A Yarn Shop and Sock Blockers

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Hello! As I said at the end of last week’s post, we added a couple of kilometres to the flax trail to visit a yarn shop. It is called Selden Sá! and is situated in Eastrum, a village of under 200 inhabitants.

For Selden Sá! to stay in business, either the people in Eastrum must be hugely prolific knitters eating up miles of yarn or there must be something about this out-of-the-way shop that makes people travel to it from far and wide. Let’s take a look around to find out.

Focused on flax, I spotted several linen yarns (e.g. Borgo de Pazzi Lino in photo at top). Lovely cool and summery. I also saw and fondled an extremely soft wool-and-cotton blend that would be perfect for a sweater for our grandson (photo below, to left of mannequins, third row from the top).

I’m hopeless at choosing things on the spot and regrettably didn’t buy any.

From people in my knitting group I’d already heard that Selden Sá! stocks many Scandinavian yarns and I recognized familiar ‘faces’ from Istex, Rauma, BC Garn and Holst Garn. There’s also a lot of Filcolana, a Danish brand I’m not familiar with but would definitely love to try.

For me, there is something so uplifting about browsing around in a yarn shop. All those colours! All those possibilities!

Don’t you just love it when a shop has lots of samples for inspiration?

A basket filled with swatches may not excite most people, but I could easily spend an entire afternoon studying them.

I wasn’t only browsing around, though, but also looking for something. What I needed was yarn for a pair of manly socks with an intricate stitch pattern in a light neutral, like solid grey or beige or something. What I left the shop with was a skein of hand-dyed variegated sock yarn in pink and taupe. Uh-oh, how unsensible! But very pretty, don’t you think?

I also bought a pair of wooden sock blockers – something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time.

I had just finished a pair of socks from a self-striping yarn and put them to soak as soon as we arrived home. To find out how much difference sock blockers make, I decided to block one sock and just hang the other sock to dry on the drying rack.

The socks fit my foot (shoe size 38) and the sock blockers were size 38-40. What I expected was that the sock would need to be stretched around the blocker. What actually happened was that the sock blocker disappeared completely inside the sock, hook and all! Upon drying, the sock shrank back a little, but still sat loosely around the blocker.

A bad buy? Well, that’s what I certainly thought at first. But when the socks were dry and I compared them, I could see a slight difference between the blocked and the unblocked sock. I don’t know if you can see it in the photo below, but the blocked sock (right) looked slightly neater, with more even stitches than the unblocked sock (left).

I expect the difference to be more marked in socks with a lace or cable pattern. I also suspect I need a pair of sock blockers in a larger size. Yes, I really think I need to pay Selden Sá another visit, for larger sock blockers, that soft wool-and-cotton yarn for our grandson and perhaps a few other things…

Do any of you have experience with sock blockers? Do you think they really make a difference? And do the blockers need to be larger than the socks or will that stretch out the knitted fabric too much?

I’d be grateful for your advice, but even if you don’t have any, I’m grateful for your visit. Bye! xxx

Follow the Blue Line

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Hello! Usually my writings are about woolly things, but today it’s all about flax and linen. My husband and I followed flax trail Follow the Blue Line last Saturday, and I thought you might like to follow it with us.

The 30-kilometre-long trail covers everything from growing flax to processing it, and spinning and weaving it into linen. Let’s follow it in the order we did, and we’ll see everything along the way. So, where are we? Well, we’re in the northernmost part of Friesland, with its open agricultural landscape.

Before we moved to where we are now, we lived in this area for 15 years and it still feels very much like home. We’re starting in the village of Blije, at textile hand-printing studio Kleine Lijn. Nynke prints all kinds of designs on cotton, silk and linen. My eye is immediately drawn to her plant prints. The top of this post shows a print of flax stalks with seedheads on linen. Here is some more of her work:

We’ve been following the trail for at least 30 minutes now, so high time for some refreshments in the adjacent tea garden, with its lovely mix of vintage furniture…

…and mismatched china.

Ready to continue the trail?

Before Nynke can print onto it, the linen she uses has a long way to go. It starts out as flax, a traditional crop in this region that is now making a come-back.

What I learnt on Saturday is that there are two kinds of flax: linen flax and oil flax. Linen flax has longer stalks to make longer fibres for spinning and weaving. And oil flax has shorter stems with more seed heads that produce more seeds for making linseed oil. There are several flax fields along the way and this is one of them:

In this field, most of the flax has finished flowering. But there are still a few of its lovely blue flowers to be seen.

Next stop: a potato farm with a high-tech farm shop. In addition to potatoes, fruit, veg and local tipples, it also has an unexpected product in its vending machine. More about that later in a separate post.

