Sale

No, not here. HERE! Please go there and have a look, Christine wants to get rid of all her knitting stuff. If you don't find anything you like please check back again after a few days, as she puts on more stuff as she goes.

Hello again

I didn't blog for quite a while, even missing my blogiversary. What should I say, life has got in between me and my blog, and honestly, after this post I don't know when the next post will follow. I feel I just can't do it right now. I'm still knitting, reading blogs, following the knitting scene, just not blogging. Some of the reasons for this I don't feel like talking about, and another major reason was that I was sick the past weeks. Basically from the end of June onwards.

One day my right heel started to hurt, just like a sore muscle. Two days later, the pain got stronger, and my ankle was swollen - so much that I could not see the ankle bones any more. Well, off to the doctor I went, and I was diagnosed with Achilles tendinitis. Ouch! Anyone who ever had this knows it is tedious and painful... and I learned that I'm not as patient as I thought I was.

Well, about a week or two into the tendinitis, my left heel started off like the right one. Only this time I went to the doctor straight away. Diagnosis: Achilles tendinitis. Fortunately, not as bad as the other one. Soon after this though, my left knee started hurting when I bent it (like you do when getting up from a chair, or sitting down, or when walking stairs - I live on the third floor (fourth floor for my American readers) without an elevator), followed by the right one. The good thing with my knees was that nothing major was affected. The bad thing: due to my tendinitis, I was moving my body differently which caused my knee pain - the knees were overexcited. I was, too. Especially as other joints like my shoulders, elbows and wrists, even one of my thumbs, were giving me trouble, too. On top of that, I couldn't walk a) fast and b) far. I pretty much spent July in the streets around my house, walking to the doctor was the furthest I'd go. I didn't work much either because of the pain I was in: sometimes, I'd wake in the middle of the night because my ankle or knee hurt so much. Getting up in the mornings wasn't much better either, because apparently what's typical for a tendinitis is that it hurts most in the morning and in the evening. Yay me. (And I didn't even tell you about the edema in my feet... they made my feet look like I weighed 200 kilos. Fortunately, the edema are gone, but now the skin is very stressed and wrinkly.)

So, why did I get an Achilles tendinitis in the first place, you might ask? Well, I don't do much sports, especially not lately. I didn't twist my ankle, I didn't wear shoes that were too tight for the Achilles tendon, I didn't suddenly do workout, nothing like that. In fact, I didn't do anything exceptional. Turns out that my pelvis is lopsided, or something like that (I have to ask my physiotherapist again, I didn't quite understand it yet), and it probably was for a long time, eventually causing all this crap. And while I'm better now (though still not back to normal, not even close), it's going to take me quite a while until it's going to be good. I reckon another few months until I can seriously think about starting to work out. Until then... wish me luck!

Guess what arrived..?

sock parcel, originally uploaded by d.knit.

My sock pal's parcel! Ruth did an amazing job:

sockpal_sock, originally uploaded by d.knit.

The pattern is called Dublin Bay, the yarn is Lorna's Laces Uptown, colorway No mods. The fit is just perfect! The picture doesn't do the color justice though, but I couldn't make a better one. Modeling socks is kinda hard right now, with all the tendinitis stuff going on... makes the feet pretty immobile.

Ruth didn't stop here though. She sent me this gorgeous yarn:

LL Swirl DK, originally uploaded by d.knit.

Lorna's Laces Swirl DK in Argyle. Swirl DK is 85% merino and 15% silk. Lucky me!

knit xmas ornament, originally uploaded by d.knit.

Then, Ruth sent me this cute little knitting Christmas ornament. She actually handmade it herself! It will definitely get a special spot on my Christmas fir branches (my place is way too small for an actual tree, but I buy some fir branches and decorate them for a seasonal feeling).
Ruth didn't stop here though: she sent me a cute little monkey purse and a local specialty: Jelly Beans! I can't believe I still have some left... I'm trying to eat less sweets, but the Jelly Beans are going to be savored this weekend!

Ruth, I was very lucky to be your pal. I couldn't have had a better one! Thank you so much!

