gold medal

Today I picked up my well deserved knitter's gold medal!
And since yarnharlot mentioned me (I could NOT be more proud. It feels like being accepted to a knitter's hall of fame to be mentioned in that blog right now) I have had some questions about my Birch.

First: Yes, it's huge. I wanted it huge. After having seen the Birch Amy made for Mandy I wanted my own BIG Birch.
Second: I'm a loose knitter AND I used 6mm needles instead of 5mm.
Third: I used almost 4 skeins of Anny Blatt's Fine Kid (color Cordouan)

And I am amazed myself I did it in two weeks. But it's been hectic at work and knitting is my way of Not Thinking Of Work, I haven't really cleaned or done housework at all during the Olympics. I have been Knitting, Watching the Olympics (damn Sweden did good this time!) and Managing the Team Sweden Blog.

This week I'm trying crocheknit for the first time, and wondering what I want to do for the Paralympics...

Welcome new readers. It's not all knitting in here, but right now it's all I have in my head.

it's big.

I'm not even going to block it. It's just the way it's supposed to be already.

wrapped

A first peek... It's too big for me to get a picture of it all by myself. I'll try and get some help eventually. But this is me wrapped in gorgeousness.

I did it.

I did it.

Tonight at 9.44pm I pulled the last stitch tight in my fabulous Birch shawl.

I truly wasn't sure I'd make it this week, being so busy at work, so I feel I started the sprint towards the finish line a little too soon, but hear this people:
I Made It.

I made a humongously huge Birch in less than two weeks. Seriously, it's enormous.
I'll take pictures after blocking during the weekend and proudly show it off.


Right now, I'm going to wrap myself in my big, big, big, huge, beautiful Birch.

celebrity

I was in one of the biggest Swedish papers, Aftonbladet, today. Representing Team Sweden in the Knitting Olympics. All because I'm managing the Team Sweden Blog. I never thought it would be so Huge in the paper though. Almost scary isn't it?

thief

I steal the emotions of the Olympic champions and losers. I cry their tears of joy and disappointment, when my own are too difficult to go find. When I feel too much, I feel nothing. I think I need help to feel my own emotions soon, but just for now, I steal others. Next week I'll go looking for mine.

virus

This Swedish photographer has been able to document how the bird flu virus kills a living cell. It's freaky how something as deadly and disgusting can be so beautiful.

big Birch

It looks like this tree is about to hit the sky.
I knit instead of writing these days. I'll be back when the Birch has been out on the town showing itself off.

the new me

Do you notice anything different?


After popular demand: More photos.
Did you know it's difficult to take pictures of the back of your own head? Well it is. So here's a semi profile and a weird one trying to show you: It's Short in the back. And then cut at an angle to frame the face... And two tones. And I've tried like... umptuous styles. It's a fun cut to play with!

growing birch

Yes, I am proud so far.

And I'm planning what jacket I should look for/ make (What? I can't sew!) to match this beauty, and what color other shawl I could combine it with. Black jacket with burgundy details (I made sketches!) and mix shawl with a steel gray mohair or alpaca shawl (still to be made) - and THEN I would be the best looking girl in the world...

Yes, didn't I tell you? I'm nuts.

day 3

...and it's time to get going. No problem though since I love this shawl already! The stitch where you pull the "tip of the leaves" is by far the most rewarding stitch to do in this pattern. It really shows the design off. I giggle and squeak every time.

On other notes, out dryer is broken in the laundry room. My doing the laundry became much more of a project yesterday once I had discovered that. But still, going to sleep just after a shower in cuper clean sheets is still a favorite feeling of mine, so it was all worth it.

...and we're off

The Knitting Olympics have begun, and after a late night and a sunny morning I have completed the first nine rows of my Birch shawl. This is such a FUN pattern! I love the build of it. You understand it real quick, and you get fast results in stunning beauty.

And I also have to brag a little about being the blog administrator of the Team Sweden BLOG!

Best wishes for the games to all the Olympic knitters!

cuppajo

So... Officially Nuts. That's me. So, my Java turned into a bowl-holder, so the frustration over that just made me this in the last two hours:

I was supposed to work, but having my own firm I can work later... My head was working with work stuff, but the hands made a cup. Yes. A knitted cup. I made it up, and take away lattes will totally fit it. It's totally cute don't you think?

single crochet bind off

Why didn't I learn this before today?
I don't think I'll ever use anything else now...

Happy happy joy joy...

What did I bind off? The cuppajoe-holder from magknits. But I'm a loose knitter - I should know that by now - so it's more of a bowlajoe-holder. I'll just make it again, but cast on less. It only took me two bus rides plus half an hour so...

current events

I added a new feature in my sidebar: Current events.
It seemed to fit now with the Olympics and all, but after the Olympics this will be a place for the odd comment about what I'm doing at work, or the occasional picture of knitting projects in progress... Or so I've planned.