Now, let’s continue on to Mitselwier. Ah, the cool interior of the church makes a very nice change from the heat outside. There is a weaving exhibition inside, with demonstrations of weaving and flax spinning. Unlike wool, flax isn’t held on the spinner’s lap, but on a distaff. In the picture below, it is held in place with red ribbon.

The flax is pulled down from the distaff and spun into a thin linen thread.

The spinner frequently moistens her fingers with water while she is spinning. She tells me that after spinning, the thread is too sticky to be used for weaving straightaway. It needs to be bleached first – a process that involves covering the hanks of thread with hay, sprinkling that with wood ashes and then pouring boiling water over everything. Repeat that six times and the yarn is bleached. Phew, so much work!

Below from bottom to top: unspun flax fiber, spun linen thread and bleached linen thread.

Before we continue on to our final destination, it’s time for some cool, cool drinks and flax biscuits (with linseed).

A narrow lane brings us to flax museum It Braakhok in the village of Ie – on the right, where the Dutch flag is waving.

Here volunteers demonstrate how flax is processed to spinnable fibre.

I’m impressed by the number of steps and the amount of work it takes to make linen from flax.

Finally, we visit an exhibition about yet a different aspect of linen – its use for painting canvases. The exhibition tells us about a research project looking at the linen used by 17th -Century Dutch masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt.

It’s fascinating what linen can tell us about paintings and the artists who made them when it is examined and reconstructed using a 17th-Century weaving loom, X-rays and microscopes.

Flax trail Follow the Blue Line can be followed through early August. The exhibition Ontrafeld Bewijs (about the painters’ linen canvases) can be visited to September 30th. Admission to everything along the trail is free!

Next week, I hope to tell you about a yarn shop just a couple of kilometres outside the flax trail. I couldn’t very well pass that by when we were so close to it, could I? Hope to see you again then. Bye!

Two Questions You Should Ask Yourself

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‘There are two questions you should ask yourself if you’re thinking of taking up knitting as a hobby,’ writer and comedian Paulien Cornelisse said. ‘One: Do I love maths? And two: Do I love frustration? If your answer is yes to both, go for it.’

Paulien said this as a guest in a tv-show where she talks about knitting, Ravelry and the hand-knit sweater with the ‘bla bla bla’ yoke she is wearing – her young son’s design idea.

She also tells us how in the mirror ‘bla bla bla’ is reflected back at her as ‘old old old’. She really cracks me up! (Video here on YouTube.)

Paulien and her two questions repeatedly popped up in my mind when I was knitting a cardigan for our grandson. The pattern is from the Rico Design Baby Merino 01 booklet, and the yarn I used is the same Baby Merino used for all of the patterns in it.

I love the sweet 1950s style sweaters, jackets and socks in the booklet. But knitted shorts and bare legs with all those warm woollies? Hmm, not entirely sure…

So, what’s with the maths and frustration? Let’s start with the frustration. The yarn comes in 25 gram skeins and is a really nice and soft fingering weight wool. Only, several of the skeins had multiple sections like this, split and frayed:

Very frustrating to have to cut the yarn in inconvenient places and have all those extra ends to weave in. The other skeins were fine, though, and I hope this was just an unlucky Monday morning batch.

Next, the maths. On the whole the pattern is okay, although it could have been a little more precise. It’s mainly the sleeves I had problems with. Here the pattern says: Cast on 49 sts, after the ribbing decrease 3 sts evenly, continue straight with the resulting 80 sts and bind off.

Huh? 49 – 3 = 80?!?

Nothing about increases, and nothing about sleeve length either. Fortunately I love maths (not). And fortunately on one of my granny days, I also happened to have drawn a diagram of the machine-knit sweater our grandson was wearing.

So, I started counting rows and calculating increases. If you’d been there, I swear you would have heard my old brain cogs creaking and clicking. But they proved to still be up to some maths and I’m very happy and proud about the way the sleeves turned out. Ridiculous, perhaps, to be euphoric about underarm seams, but don’t they look nice?

I’m not entirely happy with the way the bottom of the button band pulls up – I should have picked up a few more stitches for that.

In spite of the maths and frustration, I enjoyed knitting the lightweight cable fabric and I’m pleased with how the cardigan turned out. It is filled with love and I hope our grandson will feel cosy and cared-for wearing it.

The colour I used is called ‘ivy’, but that it certainly isn’t. It’s a little closer to sage, but with more blue added in. It’s hard to capture in a photograph, but this’ll give you some idea.

Finally, I asked myself two questions. One: Would I use this yarn again? And two: Would I knit more items from this pattern booklet? My answer is yes to both, because I love maths and frustration the softness and dusty colours of the yarn and the style of the designs.

