Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Fingers on fire

I can knit damn fast but I didn't make it before Christmas Eve so the mohair sweater will be given to Mom for her birthday on January... I explained that I'm an asshole and I just stored the gift so nicely that I cannot find it.
I got a laptop, a new discman (yes, it's obsolete technology but I like CDs. And I'm used to tossing them around and stuff), some stuff against acne, new belt, since my Tesco jeans fell apart or disssolved in Mom's washing powder or what, I'll get a new pair in the post-Christmas sale, after all I have Tesco nearly next door...
I got no yarn but Mom stopped nagging about my knitting when I told her that I want to make myself a Selbu sweater during the Christmas break. I made a sample, counted stitches and calculated everything nicely, cast on and after like ten rows I found out that the circumference of the damn thing was like one meter eighty. (Meaning that I'd have to wear six sweaters and a pack of straw underneath to make it fit.)
Then I ripped it, recalculated and whee, it was like 80cm which is something like 20cm less than my maximum circumference. Rip again. I stopped calculating, did some qualified guesswork and it seems to be ok. Well, 100cm so it'll be pretty tight but I plan to lose some weight anyway. Like 15kilos.


To be possibly continued.

Okay. Did I say that I got myself a ball winder? For like five euros, from an internet auction. It's a piece of old crap, no desing or anything, but it works. The dark balls are my own handpainted sock yarn, I'm knitting a sock from it around now and it looks cool, the two colours are making a spiral going up the sock. The third one is jsut some vintage stuff. note also that wherever I go, I have the Nescafe cups. Usually full of some related liquid. No advert meant, I don't drink Nescafe itself as long as there's a better option. Yeah, and the sock yarn handpaint will be available on etsy (and cheap) as soon as I'm back home and free to dye stuff.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Pre-Christmas things

Like parties.
On Tuesday 18 (I think) there was something going on at Valpuri's place - opening of their home exhibitionto be exact. I planned to drop for an hour and go home to knit the Christmas sweater or do something similarly homely and uninteresting but I simply got stuck there. First I started talking to a girl who I guessed Finnish at the first sight but when she introduced herself as Maria (pronounced the American way, ma-ree-ah), I admitted not being right all the time. Surprisingly in that artist den, she was a law student and a flatmate of one of the inhabitants... back home in Finland. And she explained that she just didn't like her name.
Katarina wanted to come but didn't manage, just called to say hello to Valpuri from someone called Lenka from Brno who should have curly hair.... then Valpuri appeared with some more people so I told her the message and the girl next to her yelled Oh that's me, the curly Lenka and explained that her boyfriend went to fix a computer to Katarina's sister's place and there they met and started discussing art people and it was proven that the world is smaller than expected.
However, the whole thing was interesting. Then we moved from the appartment to the Academy where there were more interesting and funny people and at midnight when I wanted to be at home and asleep I found myself standing in a courtyard on some crate with a bunch of students of sculpture, singing folk songs. (I have pics in some other comp, check someday).
I came home at like three in the morning (and the night trams were full of people who I wouldn't choose as a company voluntarily) and just fell to bed. I wanted to leave early for parents' but since I wouldn't be able to take any early train, I took the one at nine or so.....
Tähti was a nuisance the first half an hour and then slept. Some lady in the compartment was coomenting that the poor animal is scared (Tähti said meow meaning I"m thinking about turning to my other side) and how cruel it is to force sucha cute kitty to travel. She scratched the purring Tähti on her neck and said Oh my, how fast her heart is beating, she's soooooscared. Tähti has a quiet purr and one couldn't hear it on the train and the woman who evidently was of the I'll make the world better sort mistook the vibrating larynx for tachycardia. Sigh.
Dad picked me at the station, I left the suitcase full of pastries (this year I did the baking) and the cat at home and went to the office to say hello to the guys.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Uninspired

I got another yarn, obviously. It's brown with golden highlights and it's wonderful but for the colour. I hate brown. It looked grey on the website. I thought I would match it to the grey one I already had and the combination doesn't look that absolutely bad... but it's so plain that it's killing me. So I took the Florence book in order to find some inspiration and I'll be dyeing. What and how I don't know yet, though.
I was out for a lunch with Sanna yesterday. We talked about my taking care for the foreign students, I told her how some even don't bother to answer mails and things, such as one guy we both know and she was so surprised that I'm in charge of him, she exclaimed that she had thought I was only harassing him. As if my only life's goal was to rape any Finn in the city. Sigh.
I got a mail from a friend that she's sort of recovering from breast cancer. I hadn't heard form her for some time and I guessed she was busy with research or something. Sigh again. I'll knit her a cap with reindeer or something.

