I decided to be a good girl and clean the stove… I placed the hot pan aside to cool down and I grabbed a paper towel to whipe the (by now super hot) stove… ouch.. Three days later it looks like this.

So now I’m going to talk about what you should do when you burn yourself. There’s a lot of old and new wisdom and there’s a lot of stuff you should seriously not do (like butter or toothpaste…). Hold your hand under cold water for as long as you can. Let someone grate an onion or two for you and add a teaspoon (or two) of salt and mix well. Stick your burned hand in the onion/salt mixture and keep it there for as long as possible. Clean your hand (water) and use moisturizer (I use after-sun). If it still hurts you can hold a can of cold soda (or beer).

I’m not a doctor. If you’ve really burned yourself badly GO SEE A DOCTOR! This is not the first time I used this method and it will not be the last time. The first time I used this was when I was cooking (again) on a regular gas stove. I had cooked something for a very long time and then I decided to clean up. For some reason this type of stuff only happens to me when I’m at my mom’s house, and I’m trying to make sure I don’t make a huge mess. So once I was done cooking I replaced the pan and I don’t know why but I actually grabbed the gas burner to clean it. Obviously the damned thing was extremely hot and I heard my skin make the sound fresh chips make… There was a white line on my thumb and even holding my hand under the ice cold running water wasn’t doing much. I was expecting serious blisters and a scar for sure (I’d been scarred for longer times by much lesser burns before). But I never got a scar. Within the week the skin was healed and there’s still nothing left to show.

This burn is almost exactly the same. I can actually see the skin healing itself (and it feels great). The only thing I can’t do is knit. But I can crochet when I let the end stick out between my fourth and firth fingers.

So now I have 130 granny squares and every where I look I keep finding more and more yarn to use on this project. As you may remember I got a loom and a lot of stash from an old weaver lady. The stash was huge and I didn’t have much time to sort it out, but it mainly existed of two pars. The first part was a lot of yarns that could be used for medium – large projects. The second part was a lot of swatches and a lot of smaller sets of different colors tied together. I knew I couldn’t really use them for anything bud decided to keep them anyway.

Now I’m using them to make granny squares. I’m still not sure what this project will look like in the end, and I’m also not sure if it will even become one or two different projects. What I do know is that crochet is making me very happy and I like it a lot. So I decided to make something like this:

It only took me a few rows to realize that this yarn wasn’t going to work with crochet (or this project). I loved working with the yarn but it wasn’t behaving the way I was hoping it would. The silk in this yarn will make it very drapey, so I thought it’d be a good yarn to use for a crochet cape. But while working on it i felt like the crochet was taking away from the yarns character, so I decided to frog it instead. I’m still in love with the cape and I’m still going to crochet it, but with a different yarn me thinks

I’ve also been doing a lot of cleaning. As you may know we moved last year, but because of all the stress and work I haven’t been able to clear all the boxes (and there’s a lot of them). So I’m working on all those things right now. There’s two rooms I need to re-organize and a whole lot of crap I need to throw away.

I’ve been away, but I haven’t stopped knitting ofcourse. I’ve got three FO’s to show you and some other things

It’s finally done! It was ready for queensday so I spent the evening before and the actual day itself wearing this. The weather was fantastic so we all had a great time.

I chose to knit this cardigan with a little ease so I could wear it comfortably. I really don’t like loose fitting clothes, but I consider this cardigan to be my yo-yo cardigan *wink*.

The zipper was a pain because of the garter stitch (and the super fine malabrigo merino). Last time I sewed a zipper I messed it up horribly, so I didn’t dare sew it again myself. Thankfully Super Mom came to my rescue and helped me out

This is a little FO too, but it doesn’t really count. I found a bread machine for 2 euro’s and it’s working juuust fine. This here is a poppy seed bread (that turned out quite yummy)

The second (actual) FO:

I named them magic potion socks because of the color, but also because I thought they’de be mine. I knit this pair with smaller needles because I thought that’d help, but even in an unwashed state they fit my dad’s feet better than mine. So I decided to knit another pair but to use a ‘standard’ toe instead of following the pattern. I love the pattern and it’s really pretty but somehow I can’t follow the pattern and think for myself so it’s really (!) not the pattern, it’s me. But I noticed that this was an actual possibility. The next pair *will* be mine.

The final FO is here and I love it. The pattern is capucine and it’s my new favorite hat pattern. I love everything about this pattern and I know I’ll knit another one for this winter. This one is knit with a double held drops delight and classic alpaca to make it a little bulkier. I haven’t attached the tassles yet because I wasn’t sure if I wanted them or not. I’m still not sure..

I’ve also been working on some other stuff

So this here is a destashing gone wild. I was looking for a project to use all the leftover drops delight (and other yarns) for and I found a pattern called firenza. I started making granny squares and before I knew I was out of drops delight… This picture was taken a few days ago and by now I have a lot more squares. I’ve collected a number of yarns I’m going to use for this project and I’ve put them in a little plastic bag. Each time I grab one and start crocheting granny squares until I run out of yarn. It’s soothing and addictive at the same time, but if you combine it with book 4 of ‘A song of Ice and Fire’ you’ve got more than just a stew goin’… (reference: search for Carl Weathers).

