Mér batnar

Well, I'm still sick, but I am getting better today. My fever is staying low and I have a little more energy. I was able to open the windows in the house since it is nice out to get some germ-free air in.

I got some pussy willows at the supermarket the other week because they seemed nice and springy and they are sprouting roots, I should be able to plant them outside.



I haven't had much energy to do much knitting. I did, however, manage to finish the knitting part of the baby sweater:

I really want to knit those Knitty jeans too, I'm sure that baby's mom will love them.

I also did some of the colourwork on the lopapeysa, which is as awkward to photograph as it is to work on when you are doing the yoke:

When it sits on my floor next to my desk, it's amazing how much it looks like my dog out of the corner of my eye (same colours). Ingi promises not to get us confused when I wear it. ;)

And then.... I started the second baby sweater. I guess this will be summer of Baby Project, because this thing is going to take a while. I can pick up some UFOs to work on for myself when I get tired of it. It's amazing how long it takes you to knit 2 cm of garter stitch on 2mm(US 0) sock needles (I didn't have nor could I buy the right size circular), especially when you are feeling very weak.


I'm hoping I'm feeling all better by Saturday. I am supposed to go to Boston to visit a university friend (the same one from whom the kókósbollur recipe comes) whom I haven't seen since her midsummer party last year, and maybe go dress shopping... this has been planned for so long so I hope I still get to go.

Ég er veik :(

Well, I should count myself lucky. I've managed to get through the winter so far without being sick at all, a rare one for me. I've been watching everyone in blogland get sick. Can you catch the flu through the computer, maybe that's what happened?

Anyway, I woke up this morning with a nasty cough. Ick. I went out anyway to the not-so-local yarn store (it's maybe a 20 minute or so drive) to get some Baby Ull for Kristín's (bear) sweater. It is now my favourite LYS. She had that beautiful Opal rainforest ladybug colourway, which I desperately wanted to buy but I can't really afford to buy myself yarn right now, the baby gift is another story. Well, seeing that I was starting to get a fever, I wasn't thinking straight, so when I checked my needles at home for a 2,5 mm needle, I was looking at the big numbers on the packages which are the US sizes. At the shop I completely forgot having seen a US1 (2,5 mm) needle at home. So I bought another. At $15, this is kind of a big deal. Now yarn shops usually say "no returns on needles" and the slip did say this. But I emailed the shopowner explaining the situation, and she said "no worries, just come in and exchange it." So I may try exchanging it for that sock yarn if she lets me.

After I got home, it was pretty much downhill. I listened to some podcasts and started the colourwork on the lopapesya (I finished the second sleeve last night). Then I laid down for a bit and I've just been getting worse all day. So I'll post some pictures and a recipe when I am feeling better.

In the doldrums
Well, I am in knitting doldrums big time. The sleeve and baby sweater are both just more of the same monotonous thing. (Soon lopapeysan will be at the interesting part but not just yet). The shawl will be fun to work on once I figure out how to count, I've been afraid to look at it again. I wish I could start a new project, but I'll be disciplined. Maybe I'll start Kristín's bear baby sweater when I finish at least one project.

I'm also just frustrated and annoyed today. I hate Macs. Something with OSX just gets wonky and things just don't work properly. A project I was working on that I needed to make a change to so I can send out tonight couldn't be opened. So I had to mess around with my computer and my user accounts to get it able to be changed. Luckily I didn't have to recreate it from scratch but it was so annoying. So now I am up late listening to My Bloody Valentine, Lush, Cocteau Twins, and Brúðarbandið on my iPod while burning CDs to test. I was hoping to spend some time doing some nice cleaning and organisation today, or maybe just relax. I wish I could take a few days off to get some stuff done around the house and relax. The weekends just go so fast.

Maybe I'll have something more interesting to post soon.

Fallegir

He picked them up:


(Hulda shawl is driving me CRAZY. I picked up stitches along the edge, knit 4 rows, only to realise I had too few. Took them out again. Picked up again, and now I have too many. I think I need to go back to kindergarten and take counting lessons. So I worked on the baby sweater again for a bit, since its parents were the ones who took the ring photo for us. :))

Ég á afmæli í dag

So the CD-like present was a CD, it's the new Ghostdigital album, In Cod We Trust. (I was going to link to it but I didn't see it on Smekkleysa's site other than in the news from the other day, and there is no way to link to a specific news item on their site.) Typical Einar Örn weirdness, it's fun.

