tow butterfly wing

The butterfly wing shawl for me is finally complete! I started crocheting this back in November when my friend Mel gifted me a skein of laceweight yarn she dyed herself for me. After playing around with couple of different stitches I’ve decided to go with the butterfly wing shawl pattern. I mostly worked on this shawl when I attended lectures in the mosque on Wednesdays. It’s the perfect pattern to keep my hands busy while I am listening to the teacher. I started out with 4.0 mm (G) hook and gradually increased hook size all the way to 6.5 mm (K) hook. This gave the shawl a beautiful drape as it got more airy and open towards the end.

I am planning on wearing it like this.

This is the back.

This shows the stitches better.

And here’s the shawl taking flight!

I have been winding yarn cakes back into skeins so I can dye them. I decided that the yarns look so much prettier when they are in skeins. I spent an afternoon doing just that. There were a couple of yarns I’ve purchased from destashes that came in yarn cakes and I turned them into skeins
This is the yarn cake I’ve received.

An action shot of the cake becoming to a skein

And voila! Look how pretty! If I named this yarn I would have called it “Fawkes” named after Dumbledore’s pet Phoenix.

It’s easy to make skeins with the swift my father-in-law made for me. I put my finger into the very middle of the swift and just spin it until I ran out of yarn. I’ve became very, very good at tying figure 8’s around the skeins so that they won’t get tangled.
Here are the skeins I’ve made sitting pretty!

The yarns from top the bottom are:
Electric Fiber Arts Hanspun in Sandstone colourway.
Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 I got this from a destash at Ravelry. This colourway was for a yarn club
Honey and Mint. Handspun just for me by a Ravelry swap partner.
Bizyhands Handspun Straightaway colourway

I am continuing my adventures in yarn dyeing. I enjoy the process of dyeing immensely. This one was another overdye. I’ve received 2 balls of Moda Vera sock yarn as a part of the Magic Yarn Ball swap. I turned the ball in to a skein so I can dye it.

After a session on the stove with lots of dye and vinegar this is what I came up with

And this is how it knits up

I named it “morcivert” This needs a bit of explaining, I’ll do my best. “Mor” means purple in Turkish. And “lacivert” means navy blue. Put the two words together you get “morcivert.” It’s not a real colour. Whenever I asked my dad what colour I should colour something he would say “morcivert” to tease me. If morcivert was a colour I think it would look like the yarn I’ve dyed. Bits of blue and bits of purple existing together.
And here’s a yarn from Sundara. The dyer lady has amazing colour sense and does magical things to the yarns she dyes. This one is called “Night Blossom”

It’s very dark purpley-brown with highlights of light purple and creams through out. I haven’t decided what to make them into yet, but I know they’ll be pretty!
I bought yarn from the stitches and craft show I went to last month. I just got around to photographing it,

It’s 4 skeins of Super Soft Merino in 4 ply goodness known as Pear Tree Yarn. The colourway is called “Damson” (that’s Mürdüm Eriği for the Turkish speakers. Hi mum & Alex!) I have paid an arm and a leg for them in anticipation of my stimulus payment! The seller gave me a discount for flashing my Ravelry badge!

I am happy to report the leaking tap has been fixed! ACA the husband extraordinaire hard at work

Love my handyman! It is hard to believe in June we are going to be married for two years. Two happiest years of my life, I can assure you that!
ACA and I met on the internet when I was living in the US, and him in Australia. Because of that we spent a lot of our time away from each other. From the time we met in August ‘06 to the time I’ve moved to Australia October ‘07 we had spent a total of 6 weeks together. Two weeks when we got engaged in February ‘07, and four weeks after we got married and had our honeymoon in June ‘07. I missed him like crazy especially while I was waiting in Turkey waiting for my spouse visa to arrive so I can move to Australia. This was the song I’ve listened to many, many, many times on the occasions I’ve felt the saddest. The band is Snow Patrol. I’ve been a fan ever since I’ve heard the song “Run” on the radio. The song is called “Set Fire to the Third Bar”

I’m miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms
– Snow Patrol

Hermoine says hi!

tow dervish

My yarn winder is here, my yarn winder is here! I’ve been chasing a reasonably priced ball winder on ebay for ages. And this time I wasn’t outbid! When it arrived a couple of days ago I spend an entire afternoon winding left over balls of wool into purdy little cakes. Like these

I named the ball winder “dervish” because the motion of it reminds me of the whirling dervishes in Turkey. It even has a long white cap!

