Daisy Days as promised!

To start with, as promised, the pictures of Daisy Days. She is a lovely shawl, pattern is Daisy Waves by Kieran Foley.
Here she is, about 200 x 55 cm. Handdyed yarn by Loret Karman. A beauty!!

Can you believe it? A brave geranium is flowering in december!

Apart from knitting I realized I didn't show my latest handspun yarn. It is from a falkland batt, named Aladdin.

Doodle-oo-do

With a shock I realized my latest blogpost was November 22nd. December always is a busy month, but yes, I have been knitting! And I have a finish. In fact, I have two finishes!
The first I want to show you is The Doodler, a shawl by Stephen West. Mine is given the name Doodle-oo-do.
It really was a fun knit. The sideway cable was a new technique, at least, for me it was. But so much fun to do!

And after finishing this beauty I decided there had to come another one. The same pattern, but different colors.

At the beginning of this blogpost I told you I had two finishes. and I do. Started my Daisy Days in May 2015. Been distracted into lots of other knits I suddenly felt it had to be finished by Christmas. So after finishing Doole-oo-do I took my Daisy Days out of the corner of my room and knitted. And knitted. And knitted. Until yesterday afternoon, when I finally wove in the threads and blocked it.

Pictures will be in the next blogpost!

Out of my comfort zone

My latest finish is totally out of my comfort zone. I don't like to knit animals, or objects like food or vegetables. Fun to look at, but not my cup of tea.
But some time ago a friend asked for a knitted moon, and as it was her birthday, I couldn't refuse.
So I knitted and cursed the knitting LOL.
But I kept on knitting. And when I reached the hat, I finally got some fun too.
My friend is happy with it and it turned out to be a gift for her daughter, who is pregnant. When I heard that, I was happy I finished the job.

There is another start, The Doddler, a mystery Kal by Stephen West. All knitters have heard about it, I suppose. And I decided to jump in. Usually I am not that fond on mysteries. You don't know what your precious wool is going to be. Clue one was okay, but clue two is a complete surprise. Cabling sidewards and I love it!

Clue #1

Clue #2

Clue #3 asks for another colour, so I join some blue. Its going to look like this. Great fun!

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Knitting weeks!

Again I have been absent, but with a good reason. Last weekends I have been  knitting at the Fries Museum and at the Breidagen.
The Fries Museum has an exposition about Knitting. And they asked for knitters to come and knit and, if possible, learn (young) visitors how to knit. Great fun!

A week later I went to Zwolle, to visit the Brei-en Haakdag. Two days with friends, wool, knitting and crochet. I was asked to coordinate a children's corner, where children could learn how to knit or crochet. Quite some young girls came to learn. Great fun too! (I am the woman wearing the salmon coloured shirt)

Even a man wanted to learn how to knit. Do you recognize my Sari Marais?

In between I finished my Dig Deep. A shawl, designed by Stephen West.

And a  quick knit, two Bunchoten mitaines. Written from an old pattern, I did this testknit for Evelien Verkerk.

Indian Summer

We really enjoy an Indian summer in The Netherlands. At night temperature is almost at freezing point, but in the afternoon we can enjoy the warmth of the sun.

That made me want to finish the yellow shawl, Tejun 手順, as a reminder of sunny days when I wear it next winter. In fact I have two finishes. Exploration Station is also finished, but still needs to be blocked. Pictures of it next time, I promise!

I want to tell something about how I chose the name of this shawl. It was knitted from a Dutch Palette, Red Kimono, by Loret Karman. So I was looking for a name that refers to a kimono or to Japan. The name of the original design is Steps.  
To combine those two things, Japan and Steps, I came to the Japanese word tejun 手順 consists of two Kanji, te 手 meaning “play” and jun 順 meaning “order”. In common parlance it is used for the steps of a procedure, and in both general usage and go usage is usually used for a well defined sequence of steps.

Here are some pictures of Tejun 手順.

Yellow cloud

My latest shawl is finished! It looks like a yellow cloud. Soft, fluffy, just gorgeous! Name: No Woman No Cry. It weighs 114 grams, is knitted from 1771 yards of ColourMart extra fine merino and it's a full circle, with a diameter of 160 centimeters.

And as you know I keep knitting, so a new design is on the needles already. This time a design by Stephen West, Exploration Station. Buying the yarn was great fun. I went to Deventer last weekend to visit a quilt show and I knew there was a lovely wool shop in Deventer. 

So my first steps were ahead this wool shop. And the owner wore a lovely shawl, so a few minutes later I found myself back at the counter, picking some lovely yarns to knit this shawl. 

This afternoon I had a good start.

After buying the yarn I went to the quilt show and it was great. Several Dear Jane Quilts were exposed in the synagogue.

There also was a show and tell of antique quilts. The owner, a very nice person whom I happen to know for a few years now, collects and repaires those quilts and tells about it in a lovely way.