My sock pal, on the other hand, (the one I'm knitting for) is slightly worse off. I still haven't finished her socks (I told her that they'll be late though) and I'm afraid they might be a little large for her. She's almost my foot size, only 0.5cm smaller (0.2in), and the sock fits me well. Oh well... I hope she likes the pattern!

sockapaloooza sock1, originally uploaded by d.knit.

Here's a detailed shot:

sock detail, originally uploaded by d.knit.

I'm approaching the heel of sock #2, and I hope not to take much longer.

In the meantime I did get to finish my Baudelaire socks, the larger version with larger cables:

BaudelaireSock, originally uploaded by d.knit.

Pic with my messy apartment in the background... don't know why the Baudelaire photos are so small; if I'm up to it, I might post larger ones, but don't set your hopes high.

Here's a detailed shot of the heel view:

Baudelaire_detail, originally uploaded by d.knit.

Alrightey, what else was on my "To-Blog" list..? Oh yeah, I received my Ravelry invite a while ago (you might have noticed the Ravelry button in the sidebar). My name there is dknit, pop in and say hello!
I wanted to thank Erica for sending me this gorgeous book (sorry, no pics, I was too eager to open the parcel!), some yummy Tofutsies yarn in color "Sweep you off your feet" and a sock blocker keychain sock. Or is it keychain sock blocker sock thingy? I guess you know what I mean. The packet arrived already on Tuesday, mea culpa for not thanking earlier! Thanks Erica! In case you are wondering how I deserved such a great parcel, I promised Erica to help her with the translation of these books.

I think that's it for today - see you next time! Whenever that may be...

Blog Break

I'm taking a break from my blog. There's so much other stuff going on right now that I need to take care of. You can still reach me through the comment section or by email, but I don't guarantee that I'll have the time to get back to you quickly.

Anyways, wish me luck! I'll be back in a few weeks.

Knit Food

Just found this on the interweb:



Isn't it hilarious? I don't know this cereal (I think it's sold in the UK), but I love the ad!

Now, back to work.

Yarn + Pattern = Socks

Finally, finally, I received the yarn I wanted for my sock pal! Getting the yarn was quite an experience, because I wanted this specific bamboo yarn by Zitron as it has a very good reputation. Plus, it had to be a solid color, as I'm planning on knitting a pattern, and I think the more complicated the pattern, the better it gets with solid colors.

The only problem was... this yarn is not sold in Munich. Nowhere. And I found only 1 online-store that sells this yarn in solids. Shipping is 5€ (almost 7US$). I only needed 1 (one) skein, and didn't see why I should pay more than half of what the skein costs for shipping, on top of the yarn price. So I asked the company which shop in Munich sold this particular bamboo yarn. They sent me a few addresses, only one in Munich, and off I went. Turns out that this particular shop sells Zitron yarns, but not the sock range. Damn! But: the owner, a very nice lady, offered that if I know the color I want, she could make a few phone calls and try to get the yarn for me. (Did I mention I *heart* this store?) So, that's what we did. Granted, it took a little while, but I was in no hurry and 2 weeks after I ordered the yarn through this lady, I came to pick it up. Happy me! It was totally worth the wait.

My sock pal didn't leave me any (!) color preferences, so I just took a wild guess what colors she might like after looking at her blog. This is what I came up with:

pronatura_moss, originally uploaded by d.knit.

The colorway is moss. I quite like it, but I don't think I'd wear it. I don't mean this in a degrading way; there are just colors that I like, but they wouldn't suit me much (yeah, like this one here!) The yarn is really lovely, nice and soft and squishy. And it has a nice shimmer to it, not too shiny, just right. The bamboo part is 25% and is supposed to make the yarn lighter and a bit less warming; the wool share is 75% which guarantees elasticity and stuff, just like in other regular sock yarns.

As for the pattern, I chose this one:


It's called "Dancing into May", and it's a pattern of the Socken-Kreativ-Liste (Creative Socks List), a yahoo group that I recently joined. If you're interested in the group, don't let the language scare you off. There's tons of members (over 1,000), many of them are English speakers themselves, and most of the patterns are offered in English as well.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to how the socks turn out! I already started them the other day, but didn't get past a few rows on the cuff - I just turned the heel on my second Baudelaire sock, so I'm kinda into that right now. But the Sockapalooza Sock should take over soon!