My father-in-law has promised to make a swift so I can use it to make the skeins into cakes as well. Though I like storing my yarn in their original skeins so I’ll only ball it when I am going to use it immediately.
Speaking of pretty yarn in skeins, my Wollmeise order arrived the same day! Look how pretty!

I was so happy to finally catch an update, an update with lace weight to boot! These skeins are huge, 300 gr each! I have projects in mind for the two of them, but I think I will end up trading the green one. It’s just too green for my taste.
I am also the proud owner of four handspun yarns! I bought them from a Ravelry destash. I never used handspun yarn before so I am very excited to make things out of them. I forgot to take a group photo of the yarns and I am too lazy to go dig them out of my stash so I did a quick (albeit bad!) collage on photoshop.

Lovely aren’t they? And if anybody is laying awake wondering what my stash looks like, well here it is!

The top bin holds my sock yarn, the middle one lace weight yarn and all else goes to the bottom bin. I also moved the yarn I bought to make sweaters to one of the back rooms. They were just taking up space because it’s too hot to make sweaters right now. I will move them to the front bins when I am going to make a sweater. So here’s the “hidden stash”

Don’t look at home next to the computer parts of ACA?
I took out the bins to organise them and to get the odd and left over balls wound on Dervish. Hermoine loved the new hiding opportunities this provided.

Can you find her?
I have one finished object to share. I made a scarf for a friend. It needed to be done quickly because I need to mail it out next week along with the other swap stuff. I am always amazed what a difference blocking makes.
Unblocked (also in progress)

And after blocking (using my awesome blocking wires!)

Nice huh? I named it the cherry scarf.
Yesterday ACA finally got around to fixing our bed. The bottom wood planks were not screwed on so the long woods kept sliding off and falling to the ground. After he finished fixing it we left the mattress off because we needed to flip the mattress later. We took a break to eat dinner. Hermoine came in from her daily night stroll of the neighbourhood. From the corner of my eye I saw her go into the bedroom. When she didn’t come out for a long time I went to check up on her.

She managed to squeeze herself underneath the wooden planks, but she couldn’t come back out. Laughing I called ACA to help to get her out. We needed her to move to the other end of the bed to where there was a larger gap.

She was mildly interested in ACA’s hand but not enough to get her crawling to the other end of the bed. She didn’t have enough room to stand up so she had dig her claws into the carpet and slide her body forward –commando style! I went and got her favourite toy to lure her to slide.

It worked! Once she came to the end I gently held on to her neck and guided her out. Crazy kitty!

Still love her to bits!

kelebek

tow coughing

I don’t understand why I can’t get well! I have started coughing and my nose is akin to a fountain. I can function much better, just have to stop for coughing fits or to blow my nose every few minutes. I am working the morning shift in the library today, we’ll see how that one goes!
The sweater dress Helena, or as I named it “Pinky Pink Pink with Brown” is coming along nicely. Unfortunately I am close to running out of yarn. It’s a shame because I was so really very much enjoying knitting it. I got a nice rhythm going with the lace pattern. Another bummer is that I bought the yarn from a Raveler for a great price, and now I have to pay three times as much for retail. I hope I can find a colourway that matches. Here’s what it looks like

The bottom flares out a bit, the circular cable is not long enough for it to stretch out. I took out the tips of the interchangeable needles and put the little stopper things on. I will take it with me tomorrow when I got buy more yarn and some buttons to match.
The September shipment of the Yarn Collective Sock Club arrived. This shipment was from Monsoon Designs and it was inspired from the Orion Nebula. The base is an awesome blend of bamboo and wool. The colourway is gorgeous as well.

I couldn’t get all the shades in the yarn to photograph properly. I don’t know why my camera refuses to capture shades of red or orange! There were also two stitch markers that came with the shipment. They are supposed to help you keep track of increase rows but I haven’t figured it how it would work, yet.
Hermoine was sitting between me and ACA, like she does most evenings. But last night she was insistent on sitting at my spot as soon as I got up. Then she would act like she was sitting there all along.

Special note to mom: That’s not a mess. That’s my side of the couch after I organised it. Thank you.
And to end with, here’s a friendly warning from your noodle producers

kelebek