Uppsala goodies

Since I've been making a concerted effort at stash reduction over the last year (and will now have to redouble those efforts as the baby is getting the room my stash currently resides in), I resolved only to buy yarn in Sweden if I couldn't get it at home. This cut down the options quite a bit as even Drops is available in the UK.

I did pick up some sock yarn (probably for the resident radiologist, but I do rather like it myself).

The brand is Marks and Kattens Fame and the blend is a standard sock yarn - 75% wool, 25% nylon.

I also picked up a card of darning yarn for a good jumper of the RR.

I've never seen darning yarn like it in the UK - there was a rainbow of colours and a good selection of weights available.

Finally, my eye was drawn by something I hadn't even thought about in years - embroidery kits. It might have been because my friend, in addition to being a great knitter, makes lovely cross-stitch tablecloths and pictures, so we were looking in that section. I was reeled in by the designs in the Permin of Copenhagen 'Scandinavian' collection and this beautiful kit for a tablecloth ended up coming home with me.

I haven't done cross-stitch for almost 10 years, never mind embroidery so it took me a while to get going, but bit by bit, stem stitch and satin stitch have come back to me and a little progress is being made. I'm not holding my breath for this Christmas though!

Uppsala

About three weeks ago, I took a week off work to use up some of the annual leave that I still have for this year (I never seem to manage to take it all). My 'idealist brain' was planning on just hanging around the house, chilling out and relaxing when my 'realist brain' kicked in and informed me that all I'd really do was fret about how little laundry / DIY I was doing and waste a week. Sadly, my realist brain is generally right so I did a little thinking and realised that 1) I would be safely in my second trimester and 2) it might be my last chance for solo travel for a while, so I booked some plane tickets and flew to Sweden to visit a good friend who moved back there almost a year ago.

She lives in the city of Uppsala, about an hour north of Stockholm and we had a whole day in Uppsala, just walking around, enjoying the sights and sampling the food.
My friend is also an avid knitter, so our wanders happened to take us right past the doors of her favourite two craft shops, however the spoils will have to wait until tomorrow.

We saw the cathedral...


The old University library (Uppsala is first and foremost a university town)...


The castle (very different in style from anything I've seen in the UK)...


and the castle gardens.


The area around the river (some lovely individual little shops etc)...


and a very cool road-sign that has no explanation nearby but apparently is a reference to a famous children's story set in the cathedral area of Uppsala!

A very enjoyable first day to a holiday.

Making the best of the worst

This week promised to be a pretty bad one at work... On Saturday morning, I had to throw two fairly big experiments in the bin as the transfections looked wierd. Then, on Monday morning, when I went to plate out more cells to replace the experiments I'd abandoned, I discovered that the parental cell-line had also died (probably why those transfections looked wierd). While the situation was not un-recoverable (I've got more cells in cold storage, they'll just take a little time to get going), these two problems left me with a big hole in my week where experiments would normally sit, and since we're madly busy at the moment, trying to get results before my boss goes off to Harvard to collaborate with a couple of pretty big names in our field, this is not a good thing.

Now, two days later, I'm appreciating the flip-side... While I'm still going to have to work like a mad thing over the weekend to make up time once the new cells get going, I have some time on my hands now... and a lecture that I've still not written for a honours virology course in three weeks' time. I was planning on checking the reading material (grudgingly) this weekend and then putting the slides together next week, but now I've got time this week to do the reading properly and make the slides, and I'm really enjoying it.

Even better, when I got home yesterday, there was a missed delivery card through the door - so by the time I get to the depot on Saturday morning to collect the extra yarn for the Resident Radiologist's jumper, the lecture will be written and I'll be able to knit in my spare time without the guilt of the unwritten lecture hanging over me.

Cosy socks

Here's a project that's been finished for over a month that I never got round to photographing until now. The Resident Radiologist loves hand-knitted socks and always seems to look forward to a new pair. I finished the kitchener stitch on these once evening and they were on his feet the next morning!

Details: My usual pattern, 68 stitches on 2.5mm needles with a deep slipped-stitch heel flap. These fit the RR so are about a UK size 12. The yarn is Opal sock yarn and the colourway is the Hundertwasser 'Silver Spiral' design that I got in a yarn swap about 18 months ago. I have a second ball of this yarn - not sure what to do with it, maybe a baby jumper?

I'm back - with NaBloPoMo

OK - I realise that I'm already a day late with this, but in an effort to kick-start my blogging again, I've decided to participate in NaBloPoMo - an annual event encouraging bloggers to post every day for the month of November.

I guess that I'll start with the good news... the downturn in knitting mojo of the last few months caused by my feeling pretty 'bleugh' throughout my first trimester (my latest big project is growing a human being!) has passed and knitting has resumed.

I've been knitting a jumper for my husband, the Resident Radiologist, which is on hold temporarily while I wait for more yarn which could be a while due to intermittent postal strikes. While I'm waiting, I've been brushing of my, long-unused, embroidery skills to decorate a tablecloth for Christmas.

Now I've taken the first step to getting the blog back on-track, I just need to get the camera out and get back into the habit of taking regular photos...

Colour saturation

Not a single stitch of knitting has occurred since my last post I'm afraid. I'm halfway down the foot of a second sock and really want to get it finished, but I just can't find the inspiration or will.

When I was having a read though my regular blog roll, I came across this on the Yarn Yard Blog. I had a go, (I scored 4 incidentally in case anyone else has tried it), and it got me thinking. Of all the things that might inspire a person to knit, for me, it's colour. When I walk round Woolfest or my LYS, it's the colours that draw me to a yarn and then to a pattern.

With this in mind, I had a quick trawl through Ravelry and came up with this colourful beauty (non Rav link). Just what I need in terms of colour therapy to look forward to once the sock is done. I quickly ordered the necessary yarn - Peaches and Creme - an american cotton yarn that I've read about many times and was pleased to find available in the UK.

Now all I have to do is get the sock done and anticipate a large parcel of colour arriving in the post...

Dreaming in Colour

Knitting has not been a regular activity for me lately. I don't really know what's happened - I'm usually pretty productive, but I've been knitting the same pair of socks for the resident radiologist for the last month and I've only just turned the heel on the second sock.

I did have a good excuse for one week -



We were enjoying the sights of Paris and Normandy and no knitting accompanied us.

I can't seem to account for the rest of the time though.

Before this hiatus struck, the last thing I finished up was this Shrug by Dream in Colour.


I knitted it using Catalina Alpaca yarn, which is supposed to be aran weight, but is really closer to DK. I adjusted the pattern to allow for this by including an extra repeat of the lace pattern width-wise.


It's been really handy and matches up well with my summer wardrobe.