for the bad photo lighting, the Icelandic midday sun is blaring into the room. But look at my nifty new haircut. No more tangled, messy, felted clumps of hair for me.