When I started writing this post I wanted it to be rather brief… Guess this didn’t work out. Somehow I have a lot to say for this week’s Yarn Along… I started using Instagram when I was in Berlin in January for the Berlin Fashion Week. So when I finished my first pair of socks in 2014 I posted a blurry picture of them on instagram and some weird guy named Yarn Bombs liked it. As I was new I started following him. And I started getting weird pictures from knit and crochet pieced in my feed.
To be honest, I was quite annoyed after some time. But last weekend I finally looked up what he was actually referencing all the time. And hey, this is so absolutely cool! This guy from Santa Barbara does Yarn Bombings (as his instagram name already suggests…). And what he posts are worldwide contributions to his installation. You can send in your pieces and he will then use them. So I decided to do just that. Unfortunately the deadline for sending in pieces is already the 15th of April this year, so I had to be quick. I made five different squares out of scrap wool. This is why they look a little weird when it comes to colour. And they are rather small. But I hope small pieces can always be fitted in somewhere. Now my big envelope is on its way to the US. I’m really excited to be able to be part of a piece of art on the other side of the planet. If you want to find out more about him, check here. It is absolutely worth it. I’m really looking forward to getting pictures from the installation once it is up as obviously I won’t be able to see it in person. A bit far away…
Other than that I finished my Rye socks (as expected). I ran out of yarn literally 36 stitches before I finished the sock. Bad knitters luck, I’d say. But I found a sock yarn in my stash with purple stripes in about the purple I needed. In the end you only notice the a bit different looking last 3 rows on the toes if you know that they are there. I knitted some hexipuff (I know, I’m still collecting and probably will be for some more years before they make a blanket…) and advanced quite a bit on the Pin Tuck Tee. I’m pretty sure I won’t need all the yarn I bought for it even if I make longer sleeves. But then yarn returned to the LYS (which I do if they are full skeins to avoid unnecessary stash increase) is new yarn for a new project…
Speaking of new projects. Yesterday in my lunch break I went shopping. I decided I need a new spring jacket. My current jacket is 10 years old. It is a short trenchcoat in beige which doesn’t go out of fashion. But the years start to show and I thought I might find a new one. I didn’t. And whenever I don’t find the thing I want and am in this particular department store with the huge handicraft area, I go there and leave with something. The something were 100g of a lace weight cotton yarn. Why, you might ask. Trying to knit another lace shawl when the first one still isn’t done? You are right. But I saw this nice shawl. It looks like something I might be able to use this summer as I’m invited to a wedding and to my brother’s “becoming a doctor” ball in July. And some people have pictures of this shawl beautifully drapped around their shoulders over evening gowns. So yesterday night, after a little bit of swatching (I don’t get gauge with that yarn, not if I don’t use 8 or 9mm needles which gives it a horrible tension, but for a shawl that shouldn’t be be fine, I think), I started knitting. The good thing is that it is not complete lace but it starts with a stockinette or garter stitch body. I opted for a stockinette body as garter stitch looked a bit weird in this yarn. And I consider garter stitch a bit rustic and I want this shawl to be very elegant and fine.
I’m reading “Die Eleganz des Igels” from Muriel Barbery which is a nice little philosophical book and I found a new audio book on youtube or rather the first four books from the Mortal Instruments series (Chroniken der Unterwelt). I knew this series gets quite a hype and I admit I’m a sucker for YA fiction so I started listening. Now while it is entertaining I’m not so sure it is really good. It feels like a big mix of existing stories. Ok, the story good vs bad is never new. But a group of teenager being educated in a secret world not to be seen by mortals but integrated into the normal world? Hello Hogwarts. A teenage group slaying vampires and demons? Hello Buffy – The Vampire Slayer (by the way one of the best series ever in this genre). An “I’m your father”- moment? This reminds me of Star Wars. The story is lacking a bit of individualism. The world is not very detailed as in Harry Potter. The story is not especially funny, entertaining yes, but not funny as in Buffy. And I’m always a bit cranky if the only couple with a high potential for a love affair (well, after all it is YA fiction and this is a must here) is so not going to happen. Saying that I just saw that they turned it into a movie already. It didn’t perform well which leads me to guess it is not the best movie. But Valentine is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers which is definitively a reason to check it out. So, summing it up, I do enjoy it but rank it rather low. Have you read the books (or listened to an audio book like I do)? What do you think about these books?
schnoerrchen 