Fearless

Because I have started my first sock ever !
It's not much of a sock yet, but I still consider this as Fearless Knitting. As this is the year of fearless knitting in blogland I decided to join the ranks. It seems awfully small to me though, I'm afraid it will never fit my rather shapely calves. I am using Regia Uni, mainly because this is the yarn what is used in the pattern. I am still fiddling a lot with the yarn and 5 dpn's. I know a lot of people use 4 dpn's to make socks, but this pattern also uses 5, it's from the sockmaking book I bought a while ago. It just needs some time to get used to it I guess.

And another fearless thing for me to do was to learn how to spin. Last Saturday was my first spinning class and it was such fun to do ! There were four of us, with me the only one who had never done this before. The class started with a lesson about different sorts of wool, silk and cotton. Then we learned how to wash and comb raw fleece, we also got a bag of unwashed fleece to take home with us so we can prepare and spin this at home. Since I don't own a spinning wheel I had to rent one so I can practice and make enough to ply in the next lesson in which we will also dye it. I used a Majacraft Rose there but took a Majacraft Suzie home, it makes quite a difference to me. I still have a lot of trouble not to overtwist it on this one. I keep adjusting the wheel but it not quite to my liking yet, I guess you could say I prefer the Rose over this one. Maybe, just maybe I can ask one for my birthday next month !

On the knitting front I started a Melon Scarf from VLT in a bright dark pink. I really needed a bright color to knit with because the days are gray and depressing here lateley with rain and hard winds most of the time. With unusual high temperatures it almost seems like fall. I am using Nature's Palette fingering weight in the color Indian Paintbrush, lovely yarn to work with.

The pattern is really easy, I don't even need a chart with it. So it's also suitable for TV knitting. I really like the overall effect this pattern creates.

Juno is ready

And I am really happy with her !

Pattern: Juno Regina
Yarn: Silk/merino laceweight yarn from the Plucky Knitter in color "Platinum"
Needles: US 4, 3,5 mm.

This was such an enjoyable project ! The yarn was a delight to knit with, the pattern was easy to follow and the result was everything I hoped for. The yarn really had a lot to do with the pleasure, Sarah really knows how to dye a yarn !
It's as light as air but still quite warm because of the merino while the silk gives it a subtle sheen. It also looks good on my red coat which isn't really as red as in the picture BTW.
I asked my DH to take some pictures of me wearing the shawl but they all came out blurry. I wasn't wearing the coat then in case you were wandering, so he couldn't have been blinded by it !
Wearing this coat makes me happy on days like these, it has been a really gray and rainy day here. And it looks like the coming days are not going to be much better.

Here is another picture of it with some more detail.

This one also came of the needles recently, it's one of the scarfs from the book Scarf Style , Misty Garden. The yarn is from Habu : Mohair Tam in aqua blue. I can't remember where I bought it, but it's VERY soft and warm. I used 4 balls for it, I just kept knitting untill I ran out of yarn.
The picture above is the most accurate in color I think.

I'm glad everything is back to normal now, everyone is either back at work or at school. And from what I have read on other blogs I'm not the only one who was glad the holidays were over .

Anyway, exciting things are about to happen. I am going to take my first spinning lessons ever next week ! I can hardly wait ! Last November there was a knitting and needlework fair where someone was demonstrating a Majacraft spinning wheel. I asked if they also gave spinning lessons and they wrote down my name and said they would contact me when they would start a new group. Last night they called and asked if I was still interested, silly question offcourse ! So saturday the 19th I will have my first lesson. If you would have asked me a year ago if I wanted to spin, I probably would have said no. I always thought it was kind of oldfashioned and not something I was interested in at all. But after reading all kinds of blogs where lovely things were created with handspun yarn I changed my mind. I really want to give this a try, maybe I won't like it, maybe I'm not good at it all, but at least I tried. And maybe one dayI will knit a shawl with my own handspun yarn !

Now Juno is ready I can continue with this: Simurgh from Anne. I started this a few weeks before Christmas, but then all the Christmas knitting had to be finished so I only did a few repeats so far. The yarn is Wollmeise laceweight yarn in Veilchen, a dark blue/purple color, very hard to capture in the right color.

I blocked it out a bit so you can see the shape of the feathers here. The yarn is slightly thinner than the pattern asked for but I am going to make the biggest size so it will still be big enough.