Oh, and one more thing: I made that Team Sweden button...

work of art

I'm a work of art. Or well, I'm part of a work of art. The Swedish artist Linda Tedsdotter has made a light and sound installation that is to be exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. She's made these simple boxes that you stick your head into. In the boxes you meet a lamp. Not a blinding lamp, but light therapy. Light. We Scandinavians need more light for sure. And another need we have is more love. I think everybody needs more love. These boxes provide that too - in headphones. There's a different voice in every box bombarding you with compliments, admiration - love. I'm one of the voices.

I was asked to talk lovingly - in English - to strangers that stick their heads into light boxes at a museum (The other boxes speak Swedish). But that's not what you must think of when you're stuck in the soundproof box in the recording studio with a microphone. For the twenty minutes I talked into that microphone, it was the images of loved ones I saw before me. Current love. Old love. Family. Friends. People around me I simply admire. Beauty within my loved ones. Beauty I miss. Beauty I see every time I close my eyes. And I described how I see that beauty to the microphone. But without the most specific specifics. I told it about magic eyes and contagious smiles. I told it of sense of style and my own warm and fuzzy feelings.

I think those twenty minutes loving a microphone was as much love therapy to me as it ever will be to all those strangers coming to be loved by me when they stick their head into a box.

This exhibition starts at Feb 18 at Moderna Museet

your wish...

...is my command. For Mandy and Julie especially since they asked for it: More pictures of my à-Tempting sweater (and me), taken in daylight:


That's our beautiful capital Stockholm in the background of that last photo...

introducing

Sture!

This is the most impatient knitting project ever. Being a gift for my friend J, he didn't have to be completed for another week or so, but being very eager to present himself to the world, he made me finish and blog him even before I've had the chance to give him away! I'm sorry J. He forced me to reveal him by blackmail! (He said I couldn't knit that other thingie I wanted until he had both legs attached. See? Two legs.)

He's based on the Kate pattern from Knitty and I don't think I've ever been, nor will ever be so precise when following a pattern. All I did was change the colors... Oh, wait! Sture, why are you leaving?

Oh, you're right! I changed the sex too. See, Sture is not a girl as Kate is. He's a boy. Definately. J named him even before he was born. There Sture. Are you happy now that I told everyone how masculine you are then? Good. There you have him everybody. Sture.

mapped

I'm not crazy about "hey-come-join-this-online-thing"-thingies, but this is fun! So dear readers/ friends/ knitters/ other people luriking around my blog - Tell me where you are by joining my frappr-map!

list four

I'm a sucker for these list thingies, and while I build up the nerve and the phrasing to write about what's going on inside my head (and damn I should write in English about my adventure in Canada. But "should" is such an ugly word to use in my blog though...) what could be better than another mindless list of things. Thanks Amy for the open invitation to anyone to feel tagged by the list of four things. Here's my version:

Four Jobs I’ve Had
1. museum guide (twice in different museums)
2. I worked in a store (Granit)
3. tutor
4. architect (-ure teacher...)

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
1. Amelie
2. Love, Actually
3. Big Fish
4. all my Eddie Izzard DVDs

Four Places I’ve Lived
1. Stockholm
2. Härnösand
3. Göteborg
4. a 17 week summer in France

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
1. Gilmore Girls
2. Numb3rs
3. Coupling
4. ok I admit then... Battlestar Galactica (I'm hooked)

Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation
1. France
2. Japan
3. Rome & Florence
4. Canada
(consider these important trips, because I'd like to list more places. Glasgow is up there with the best of them. As is Greece. And Barcelona. And...)

Four Blogs You Visit Daily
1. Mandy
2. Rachael
3. Amy
4. Lina
(Depending on blogline's list of recent updates obviously. There are many places.)

Four of Your Favorite Foods
1. I simply
2. hate
3. this
4. question
(I like so much and the selection is so wide. I'd rather list my favorite people to have dinner with than what's on the table. But that's not on the list, so I won't.)

Four Places You’d Rather Be
1. Calgary
2. Rome
3. Florence
4. Paris

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without
1. Teitur - poetry and aeroplanes
2. Antony & the Johnsons - I am a bird now
3. Rufus Wainwright - want one
4. Krom - krom

Four Vehicles I’ve Owned
1. 1977 Saab v4 96 (How I loved that car)
2. my red bike - Extreme (no mercy)
3. an ancient Monark Moped
4. I had a kick-bike as a kid

blogger no 5

Finally. They fell down on my doormat yesterday (yes, I have a mailslot in the door) - two copies of the glossy magazine I was in last month. I am blogger no 5. Two pictures and my words on a glossy magazine page. Somehow my words look way more important there than here. But I like the parts of my answers they used, and they haven't changed even a komma in the quotes. I still stick by my answers. For example:

What is the best thing about blogging?
To have a forum for my writing without deadlines or demand. No predefined purpose. I need to write. I need to express myself. If I didn't write a blog, I'd write something else, somewhere else.

That is why I'm here.