It’s so bad I’m even trying to finish these mitts so I can claim the leftover handspun… (if any)

There’s fleece.. lots of it

It’s actually four vacuum bags of fleece, two of them washed and two unwashed. They all weigh something between 700-800 grams and I haven’t even touched them all! Unfortunately I don’t know exactly what kind of fleece I’m talking about. I know that two of them are either merino or merino cross but the others are unknown. Either way, I’ve got some prepping to do for this year’s TdF!

The fun didn’t end there tho. My mom also bought me a kilo of millspun 100% wool. It’s a heavy fingering weight 3 ply in natural/ undyed. I don’t know what I’ll do with it yet, but it’s going to be either a knitted vest or maybe I’ll use it for weaving

She also brought me a few km of merc. cotton! *drool* I’m really unsure as to what I’m going to make of this but know I’m going to love it. It’s shiny and soft!

But wait! there’s more! This here is some really fancy (acrylic) yarn. It’s nice and soft, and I find them both really cute! My mom and me shared it but neither of us have plans for the yarns yet. We’ll have to do some swatching to see what it wants to become

In the mean time I’ve been working on something different. My graduation date is set and within the next month I’ll be a student no more. I’m really excited and happy but there’s still a number of loose ends I’m working on right now. This one is no stress knitting but happy knitting, but it’s one of those loose ends. I worked on my graduation project for 2 years because of the topic and because I worked solo. It was a huge topic and at times it was depressing as hell, but it’s finished and I couldn’t have done it without the help and support of my first mentor. I didn’t think a bottle of rose would be enough a thank you so I decided to knit her a truffle cardigan. I had worn it during my final go/no-go presentation and she had expressed her love for it.

I decided that there was no better way of thanking her than by giving her something handmade with love

This is what the washed, and dryer shrunk Oranje looks like now. The malabrigo bled and the white turned a bit pinkish, but it’s still white enough compared to the other colors so I don’t really mind that much

I was so proud! I’ve knitted a project like this one before so I already knew what to expect. I bound of the stitches for the body and the sleeve and I’m planning to undo the bo and graft the stitches together this time. I believe this is a prettier finish and I’m hoping it won’t leave any holes (like the previous project did).

I love the hem and sleeve detail. It makes the project look really clean and neat.

Another attempt to blog ended in hilarity. Every time I lay a knit on the ground it is inspected, and often approved of, by a kitty. They usually end up either sitting or sleeping on it somewhere between me putting it on the floor and searching for the camera.

It took a while but I’m super proud! I just couldn’t lay it down and be at peace. I simply had to knit and finish this project. Obviously it’s not finished just yet, but it’s my first time knitting fair isle with three different yarns simultaneously, and I actually didn’t completely fudge it up!

This cardigan is knitted with malabrigo lace in terracotta and in botticelli red. I also used a white ball of zettl sock yarn. I made a swatch and determined that my gauge was smaller than the pattern called for. I measured myself and cast on a number that consisted with a larger size in the pattern. I chose to do this because I didn’t want to end up with a huge difference once I got to the yoke. I also wanted the cardigan to be longer and a bit less tight than my other cardigans. Because of the thin fabric it wouldn’t be all that pleasant if the knit turned out too small.

In the end it all turned out much better than expected. The pictures I posted here show what the cardigan looked like before washing. The washing part wasn’t all too bad. Malabrigo yarn turns out to bleed like a b*tch so the white turned out a slight shade of not-so-white-but-not-near-pink-either and I noticed how much I didn’t really mind

The coloring wasn’t the only problem tho. The cardigan grew to nearly twice its size! I couldn’t bear to take any pictures so I can’t show the horror.. After some frantic searching on rav I found a number of projects that really helped me out! A few of them were related to the project and another few related to the yarn. Turns out malabrigo sock yarn grows a LOT. They all came with the same solution: put it in the dryer.

I sat in front of my combi-dryer and spent a nervous 20 minutes in front of it. I did open and restart the program a number of times to make sure it wasn’t going to be too small. I think I can still put it in one more time because it’s still a little loose but I’ll wait until it’s all done. I like the way it looks now, matching the pictures I posted here.

My parents borrowed my camera so I have some mobile phone pictures for you today, and the first thing I’d like to show you is my brothers’s goldfish and my Noodles hanging out.

Aren’t they cute? So Noodles is helping me ‘watch’ the fish.. I’m not sure if you can see it in the picture but I taped the lid shut just to be safe.

I’ve spent a few evenings spinning on my russian and I noticed that my hands were starting to hurt. What you see here is 47 grams of singles on a 34 gram spindle… I decided to ply the yarn and try again on a naked spindle.

One of the first things I noticed is how thin the yarn seemed compared the the other skein. I thought I had spun the yarn quite thin on the wheel but I hadn’t expected this. Overall the yarn is fairly consistent, if a little thinner.

I still haven’t washed the skein so it might just relax a little and puff up (like I think the other skein did). If it doesn’t I’ll have to knit another swatch and see what will happen I guess.

I feel like I’m on a roll because I felt like knitting another cardigan as soon as I had my Truffle Cardigan off the needles. I’ve had Oranje in my queue list for a while and I had already planned to use my 3 skeins of malabrigo terracotta and my 1.5 skein of malabrigo botticelli red. I’m using zettl sockyarn in natural as the other contrast color. The picture, as is to be expected, doesn’t do the color justice. Terracotta is one explosive color!

When I’m done with this I’m hoping to wear it on Koninginnedag (Queens day on April 30) and during the colder days of the European Championships this summer. I might even wear it during this years TdF