Softness

Soft colors, soft textures, soft fabrics for the end of June.

A sea of swatches

Life has been incredibly hectic these past few weeks. I wake up on Monday mornings, and when I wake up the next morning, it's already Friday. I can't believe that half of the year has already past, and the list of things that have to be accomplished this year keeps getting longer and longer.

So to keep you updated, I spent these past few weeks knitting a lot (obsviously), and swatching even more than ever, practising different stitches, and trying to incorporate them into pre-designed shapes. That's a lot of work, because when you have a clear idea of what you want, but the whole thing doesn't work out that way, you can end up spending days and days brainstorming the same idea, and try to put 12 into 10. But it stil doesn't work. So you have to modify, and admit that the initial idea that you had in mind will not work that way. Thus the growing pile of swatches...

Now back to my knitting!

Highlights in May

As you know, I was in France in the first half of th month of May. I spent the first week travelling and exploring Britanny. Eating lot of seafood, finding mussles & oysters on the low tide, knitting a little bit and taking pictures of the glorious Spring.

We visited the cutest little farm ever, spending most of my time int he nursery, cuddling these adorable mohair goats.

The second week was spent in Paris, trying to recover from the wonderful things that I experienced in the countryside. Two packages arrived while I was away: the ginormous Homestead Light skein from Skein, & a couple of alpaca skeins from Drops. Both of which are already use/ have been used. I completed the second version of my Blóm pattern with the first one, and the drops skeins are beeing used from a Quill shawl.

On the very last day, we stopped for coffee & cake, and of course yarn shops.

The month of May has been the best of the year so far! Yay for May!

Blóm 2.0

Sorry for the radio silence of the past month, but if you follow me on Instagram, you know that I spent the past couple of weeks in France, enjoying the countryside and my family. I've had such a wonderful time there, which made the month of May the best of the year so far. And you have no idea how much I want to go back, and explore every tiny village in the french countryside. But I'll keep that for later as I'm planning to sum up my trip to France in another post.

So today I'd like to share what kept my hands busy during my second week in France instead. When I came back from Britanny, not one but two packages were waiting for me on my doorstep. One of them contained some drops alpaca wool - which is already on the needles. But I'll share that later too. And the other one made its way from sunny Australia. The package itself was quite small compare to the gigantic skein that was inside: 590 yards of luscious untreated Polwarth wool. I'm certain that my face was pretty funny to see when I saw the first glimpse of the skein. I kept my precious in my arms for a good ten minutes, walking around the house, showing it to anyone that would cross my way. After the euphoria, I sat down, and realised that the next hour wouldn't be spent kntting but rather winding by hand these 590 yards of luscious untreated Polwarth wool. (Haaaa).

Then the time flew by. What must have been hours, felt like minutes. I was already more than halfway through the shawl when I realized that the light was very poor when my mom called me for dinner. I knit a bit in the plane, and finished the shawl in Latvia. I waited for my pin blockers to arrive, then gave it a good wash and pined it on my yoga mat. The next evening I was taking these photographs outside between two storms, and right before the end of the glorious blooming lilac season.

• Pattern: Blóm
  
• Yarn: Skein, homestead Light in the Mademoiselle colorway (one skein)
  
• Needles: Knit Pro, 4mm metal
  

Knit Along

This week I'm joining Ginny's Knit Along, and share a picture of something that I'm working on.

Last week I was browsing ravelry stashes to find the perfect colorway of Malabrigo worsted. A couple of days later, the skein arrived in the mail. And this particular skein and colorway reminded me of so many things, because one of the very first project that I made a couple of years ago has been knit with the same yarn, in the same colorway. And here I am, a few years later,  knitting the exact same pattern for a sweet friend.

It's going to be so much fun putting the two hats next to one another and see how far this knitting journey has taken me, and the improvements that I've made.

At the moment I'm at my third attempt, and I will have to rip back once more because my brain doesn't seem to want to follow the pattern at all.

Wishing you a beautiful Easter weekend!

Kindly,

M.