Labels:

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Forest sweater and the like

So this is what I'm using my study time for. The sweater is going to be beautiful and I'll envy Elisabeth. The reddish clump is the sock which should bew ready like tomorrow to get to the right place before Christmas.... so back to work.
Note: just after I published this, Tähti came with her unrivalled elegance and settled on the future sweater and looked at me that it's obvious.... no pics, my battery in teh camera is drained and the damn @#$%^& Canon I have now doesn't use normal batteries but something special... poor me.

And now about something totally different. Really.


I'm doing the christmas baking.....
The first batch got burned... but otherwise it's going well. As usual, I made the kitchen a total mess (but that cannot be helped).. but before, I needed to do teh goddamn shopping. I made a nice list which I left home, in our neighbourhood Tesco they have a million sorts of crap but I needed molasses and I was absolutely sure I had seen it there before. I checked the healthy food shelf (there were even things that might be called healthy.... ) but i had to go to the organic store in the center anyway. Same with spices.
I made the dough and baked and it's actually pretty monotonous, not to say boring.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Used cosmetic rabbit

Today I plan to do the baking. For that, it would be really advantageous to do some cleaning.. and wake up.
Technically I am awake... but despite antibiotics and corticoids my conjunctivitis is doing far too well. The eye drops that should cure it seem to be a fertilizer for the bacteria.
And how the hell one can feel awake when having one's eyes open is (a) difficult, since one's eyelids are so swollen (b) painful.
I have to try and be tough on myself. (Maybe I should have tried a few years ago......but this has really no point.)
Off shopping. For flour and stuff.

Labels: ,

Thursday, December 07, 2006

New arrivals, part 1-4

From left to right: Four kilos of sock yarn. For something like 30euros postage included. The whole heap, I mean. I'll dye it and make socks. Well, if I get fed up with it, I'll dye it and sell on Etsy.
One small white ball of thin wool. I need bright white for a certain pattern. This one ball cost more than 8 balls of the gray and/or blue stuff.
One skein and four balls of tulle tape. I'll make myself a nice top. And one ball of thick cotton.
Seven skeins of vintage something which arrived with today's mail. Wool, polysomething, metal fibre. It looks horrible on the pics but it's quite nice bouclé and I'll dye it to more prominent colours.
4.675 kg altogether.
And my toes, probably the sole part of my body which isn't overweight. I have a nasty cold, my nose is full of snot, my mouth is dry and the last thing I'd like to do is eating so it's on a good way.
I've finished the angora scarf but I don't feel like making more pics now...
Another 1.6 kilos of yarn is on its way, included some cool alpaca which I'll add to my stash alpaca and make myself a Selbu sweater.
I'll make a count and until another sale I'll be only knitting (and studying obviously, but it has nothing to do with yarn).

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Opening now!

www.liska.etsy.com
Advrtise it. The stuff is cooler than it looks.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Tabby survivor


I found one of the tabbies stretched on the floor and totally dead, with a drop of blood under her nose (which I need to wash from the hardwood floor) . The other one is alive and so is Siri....
Tabby is not very social but she keeps sitting i in the doorway, observing...

And now about something totally different: Yarn

The sock yarn finally arrived. The lazyasses at the post office just stamped the pack "House was locked" and went away and then the postman (then meaning like two weeks later) just a notice that there's a pack for me arrived. On Thursday before I was leaving for a weekend. So I was eagerly expecting what comes of it. And... it was sock yarn, oddly enough. So, I'll do some dyeing and some knitting.
I went to buy some food and some stuff for the ritual disinfection since one of the cats died (that's what happens to the cats who live on the streets, don't kick them out, people) so I came back dragging the huge Ikea bag (only four kilos, though) and another bag full of food and other stuff - decided to buy a chicken to divide between me and the kitties. I'll get meat, they'll get the skins and stuff:-D
The green stuff is a sweater. I dyed the yarn and as a fully qualified idiot, I wound 400g (500m) of yarn into a big ball. The yarn is shaded, the ball was green - black on the surface and is quite pale inside and I didn't get the simple idea that I'll want to have the sleeves in the same gradation. So I'm knitting it bit by bit and there'll be knots. THere'll be some knots anyway... and I"m doing it from the extremities, all three at once. And, named the thing provisionally Foxes and violets. I knit a bit on the train but when I got halfway through the viuolets, I discovered tha my piece of graph paper with the patterns and stitch counts are at parents' house so I'll do jsut the violets and then I"ll do another stuff (sorry, Elisabeth. You'll get it after Christmas...)
And the last thing is Hannu's sock. The twenty stitches on the needles are the embryo of its mate.....