I had to meet with customers at work today but I got a nice lunch out of it. And one of my friends came over that I hadn't seen in a while and she and I went out to dinner. So it was a nice relaxing birthday evening and I am so sleepy from being in on-mode all day.

Yesterday I finished the first sleeve of the lopapeysa and did the perluprjón part of the second sleeve (am not remembering the English word, too sleepy). And I started with the middle brown for the Hulda shawl although it was slow going because you have to pick up stitches. If I were going to knit that shawl again, I think I would have cast on with waste yarn so I wouldn't have to pick up stitches. But then maybe I'd have the wrong number.

I am so looking forward to the weekend.

Oh and boys are so cute. Ingi was working near the yarn shop today so he bought me the white yarn. First he asks me if he got the right colour number (it's just white yarn. There is only one colour of white.) Then he gets me 3 skeins, just to be safe. I teased him and said I'd have enough to make all the shawls in the book now. ;) Hann er bestur í heimi.

Gjöf frá Íslandi

So I got a box in the mail today. It contained:

(in case you can't make out the text, that would be Djúpur súkkulaðihjúpaður lakkris, AKA chocolate-covered licorice, which is the Best Thing Ever and I was kind of hoping it would be in there since you can't buy it here, and of course the expected yarn to continue with the Hulda shawl)
It also contained 2 birthday presents, which I have to wait to open for 2 more days. The suspense! One looks suspiciously like a CD, so I can't wait to find out which fun one that would be.

Meira myndir...
Lopapeysan:

(Have not decided about fixing that centre stitch problem. But it's beginning to get cold again here, I think I saw snow tonight when I was out briefly.)

Hálfskák:

I'm almost out of white yarn, so I will steal back the needles and pick back up the Hulda shawl. I want Hálfskák for September, so that's fine. He can bring me more yarn in April.

So that's where spring is

Recipe for spring: start lopapeysa. We had some very spring-like weather the last few days here. Friday felt like Icelandic summer. The weather obviously felt like being contrary. But I am still working on it, despite that. This is New England, we still have some winter in us yet, I am sure. I'm hoping the nice weather holds for my birthday but it doesn't look that way.

Speaking of lopapeysuna, I was sleepy when I started that (think I said that already) and completely misread the bit about purling the centre 2 stitches. Since you cut it and sew the zipper, will that matter? Do I need to rip out the whole body? I hate it when I do things like this. I usually do it with recipes. I read the recipe, plan dinner, and just as I am about to start dinner I read it again and see that you are supposed to have another whole chicken (or whatever it is) and that there is no way that I can make that tonight. Or I forget to read the part about how it has to cook for 4 hours.

There were something like 150 people at the wake yesterday! The funeral today was very nice, it was the nicest funeral I've ever been to. The priest just talked about positive things, like him being with God now, instead of talking about what a great person he was. We all knew what a great person he was; why do you think there were so many of us? I hate it when they do that, and they usually do. His family was so touched to have all of us from that circle of friends there, it meant a lot to them for us to be there. It's amazing how you never truly know how great a person is until a time like that.

I watched a black comedy the other night which made me feel better about the whole death thing, ironically Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself. It's a story that deals with death, but it somehow turns into a celebration of life. It was a fun movie, and the timing was just perfect. (I knew there was a reason that Netflix was sitting on top of my TV for so long unwatched.)

On a cheerier note, Ingi's sister is pregnant. I'm thinking of making the pink thing on the bottom left for her, although it's going to be 2 shades of green with lavender dots instead, since the baby's gender is unknown.

Remembrance

I was going to post some knitting content today, but I just don't feel like it. I just found out one of my friends had a brain aneurysm and is basically brain-dead, he's on life support now. I just can't believe it. He's not that much older than I am. G. was one of the nicest people I have ever known. He would do anything for anyone. Many years ago, I was in a really bad living situation, and he was one of the handful of people who came and helped me move out of it. I know that he will be going to heaven, there is no question of that. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife; I can't even imagine having to go through this. It's hard enough to have this happen with a friend.

