Reporting Back From The Battlefield

What can I say? I am amazed that there is still someone out there reading my blog, considering the long absence. It makes me feel pretty good!

But I have no good to report. After a few serious heart issues and an emergency surgery I am now waiting for a new heart... in hospital. I am not going home until a transplant has been successful.

Knitting has not been happening for the last 2 1/2 months, although I am slowly getting stronger again thanks to modern chemistry. I hope to be able to transfer to Cologne to the Heart Centre until the Transplant, there I can see my family every day, be supplied by my LYS, (Maschenkunst...) and revive my blogging and pattern writing.

For those of you who have received a cryptic e-mail... please forgive me, I had 30 seconds on someones computer. I will start writing 'normal' e-mails again soon.

"What Is This?" Sunday

I am sorry for the delay. I guess I should get my own Internet access some time to make things easier... But here we go!

What Is This?Fame and Honor To: thereyougothen, Sally and Jenny! Good job, thank you for playing!

"What Is This?" Sunday

In good old tradition we hereby proceed to the well beloved feature...

What Is This?

I am certain you should have no problem with this, and I also think I should pick trickier stuff.
Last week it was, of course, a tea bag. Jhadur, Fame and Honor to you!

Today is a very exciting day for me. Family from the USA is coming to visit, for 2 weeks and I can't wait for them to finally get here. Richard is picking them up from the airport, and of course he could not help himself and had to take Elijah with. They haven't seen him since he was 7 months, and they are going to be so amazed to see how much he grew and how much he learned. He now walks, semi talks and eats anything he can get his little hands on. And then there is the firm believe that he is a mountaineer, nothing is to high for him to climb on. (A new set of challenges, diving head first of the bed did not do him all that good. The bruise is slowly getting better though...) But we do practice, and it is quite a blast to see him walk now.

Elijah's Easy-On Preview

May I present: Elijah's Easy-On. It is a vest, but on the left side it is open and can be buttoned if the designated wearer prefers to be dressed in an alternate way. My baby does...
This was a pretty quick knit. If other projects had not taken up so much time in between I might have finished this in a few days. The size is generous, but hey, they grow fast and I rather have him look funny for a month than have me do all the work for nothing.
The yarn used is Rowan Wool Cotton, and I do like it for this project even though it is a rather heavy, drapery stuff and it will stretch a bit, so after the fist wash you probably gain 1" in lenght. That is not bad but good to know.
This pattern should be ready to be published this month, but due to a short visit in hospital (again) I am feeling a bit tired, I need to rest a lot and so I am behind in quite a few duties and likes.

On to a different subject: I did receive this book in the mail, send to me by Natalie (from the Yarn Yard in case I did not mention it before, go look at her beautiful stuff!) and she got it for me at the I-Knit in London early September. I did ask if she could bring me something because I am no longer allowed to travel, and it was awfully nice of her to do so. The Yarn Harlot was there, and this book is signed! I don't get very excited about autographed items, but this is very neat. So: Thank you Natalie!

Shopping... And Socks...

There has been knitting. And shopping. Honestly, mostly shopping... but let's talk about knitting first. I finished a pair of socks for a very good friend of mine, Sanda. She has been helping me for a long time, taking care of Elijah when I was in hospital and now after we moved she has super cleaned the new apartment so that Richard and I have less work ahead when we are on our own. But I think I mentioned that previously...
I tried to keep them simple, and to make them nice and warm. and thinking of Sanda's Romanian heritage I added a little detail. I do not have much experience with adorning knitted items, so I decided to try that more often. She was so happy, I should really knit more often for her...
Here you find a blog where Lene is embroidering so beautifully, it's an inspiration. Just take the time to look a bit through the archive and you'll find a lot of treasures.

Now to one of my favorite subjects: shopping for yarn! Now where I moved to Cologne I had to visit Daniela at her shop. And of course there was no 'just visiting'... You see the little niceties I just had to bring along.

We have 'Katia Colibri'.And 'Louisa Harding's Coquette'.

And 'Cedifra Opulenz'.

And since I am way behind in my to-do list for Christmas there will be a few nice one-skein projects.

Oh, in my poll what season people like the best: the result was Fall, with 45% of votes. Followed by Summer (25%), Winter and Spring. Why am I not surprised?