Using up leftover yarn

I would have never thought that crocheting granny squares would be something I'd like to do. That's why to date I have been neglecting the (actually very beautiful and amazing) granny square patterns and instruction videos from eliZZZa on nadelspiel.com. But now my stack of wool and yarn is just getting too big and with most of the stuff I don't really know what to do. That's why I came up with the idea of using it all to make granny squares and eventually a big patchwork blanket. I got inspired by blankets I saw on the page of the Nadelspiel Club and decided: I want to have a blanket like that, too!

For now I took 4 colors and made grannies and when I'm done with those colors I will take the next ones. Getting it too colorful and chaotic is too much, I think. By now I have completed 8 squares. 5 were crocheted after instructions by eliZZZa, 2 after instructions of members of the Nadelspiel community (Chikuchiku and Lila) and 1 I even created myself (the one in the upper right corner).

And I really have to admit, it is sooooooooooo much fun to crochet granny squares! It's an exciting way to try out new patterns and color combinations and in no time you have a finished object holding in your hands. Absolutely great, I am sooo thrilled!!!

My sweater is slowly growing also. It should be about 45 cm by now, so the "boring" part is almost over :-)

There are no pictures of it at the moment since it hasn't really changed that much from the last picture I posted. Hopefully I will soon have the time and heart to knit a whole evening in order to get more done than a few rows and to finally see some progress :-)

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A little project in between

I used up all of the dark grey wool for the sweater so I can't continue knitting that at the moment. The other day I was in the store and wanted to buy more, but unfortunately I had to discover that there are two kinds of dark grey. One is more brownish, the other more colder grey. One has No. 5, the other No. 52. Great, I thought, I have no idea which one I am using, so I didn't buy any of them, just not to risk getting the wrong one, that would be a shame.

At home I immediately got myself a new little project. When I was in Germany in May I bought a cute green crochet top on a flee market. There were a few spots that were falling apart so I took a crochet hook and fixed the top, which was easy since the thread was neatly tied to the top. Anyway, the top was fixed but somehow I found it a bit boring. But in Germany I also bought (for the first time) the amazing Catania Cotton yarn that everybody is so crazy about, and I decided to use the two colors I had, cherry red and light pink, and crochet an edging around the bottom seam of the top. And I liked that so much that I turned to the neckline and worked my way around there also. 

This is the result that I have by now:

And here are two detail pictures, first the neckline and second the bottom edging:

I like the result but somehow it's still missing the "special something"!

In the knitting club at nadelspiel.com I also posted this pictures and asked for advice and a great one already came saying that it would look cute if I would have a satin band in the center under the neckline and tie a bow. That indeed sounds very cute :-)

Well, I will think about it a little while longer!

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It's a slow progress...

Unfortunately, I haven't had so much time to knit recently, that's why it's only going very slowly with my sweater. Oh well, there will be times again with more time for the art of knitting ;-)

Until now I have already knitted 34 cm (13,4 inch) and am now increasing again after decreasing for the waist. After another 18 cm (7 inch) I will have completed the main unicolored part and I can knit the sleeves. And after that the most fun part at last: the tricolored pattern!

By the way, I decided what my third color is going to be and it is now neither of the ones I posted before. When I went to the store to look at the wool I liked a darker green most, well, it's more a petrol. And that's what I bought in the end!

Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary and in the evening we grabbed some ice cream and went to the place of our wedding ceremony, the crater Kerið just around the corner of our home. The sun was shining and there was a light breeze, so we sat down for a while and thought about our first year of marriage...

And on the way home I picked some lupina flowers which were also the flowers in our wedding. Seeing the purple blossoms on our kitchen table now reminds me of the beautiful party last year :-)

But today the weather is not great at all, so my plans of spending the afternoon outside with Little T are not going to be realizable :-( Well, plan b is to visit grandma next door. She will go to Greenland on Saturday and is already a bit upset to not being able to see her little grandson for quite a while (and of course the 23 others...).

Ans who knows, maybe I will find the time tonight to knit a little bit?

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My new project

Finally I am knitting something for myself!

And it's going to be a zip sweater made of Icelandic Létt Lopi. The instruction is from the magazine LOPI No. 26 and here you can see the original picture:

I will change it up a little bit:

First of all, as you can see, the sweater on the picture is not a zipper one, so that's obviously going to be my first change. Also, I don't want to have it as long. The cuffs and the bottom line of the sweater won't be as seen on the picture but I will knit them normally ribbed and without a color pattern.

And I will change the color:

The main color will be a very dark grey and I will keep the white as in the example:

But I can't quite make up my mind regarding the third color.....either a or b:

Oh well, I will decide that later!

Until now I have already knitted 15 cm of the main part and it's supposed to be 50 cm high before I can add the sleeves. So the knitting journey has actually just begun...

Hats, hats, hats

This spring I was crazy about crocheting hats! Every single one turned out to be absolutely cute and they all now have (hopefully) proud wearers! Here a collage of almost all the hats:

Crocheted hats 

Another sun hat I crocheted for Little T while we were in Germany: