Knitting Ranger

... or why I prefer to do things in parallel.

I recently bought a book on how to knit socks pairwise rather than one after the other. As I already try to knit things in parallel - such as doing the front and back on the same needles - this was a natural extension of my library. And contrary to what the author of the book says, it´s not because I suffer from the second sock sydrome. Or rather, I suffer from a different variety of it. I am always to lazy to write down, when I increase the number of stitches or when I decrease it. So I always end up with only having almost identical pieces. There is always a difference between two pieces that are supposed to be identical. In any case, I wanted to know how this work, so I got the book.

The first thing was, that I only happened to have a 100g skein of sockwool (Lana Grossa Meilenweit, 420m/100g), so I first had to split it into two.



And then I started. It seemed straightforward enough - and it is - but the needles do not show it, as you can see here:



And the first rows felt as weird as this knot looks. But in the end it actually worked and as with a lot of things, it just takes a bit of practise. After a couple of rows it worked fairly smooth, as the result shows:



I just felt the needles provided with the book are too long. Additionally, one has to be careful to keep the thread very tight. Otherwise the stitches between the needles will be bigger than the others. So the next time I will try this technique with shorter needles - for now I have some nice, new socks to enjoy.

... what it was supposed to be. I love the wool by Bremont. I already have several pieces made out of their wool. And now that I am quite sure about myself I wanted to make a pullover for my husband. But in the end, it turned out to be a pullover for myself - again. This time not because it would not fit, but because I ran out of wool. At least now I know that for the next attempt I will rather get 12 balls than just 10. Anyway, I now have another super comfy pullover for the next winter - good that summer just started .....

Some statistics: Bremont, Carmen Black, 10 balls. Raglan arms, but for a little twist, I added a cable pattern to the raglan. And a turtleneck. Other than that it is a simple pattern.
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The detail of the pullover:

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The full pullover:

Inspired by the LIDAN baskets at IKEA (http://www.ikea.com/de/de/catalog/products/90081290/) I decided to try my hand on felting. I have not done anything with this technique, so I thought this might be a good starting project.

I used Lana Grossa Feltro Colour 001 (whitish) for this. I did a crochted base and knitted in circles.


Here I also added a crochted rim to the basket


This is the basket after I felted it and put it to its use in the bathroom.


Here the rim turned outward a bit, even after felting, as can be seen in the following picture.


But after having put it to its use, I thought this might also be ok.

I have been busy with a pullover for my husband, which is a more time-consuming project, but for some small, spontaneous side-projects there is always time. Such as this, which was a very spontaneous get together with very good friends, who have a new home. I have learned that it is customary to bring bread and salt so that the new home always has food and wealth. So I prepared a little bag for the salt and originally I wanted to create a kind of blanket for the bread but unfortunately I did not have the time to do so.

Bot items have been crocheted with a very basic Schachenmeyer Catania cotton thread (125m/50g) in 0105 colour (broken white).


The bread - freshly made before leaving.


A bit of Fleur de Sel from Slovenia.


Both bread and salt together