Knitting Frenzy

So, I've been knitting. A lot. Somehow, after months of barely touching a needle, I kind of went into a knitting frenzy and haven't really stopped yet. It started with my wanting to finally finish my Delirious Diva shawl and starting two other projects (see here), and then there were Christmas presents and more projects. I took some time off in December, and I hadn't had this much free time in a long while - and I spent nearly all of it knitting, or so it feels :-D

Now, brace yourself, here come a lot of photos! ;-)

I finished the Sea Dragon Shawl within six weeks or so. Once I got the hang of it I really enjoyed the pattern, but weaving in all the ends was a challenge! (I hate weaving in ends - and there were so many...) I'm glad I decided to do it one night and then didn't pause until I was finished - or I might have never looked at it again ;-)
The shawl is not only nice when draped around the shoulders, but makes a really gorgeous scarf which fits twice around my neck, then looks like some elaborate layered piece and covers the top of my shoulders for extra warmth.

I did indeed start Verdant after that, as I said I might, and have made quite some progress, but it seems the yarn won't be enough. For spinning more, I need to order some fibre first, so I put the project on hold. I like how it turned out so far, though.

Then I started (and finished) a quick project in between which I called Modern Stoneage, after the yarn. I had this skein lying around for quite some time, I remember casting on several times in the summer, but somehow no pattern seemed right. When I tried out the Asymmetric Rib Scarf, I was very pleased and I really like the outcome.

I also made three pairs of wrist warmers kind of in between - my husband seemed to have lost a pair (which turned up after I finished the new ones, which are now his favourites), and his sisters both wanted new ones for Christmas, so I spun some yarns and made some gifts :-)

Somewhere in between I decided to make a pair of yoga socks as a quick gift for a friend. I turned out not to be quick enough, though, and didn't finish them before meeting her. But I decided I wanted some for myself, and while I made the ones for my friend from commercial sock yarn I dyed myself, I made my own yoga socks from handspun as I realized once more how much more fun knitting is when the yarn is interesting.
I absolutely love these yoga socks! They keep my feet and ankles warm without hindering me, and the pattern is also very simple.

As my husband has lost a scarf I made for him years ago and has been quite sad about this, I decided to make him another one. He loved the Diagon Alley yarns I had spun, so I used the same colours for the yarn, though I added dark grey and black and called it Night Over Diagon Alley. This was a very spontaneous thing, I spun the yarn when he was out of town for a few days, started knitting on the train when I went to visit my sister in law, where I could only work on this project for one evening as my husband then joined me there, and then had to try and knit secretly when we were back home. It worked, though, I finished on the morning of December 21st, just before our traditional Jul with friends celebration where I then presented the scarf :-)

Just before Christmas I decided to spin a yarn suitable for the Unleaving pattern which I had fallen in love with, and I spun it shortly after Christmas, started knitting shortly after that and finished it within a week, which is enormously fast by my standards. I did knit through our new years party ;-)

Oh, and I nearly forgot I started knitting Sorceress - another pattern I'd been eyeing for a while.

Omi's Aubergine is also finished, but I don't have any new photos. And I still haven't given the scarf to her, I really have to go to Hamburg one of these days... I started even more new projects, but I will present them here some other time :-)


I also had a look around the google store for some helpful knitting apps. I discovered the knitting help app which seems fantastic, but haven't bought it yet (I don't think there's space for that on my phone at the time), I found a German Ravelry app which works well enough, but which isn't that nice to look at, and I found a simple row counting app called Knit Tink which I liked.

Are there any knitting apps you use and would recommend?