Two hats / Some WIPs / Winter is here! / Cozy weekend.

It has been quite a while since my last post here. These last couple of weeks have been somehow very strange. I guess it is always like that when the end of the year starts to approach.

December is always a busy month: Reunions with friends, family and coworkers, Christmas (of course), several birthdays (including mine! Which I personally find really boring because everybody is thinking about something else!

Anyways! Knitting-wise I have been drowning in a sea of unfinished projects later! Suddenly I had a lot of knitting going on because of friends asking me to knit something for them...

What I have managed to finish this far is two hats.

Mesi again. 

This one is for a friend who lives in Germany. He saw the pics of the hat I made for J.B. and asked me if I could make one for him as well.

This one is for the daughter of a friend. I wanted to play it safe in this one and let the girl choose the colors. I think that the colors she chose are really interesting considering that she is around 10 years old. It is not very clear in the picture but the darker color is not just gray it is a blue-greyish color. Very pretty.

Details:

* They are basically the same as the hat for J.B. Except for the the fact that I used smaller needles to knit the gray hat. I used 2.5mm for the ribbing and 3.0mm for the rest of the hat (instead of 3.0 and 3.75mm).

Notes:

* I used the german cast on again in both hats. I think I am becoming a HUGE fan of german cast on. It looks very nice and most importantly it is VERY elastic and durable. I HIGHLY recommend it. And the best of all is that it is not difficult to make!

* I must say it again: I love this pattern! Knitting it is really fun and quick and the result is always pretty. Besides it is really cool to play with color combinations.

So, talking about my queue... I still have two unfinished shawls: leaves and nupps (in the picture) and an Echo flower (that I have barely began... I think I have just made 4 repeats of the first chart this far and no pics yet).

I also have two more WIPs that I haven't photographed yet: 

* Ermar. It is for a friend (actually the mother of the blue-gray hat girl). This is a pattern that I have already knitted before. It is very simple and quick to knit.

I made this one about two years ago for my friend Dyah.

* A scarf. Yes! A boring scarf! I have never knitted one before because I have always been afraid that I won't manage to finish it! These are the boring things that one make for his friends, uh? I still haven't decided the pattern but my friend already gave the yarn for it :)

Now, talking about something else... WINTER IS HERE!! Finally! After a rather warm winter at the end of last week the weather completely changed and it started to snow! It has been really cold since last friday and everything is just beautifully covered by snow!

This was just perfect because we spent the weekend in a summer house in a place that is about one and a half hour away from Reykjavík. It was very cozy!! So all we did was to knit, do some cross stitch, eat good, spend a lot of time in the hot tub while the snow was falling on our heads and took some cool walks. 

So, some pictures? :)

The "summer house"

Just walking around... trying to find the river.

The river: Hrútá

It was really cold and light was just wonderful.

We found an invisible (and apparently naked) man!

Icelandic horses

 And to finish: A picture of Valgarð knitting... so you can see we were all in the knitting mood during the weekend!

Knitting a scarf :)

Birthday present / Þröstur and me / Álafoss

Two Fridays ago I was invited to a birthday party. My superdear friend Sif was going to celebrate her birthday. Last year I gave her a shoulderette that she really liked (luckily because I didn't know which were her favorite colors so I just chose one that I thought she could like... and that I really liked myself when I saw it hanging in my LYS).

Echo Flower. Yarn: Malabrigo lace.

This year, I didn't have enough time to prepare a present like a shawl or anything bigger so I had to think fast and come up with something quick because I think that hand made presents are always the best thing that one can receive. I had only two days to make something. So I went for a hand made pin (or brooch).

This time I didn't knit it. I used cross stitch and my favorite pattern: Houndstooth. It is a very quick, easy and good looking thing to make.

Then I attached it to a card and put it in an envelope.

Along with the brooch I gave her a book. I went to the University Bookstore where they have a little collection of books in spanish (yes, Sif speaks spanish BEAUTIFULLY!) and among those there were a few books from Chilean authors. I gave her one my favorite books: La amortajada, written by María Luisa Bombal.(I also found another of my favorites: Rimas y leyendas by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, I HAVE to get it for myself!).

During the weekend I finally got some pictures taken of me wearing Þröstur. The days are getting shorter and shorter around here and one thing I like about that is that everytime that is not cloudy the short hours of light we have are beautiful. There is a certain softness in it that lightens everything up in the most beautiful way. Saturday was like that.

So we took a walk to the pond that is right behind our neighborhood (for those who don't know the place where I live is completely built on lava, there are not many trees but it is really pretty to walk around). It was so quite, almost no wind at all.

I also want to share a few pictures I took with the film camera that Judi generously sent me (along with other treasures). These pictures are from Álafoss, the place where Lopi is produced and sold.

It is a really nice place. Even though it is possible to buy lopi everywhere, even in the supermarket, I always choose to drive to Álafoss. And it is not only that the place is cool but the people working there is just adorable!

So, for all of you who have bought lopi... this is where it comes from :)

This is the building where the shop is.

There are several old buildings: the wool shop, some workshops, a café and the recording studio of Sigur Rós. 

Detail of the bridge over the little river. Everything is "stitch-related". Cute, isn't it?

Álafoss or Eel's waterfall

I have been going to buy lopi to Álafoss for almost three years and I had NEVER seen the waterfall until now!! How silly is that!

Have a great week!

Finished... and it has a name: ÞRÖSTUR

I have finally finished the lopapeysa I was working on for the KAL of the Spanish Swap (group on Ravelry).

And here it is:

Þröstur

Details:

* Pattern: I made it myself! Yes, my first one!

* Yarn: Plötulopi (double strand).

* Needles: 4.5mm for the ribbing ad 5.5 for the rest.


Notes:

* When I started to knit this lopapeysa I wasn't sure about how it was going to end... at all. The first thing I did was to work the waist pattern which I decided not to use in the arms because it was a little bit to big... so I designed a second pattern for the sleeves.

* The whole thing was turning very "flowery". My first idea for the yoke was to make a pattern using the traditional eight points star (or rose) and then some more flowers... but changed my mind and I went for birds (instead of even more flowers).

* I thought that birds and flowers could be a very nice (and somehow logical) combination. So, the birds gave the name to the pattern: ÞRÖSTUR, which means thrush or tordo in spanish. I have always thought that I have ever had to take an icelandic name for myself it would be Þröstur!

The yoke.

* While I was knitting the yoke I wasn't sure wether I was liking it or not (in terms of the colors, especially the lime green,  and the pattern itself). I had a lot of doubts about how the whole thing was going to turn out. The yoke was pretty much designed on the run... while knitting.

* I am very satisfied with the whole thing. I am really looking forward to trying to design again!

Tadaaaa!

** Pictures of me wearing it soon!!