film inspired

of course I didn't just knit silly birds and such - there is always at least one larger project in the making, or tv would mostly be unbearable:))

a few years back DS asked for a new sweater and chose his own colourway. I was naive enough to indulge him, and even spun the yarn for it. we didn't have hard winters at the time, so he only wore it once or twice. then the heating in school failed, the kids were asked to wear something warm - and when he came home he swore to me that he wouldn't wear that sweater again! apparently some of the kids sniggered about the colours - and the fact that his friend and his friends' sister liked it didn't change anything! the sweater has been "in storage" since then, but of course it's now far too small anyway....

of course the one thing I realized was: I'll never waste my time for something like that again:)) so when a new sweater had to be made, it was to be from commercial wool. when the new hp film came out the immediate reaction was: I want this sweater... ok, in lovely "colourful" - grey... teenagers: they want to be special, but "invisible" at the same time? well, anyway, after a bit of a hunt I found a grey yarn, not too fine, but not too chunky either. it's mostly wool, but machine washable (puh, what a relief!) - and most importantly it doesn't itch!

this is the result:

not a spectacular piece, but at least you can hide in a throng of people and nobody will see you:) and it was perfect tv knitting; not too boring but doable without looking much...it's also large enough to hopefully last another year or two - because I am sure that he will want more "make me invisible" sweaters for some time to come....  

there was enough yarn leftover from the kg of yarn I bought to make two hats. at first I just knit my standard: 2k/2p rib at the bottom and stockinette on the top. you can imagine what it looks like, no pix necessary... but I still had more than 2 balls left, so I thought I'll give something else a try. I started with double knitting a while back, but so far I'd only done straight up pieces. I knitted the same rib, long enough to double it up when in use. then I worked 1 k and 1 p into each stitch, but with two balls of yarn. I worked double knit straight for a while - and hunted out how to make decreases online:) hurray for the internet! unfortunately I also came across several double knitting books, which I "had" to put on my christmas wish list....

this is the top of the hat - looks like a normal one? yeah, that is how it is supposed to look:)) if I hadn't made one mistake in crossing the yarns it would be fully reversible - though as it is DH and DS weren't able to see the mistake... this is now the "cold winter" hat, the other will do for the normal irish temperatures:)) one thing I noticed though: it would probably have made the job easier if I had used two different colours! using both of the same makes it more difficult to see which one works the front and which one the back.... the decreases are actually very simple to work, not fussy at all.... 

 I also finished my weekly dose of embroidery - the original was called hair dresser, "friseur" in german. only, the translation was too long for the sign! and the irish form was - weird:)) so eventually I decided to give it the owners name - not that I know one named Tessa, but a lot of the irish salons are named for their owner, so it fits... those are the "art nouveau" colours I mentioned in the last post:)) the weirdest thing was that the next design, the village pub, has some of these colours in the original! mental waves sent over to germany??? which of course means that I had to put the pub somewhere else, not too close to the salon....

of course life isn't all knitting and embroidery - you have to look after your stomach, too:)) the first plums were ready - those are small ones from an ornamental plum. small, but very tasty! unfortunately we have to wait now for the real plums, because we already finished the first batch - sheer greed:)) well, if all else fails, we just have to make waffles with cherries or a few muffins or whatever else will take our fancy this weekend! school starts next tuesday and I promised to "celebrate" the last holiday weekend with something "cakey"....