knitwise

Busy times...

Two more days to go before the end of the Winter/Knitting Olympics and for those of you in the race, I guess it is the final sprint to the finishing line !!!  So keep those needles clicking,  you are nearly there!!!

As I was "speaking",  I was nicely interrupted by the postman who brought me my copy of Bergere de France Spring/Summer patterns. I will have to study the Hirondelle instructions tonight to see if it is within my reach...

Thanks to Suzi who was the first to draw my attention to the new Kim Hargreaves  Spring/Summer collection,  I hurried to have a look and it is a lovely one.  My favourite at the moment is the beautiful Maggie.  I love the bottom edge...  and I love cardigans so this collection has got high marks from me.

With the start of the Sewiknit and Project Spectrum taking blogland by storm,  I am itching to get my long-forgotten friend out of its closet to give it a good dusting and oiling so we can work together like in the old times...

In my next life,  I want to be an octopus...

Distractions...

Tomorrow, the children go back to school and life goes back to its normal routine...  Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed the past two weeks with first, visitors and then, school holidays but it will be so nice to have peace back in the home... (Boris, our cat, is nodding its head in agreement...) It is a good thing I didn't join the Knitting Olympics, I would have had to start on the second week!

Even so the knitting had to slow down, I had spare time to think of ideas for Project Spectrum and I have a couple of projects already lined up for the first two months.  I am quite excited by the whole thing (it reminds me of  "long-ago"  days when I had to prepare school projects). It is a great opportunity to explore colours and experiment with different crafts (I don't intend to stick to knitting).

And if it wasn't enough to keep my mind occupied, I have come across a new knit-along which have just started for this:

Hirondelle from the Bergere de France 's magazine Printemps-ete 134.

I am not going to join but I will definitively order the pattern.  Hirondelle will end up in my to-do list for sure...

So many distractions....

Small progress...

This week the children are on holidays which means, for me, less knitting time.  As last week,  my brother was over here visiting,  I'm not doing too well on the knitting front...

But Joy is growing up slowly and here is a picture to prove it:  the quality of the said photograph is poor, to say the least,  and the colour of the wool is wrong (too pink here) but it was taken in a rush and the object was to show my progress.  I had planned not to knit with the beads but put a purl stitch instead.  Unfortunately,   my purl stitches hardly showed (maybe due to the tweediness of the wool) so I gave up that idea and decided to knit in st st instead.  I hope the end result won't be too plain...

Still,  I have managed to squeeze time to visit a few blogs and, if you haven't yet done it,  go and see Becky's lovely Mexican doll.  Not very long ago, she produced the lovely Titania sweater, so elegant in its simplicity...  There is so much talent out there in blogland, how can I concentrate on my humble knitting ???

Ready, steady, go...

Tonight was the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic games in Turin and the show was spectacular.  I particularly loved the "Renaissance to Baroque"  part.  The costumes were  splendid...

So , I suppose,  tonight is also the official start of the 1st Knitting Olympics  and I wish everybody who is taking part good luck.  I will be cheering in the crowd for every progress you make.  I hope you will complete the challenge in time,  but even if you don't,  it is the taking part that counts and the fun you'll have on the way...

Me ? I'll  just sit and watch you sweat  whilst leisurely knitting Joy (left front going up) and thinking of ideas for the first Project Spectrum due to start in March.  Think Pink!

New Designer...

Rowan 39 is officially  "out" since yesterday and I haven't seen many comments (yet?) in Blogland.  I have had my copy for a few days now and have been able to leaf through it at leisure...  A strange thing happened: when I first saw the very brief preview, I was enthusiastic and excited.  With a closer look (clearer pictures), I am not so sure... Usually, with me, it is the other way round, I come gradually to like the patterns.   In this issue, however,  the more I look at it,  the more disenchanted I get.  Maybe it is just me,  being difficult and fussy...  Maybe, I'll change my mind once I see one of the pattern knitted by someone else, in other colours, other yarns ...

I am tempted to get A Midas Touch, the new Rowan book featuring their new yarn Glimmer Print and designed by Marie Wallin.  I especially like this pattern called Aphrodite on the cover of the book.  Is Marie going to be the One to make us forget that Kim Hargreaves is sadly not part of the Rowan team anymore??? Incidentally I liked her article in the new Rowan magazine and found her Charleston pattern very intriguing... 

I will be silent most of next week as my younger brother is coming over from France to visit us for a few days with his family, so there will be a lot of talking and very little time for blogging.  Happy knitting !