New year, new knitting!

I haven't updated this blog for ages 'cause I've been so busy moving in with the new BF...Now live in a nice apartment in central Oslo. It's been a hectic couple of months settling in, and preparing for celebrating Christmas together. We spent X-mas Eve and X-mas day with my mother and grandparents, and had his parents come down and spend New Year's with us. Since they live 10 hours away, they stayed until Jan.2. We had six guests over for New Year's Eve and had a wonderful three course meal! I got to play hostess, which was fun, if it wasn't for the cleaning up afterwards... Heh, I've become really homesy over the last months, baking and cooking and doing my best to impress my new MIL... She's really sweet.

And I'm going to become an auntie in May! I've already knitted a few baby items; a lace bonnet and some socks. Recently started a baby cardie as well. The parents to be don't wish to know the sex of the baby, so I've been making the items in off-white to match both sexes. It's knit from Lanett baby wool in a simple moss stitch pattern that alternates rows of moss stitch with garter stitch in a nice diamond -shaped pattern.

I've joined the Shawl yarn club at Strikk Innom, and the first package consisted of a lovely laceweight yarn in silk and merino wool from Zen Yarn Garden. The lovely lady from Strikk Innom had also added pattern suggestions to go with the yarn. I instantly fell for the Luna Moth Shawl from Elann. It's knit from the top down, and since you start with the center stitches and increase outward, you don't have to cast on a million stitches, which is a relief as I always get the wrong stitch count... I've chosen to go down a few needle sizes and knit the shawl on size 3.5mm circs to make a denser fabric. The lace pattern is still very defined.

Knitting resolutions for the new year:

• Entrelac. Printed out a few patterns to try and learn this t echnique


• Colourwork


• Mitered knitting. I've been replacing bedtime stories with the Mason-Dixon book lately, and the BF commented on a colourful bedthrow made from mitered squares. Would look really cool wouldn't it? It's a lot of squares...


• More socks

And finally, pics! A few FO's, and the shawl in progress.