Frisian Frillies

At the moment, I'm finishing off some translation jobs, doing some admin while watching some women's football, relaxing my fingers - insofar as that is possible while typing - because squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... I'm a Sock Madness Finalist!!! I will be representing Team MM tomorrow in the final Sock Face-Off. At 7am local time, the pattern will drop and 26 knitters will battle it out for eternal glory. I was such a happy bunny when I finished my Round 6 socks, and also Rounds 5 and 4, which I hadn't posted here. So, a quick recap: Round 6 was the Swirlagon socks by Kirsten Hall . A super fun and challenging knit. It consists of pentagons on the heels and varying hexagons for the rest of the sock. Using provisional cast-ons for all the hexes and ending with a tubular bind-off, these don't have any ridges on the inside - but plenty of ends to work away! Even though it took me almost 4 days to knit these, I was first of the team! Me and the Round 5 socks d...

And then, before you know it, you have knit 3 rounds of socks, lol... Time has just taken me along for a walk and before I knew it, it was May. In a nutshell: Round 1: Demogorgon's Lair by Dots Dabbles. Third finisher! I was eager... Round 2: Echoes by Liz Harris. I was the 5th knitter to finish in this round... Round 3: Inky Madness by Susan Gehringer. 6th to finish! These last socks almost did me in. The combination of lace and cables made me prick a hole in my finger, so I'm on a no-knitting diet until the next round... As this round has just ended, round 4 could start any day. Or it could be a few days... You never know with the Sock Madness... I do have some adjustments to make to the round 3 socks, as they are too big and the toes don't really suit me... But that can wait for a bit. I also ordered some more sock yarn, because for some odd reason, I never have the type I want for the socks I'm going to knit. Go figure... In the meantime, while...

While I am watching the Australian Grand Prix on Replay, other knitters are eyeing the Sock Madness Countdown Clock and frantically knitting on their qualifier socks... Today is the final day to either qualify for a team (you then have to finish a pair of socks according to specifications) or as a cheerleader (finish either one sock or two socks past the heel turn). This qualification period lasted 2 weeks, which is a good period to get properly warmed up for the competition. To qualify, you also make a few specific pictures of the socks, and in this case, for the Smock Madness socks by Elizabeth White, it had to be clear how many 'big smocks' we knit on the leg, heel and foot. Hence the white contrasting yarn. In the Dutch 'shadow' group, someone started with posting pictures of socks on the kitchen top . And of course, like the Stroopwafels, it took off across the board, and I also (cleaned my counter tops and) hoisted myself on top to take a picture. I to...

I was SHOCKED when I saw the date of my last post. Really??? Three-and-a-half years??? Not that I haven't done any crafting, as I've knit, crocheted, spun and sewed lots, but when you combine a move to a cool house with a huge garden, a family, a busy business - something falls by the wayside... But it is such a shame not to have a place to put my stuff on show, apart from my Ravelry project pages! The desire to restart the blog was ignited by a short message on Facebook, inviting people to join a #sohapalong. A what? Yup, my reaction exactly! And then I realised that I actually bought a book on Haps when I was on Shetland, had always planned to spin and knit one, but never got around to it. And as I had no projects on the needles (...), I decided to run up the stairs to my stash attic and dive in. Yup, enough brown to use as a base colour, and I decided to go for purples as a contrast... That would work! The brown was probably a Frisian milk sheep, or something else. N...

I have never been a fan of cowls, I never saw the point really. Why knit a cowl, with a set circumference when you can knit a long shawl or scarf, which you can wrap around your neck as loose or tight as you want? Hence, no cowls in my wardrobe. Until recently. See, I got this book on brioche. Long story... Ik ben nooit een fan geweest van cowls. Ik zag niet echt in waar ze nou goed voor waren. Waarom een cowl breien, met een vaste omtrek, als je ook gewoon een sjaal of omslagdoek kunt breien die je zo strak of los om je nek kunt slaan als je wilt? Dus, ik had nog geen cowls in mijn kast liggen. Tot voor kort. Want ik kocht een boek over brioche. Een lang verhaal... Aeons ago, at a Breidag in Nieuwegein, I followed a workshop by this woman called Nancy Marchant - who spoke quite good Dutch, which confused me, because with a name like that, you'd expect her to be French, and not American, and definitely not an American who can speak Dutch - and I was tought the basics of brioch...

The shawl came off the needles a while ago, but I promised I'd blog about it - also because I used some needles I testdrove for my lovely LYS at Wereldwol. She had ordered a bunch of bamboo needles from Chiaogoo and wanted to know whether they knit well. And what better to knit on bamboo circs than a humongous gigantic shawl? I had a skein of Scrumptious Lace and it proved the perfect yarn for the Cypress Triangle, a pattern by Dorte Ronnov which was adapted by Marieke from a square into a triangle. De omslagdoek is al een tijdje van de naalden af, maar ik had beloofd er nog over te bloggen - ook omdat ik er naalden voor heb gebruikt die ik heb getest voor Wereldwol. Marieke had een paar Chiaogoo-rondbreinaalden van bamboe besteld en wilde weten of ze wel breiden. En wat kun je daar dan beter mee breien dan een gigantische supergrote shawl? Ik pakte er een mooie streng Scrumptious Lace bij dat die was voor een Cypress Triangle, een patroon van Dorte Ronnov dat door Marieke is bewe...

The fan-dom of visible mending continues... There's always stuff to mend here, often more than once. Whether it's trousers with knees scraped for the fifth time, socks that need a hole filled, again, or my mittens, which have been getting so much use during my daily bike rides to work that the thumbs had gone, again. A number of my Facebook-friends, and a few other people I follow via the sideline, have been posting their pics of visible and also invisible mending and various 'Make and Mend'-projects that have been organized. Great fun to see what other people are up to, and also very inspiring! Ik ben nog steeds een grote fan van 'zichtbaar repareren'. Er is hier altijd genoeg te maken en repareren, meestal meerdere keren... Of het nu een broek is waar voor de vijfde keer een knie uit is, sokken waar weer gaten in zitten of mijn wanten, die intensief worden gebruikt tijdens mijn dagelijkse fietstocht naar het werk, en waar wéér een duim van open is. Een aanta...