G. had such a kind heart. He was always there to listen to any of us when we needed to talk. He was a mentor to me (and to others as well); I would not be where I am in my professional career without his support and guidance and ability to give me confidence in my abilities. He was also just a fun person. I can't remember how much new music I would hear about from him. In fact, I keep having thoughts like "Oh, G. would like this band" when listening to the radio.

And my eloquence completely escapes me. I can't bring to words anything that remotely comes close to describing such a wonderful person who touched my life and those of others.

I'm a bad, bad girl...

Sunday night was The Oscars, so even though I was really exhausted, I wanted to watch it. I had no energy to knit on anything that required the remotest brainpower, so what did I do? Start a new project, of course! This one is a free lopapeysa pattern. I'm doing it in black, grey, and white. So it's just black. None more black, at the moment, like in Spinal Tap.

I was excited to see an Icelandic movie nominated for an Oscar, even if it was a short film and didn't win: Síðasti bærinn í dalnum. Anyone see it? Was it any good? I wish they would show all the nominated short films instead of all those silly montages.

In the meantime, the new shawl is coming along, the baby sweater is nearing completion (maybe I'd better go button shopping soon although one of my friends tells me she was afraid to put buttons on it because they might be a choking hazard. I wonder if the mom, who teaches preschool, will be worried about these things.) The cable sweater is in a pile on my new Ikea printer table (it's amazing what a cheap table will do for the look of the room when your printer used to be on the floor), where I am summarily avoiding it. Conveniently, the lopapeysa wanted a different size needle, so I can leave it alone.

Ingi minn picked up the brown yarn I needed for the Hulda's shawl. It is something like 200kr. there vs. $6.50 here. Even with the crappy US dollar exchange rate, it still works out to a little over $3. So I guess I should buy my lace yarn when I am there. (Isn't he so sweet, to go yarn shopping for me!) He mailed it with my birthday present and said the lady at the post office laughed about the yarn when she was filling out the customs form.

I watched Must Love Dogs last night. I can't really recommend it. I liked the book when I read it (yes, very fluffy, but it was fun still), and it had John Cusack, but it was still not that great. The best part was the Ryan Adams song at the end.

Random Friday Thoughts
Við völdum hvítagullshringana.

Sigga, vegabréfsáritun er ekki fyrir mig, hún er fyrir hann. Hann þarf hana til að flytja til Bandaríkanna. Ef við giftum okkur í Íslandi, hann þarf að bída í þrjá manuði (eða meira) aður en hann get komið hér.

We had snow here yesterday. I was lucky enough to be ready early enough to take the bus, so I did that so I could knit. The weird thing about drivers here is that they can't seem to figure out how to drive in the snow the day after. The main road in town was still snowy, and traffic went quickly, but then the highway was clear and it was slow. Isn't that bizarre? But I didn't care, I had my shawl to knit. I was also thinking today when I walked to buy my coffee that I love this weather, the day after it snows and there is a little snow on the ground, and it's still just warm enough for snow maybe but cold enough to make you feel like you're alive. And it's March and I'm not sick of snow yet. I guess it's still early March though. Maybe I was just in a good mood from having been able to take the bus.

Another random thought I had today was on knitting lace. I love it when you are knitting a lace pattern with a simple repeat (this one has 2 rows that repeat for the main part of the shawl) and you have it in your brain enough to pay attention to what is happening with the pattern as you knit, and you can understand where in the pattern you have to do which stitch while looking at it. In other words, you see a cluster of three stitches and you know those should be knit together, that sort of thing. The other thing about knitting lace is that it looks pretty much the same as last time, only bigger.

I want to clean up my sewing area for when his parents come visit (since my sewing area is half the attic and the other half is sort of a guest room area). Lanea just recently blogged about her beautiful sewing area that she fixed up (and her space looks very similar to the space I am trying to fix up), so now I am all fired up for trying to figure out how to organise the mess up there cheaply so it looks pretty like that. Today I had a revelation, I have this little antique-ish dresser in the kitchen where I keep things like napkins and phone books inside, and stack cookbooks on top. If I can find some kind of small IKEA cabinet with shelves for that spot in the kitchen, not only will my cookbooks be less cluttery, but then I can steal that dresser for yarn storage upstairs! And actually, if I could get a cheap bookshelf, I could put my craft books in my craft area and free up room in the regular bookshelf for regular books.