pig harvest

here is alba with the pigs. she won them. in denmark it is tradition to make a yummy kind of ricepudding for christmas with loads of chopped almonds in and then one whole. the one who gets the whole will get a prize.

in my family it is always a homemade pressie. and it has always been my father's chore to make it. but this year we had to rethink and i got the task this year. next year i may or may not do it again.

i have decided that i would love to knit a lamb and chicken collection for easter though. i never thought this was my thing at all, but i have really taken a liking in little knitted animals.

and i think alba is going to love playing pig farmer. isn't that every little girl's biggest dream ;-))

flared lace smokering

there were two projects that went a bit wrong i.e. the gift knitting went wrong so i thought snap out of it, let me knit a little thingy for myself. i wanted to knit a smokering in qiviut and went on a manical search for qiviut in a very bad mood a while ago. no qiviut but i slipped on the floor in a yarnstore and went home. it was in the thick of job search and rejections, so i felt really really bad lying there on the middle of a floor in a yarn store.

since then things have changed for the better. i am so glad. and all of a sudden i don't have the urge for qiviut any longer. but i thought it would be fun to knit a smoke ring anyway and i fell in love with heartstrings pattern: flared lace smokering and it turned out to be great fun to knit. the qiviut was substituted by drops alpaca from stash. stashbusting is nice and i am starting to believe in the philosophy that says: get rid of things you haven't used for two years.

and how does one model a smokering? i suppose my nephew feels pretty happy about sporting it yarnballboogie style . and when i met him today i thought what a family we are. always flashing my handknits. i have been out with 4 family members this december, and some at random, and they have all been wearing my handknits. in my nephew's case the fishtrap cardigan. it is unbelievable how well the briggs and little regal holds up. not a pill, not a difference in shape in sight. if i didn't have to pay that damned tax for getting it into the country i'd never use any other yarn.

merry christmas.

have you seen the little piggies.....

the three little pigs ended up being a whole family with still more members to come. as i said in my last post, it is danish blogger, who wrote up the pattern for these. but the concept of little knitted animals is also a well known concept in waldorf pedagogy. freya jaffke has a lot of other animals and dolls in a little book called toymaking with children. i think i want that book in order to knit a basket full of chicken and lambs for easter. it is great fun to make these little creatures and to see how differently the turn out when stuffed and in all the different kinds of yarn. when i have decided how to present them for christmas i will take another photo.

my next project, though, is going to be meg swansen's shaded aspen leaf as a zip cardigan in 4 different green shades for my friend who will be 50 in march. i hope to start and finish during christmas so he can wear it when winter sets in. it has been great fun to decide on the colours and looking at the few pictures on ravelry. especially since my friend likes to be a part of the process and the colour choice is completely after his choice and taste. i do like it though.

i have not decided what will be the theme of the coming year's knitting, but i am sure that my niece or nephew who is due in march will play an important role.

danish bacon

it is not that i haven't been knitting. i just haven't been blogging. the thought of getting back to work has been occupying my thoughts and i have had luck. a job a bit similar to the nice job i left one and a half year ago, but in a different setting. i will be teaching asylum seekers danish and eventually english. it has a time limit this job but it doesn't matter. i start in january but i have actually already started. my first lesson was yesterday when i was teaching a group of men english. the difference between fifty and fifteen for instance. i enjoyed it a lot. and tomorrow i am going again.

i am knitting two christmas projects. but in the meantime i am knitting these little piggies and i hope to knit a whole basket full before christmas. they are going to be our prize for a little christmas competition that is tradition in denmark.

they are a varying size and the brainchild of danish blogger liselotte. even though you don't understand a word danish, liselotte's blogging skills are amazing. she whips off one project after the other. and the photography is soo great. go have a look.