Wishing you a lovely and frustration-free weekend! Bye xxx

Summer Knitting Plans

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Hello! I hope this finds you all well. It’s been chaos and bedlam here. We were having some work done to our house, and everyone who’d promised to be here ‘in spring’, ‘sometime during the summer’, and ‘in September at the earliest’ descended on us in the same week. I’m glad the work is done, the dust has been dusted away, the paint is dry, everything is back in its place and we have uninterrupted electricity again.

So, back to life as usual, back to blogging and fortunately also back to more normal temperatures and some rain. It’s only June and we already have a very hot and dry month behind us. On one hot day, I saw a blackbird panting with outspread wings.

It seemed to be in distress, but hopped away cheerfully when I approached. I found out that they ‘sweat’ through their open beaks, and sunbathe to get rid of parasites.

I’m extremely worried about our increasingly hot summers and the worldwide problem they’re a symptom of. I’m trying to do what I can on an individual level, but it’s depressingly little. Getting depressed about it all isn’t getting us anywhere, though, so I’m doing my utmost to stay positive.

Some of the best ways for me to do that are outdoor exercise and knitting. And as for the latter, I’ve made A Plan! As it’s often too hot to have a large woolly project on my lap, I’m going to focus on small things during the summer months. There’s always a pair of simple socks on my needles.

Very nice, but I’d also like something more challenging. But what? Looking at my Knitting Wish List for 2023 for guidance, these are some of the things I wanted to do more of:

  • Norwegian knitting
  • Make things for our grandson
  • Knit more challenging socks

Socks are small anyway, and I’m certainly making one or two pairs of those.

When I think of Norwegian knitting, I first of all think of sweaters. But mittens are great small alternative. I found a few skeins of yarn brought back from Norway in one of my yarn boxes.

Things for our grandson are never huge, but can be even smaller than sweaters and cardigans.

So these are my plans for summer knitting. It feels good to have the decisions made and to have the materials and patterns at hand – things to look forward to.

My spinning wheel is also back in use.

And I’ve put my name down as a volunteer for and interesting woolly project. I’ll tell you more about that when there is something to tell. I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew, but it’s something I’m really, really looking forward to being a part of.

We won’t be going anywhere until later in the year. If you’re staying at home, too, or if you’re holidaying somewhere and have some time on your hands, I hope you have some plans for things to make lined up, too. I’d love it if you’d drop in from time to time to keep me company. I’ll be blogging about my progress with the above and also hope to take you along on a few outings.

Whether your plans are big or small, enjoy your summer!

Flower Colours

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Hello! Here’s an update on my Seventh Heaven Scarf from left-over bits of sock yarn. The first two-thirds are finished – the green-and-blue part.

The part of the scarf with the greens of grass, leaves and reed, and the blues of sky and water.

Now it’s time for the flower colours. Time for thistle purple.

Time for ragged robin pink.

Time for calendula orange.

And time for flag iris yellow.

I’m adding just a small touch of yellow, in a yarn with oranges and pinks, but it’ll be a cheerful touch at the end of the scarf.

I took all of the flower and landscape pictures during a walk in the Wieden part of the Weerribben-Wieden National Park. All but one – the orange one. The orange tip butterfly didn’t show itself, and I had to look to our herb patch for a splash of orange.

June is a lovely time to be in the Wieden, with not just many beautiful and rare flowers and birds, but also lots of damselflies flitting and dragonflies whirring about and sunning themselves.

It’s been far too hot to have a warm scarf like this on my lap over the past week, and the heat doesn’t look like letting up soon. I think I’ll put my Seventh Heaven Scarf on hold for a bit, although I know that’s risky – no deadline, out of sight is out of mind etcetera. I do want to finish it, though, so will keep it in sight.

Keep cool, calm and hydrated!

Links:
The preliminary pattern of the Seventh Heaven Scarf can be found in this post.
For some more armchair travelling to the Weerribben-Wieden National Park visit this website.

Deadlines

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Hello! For today, my plan was to have the cardigan for our grandson finished and write about that, but as I’m writing this, the pieces are still drying on my blocking mats. In other words, I didn’t meet the deadline.

But hang on, who said I needed to meet a deadline? The word deadline popping up in my head made me stop dead in my tracks and set a whole train of thoughts in motion. It also brought back some unpleasant emotions that made me feel like withdrawing into a place like this…

… and spend lots of time on the bench opposite philosophizing about deadlines, getting things done and the meaning of life.

I photographed the house and the sculpture by Stephen Beale in the village of Houwerzijl. The sculpture is called Concrete Thoughts and is made from concrete and a patchwork of aluminium.

Back to deadlines. Why does the very word make me want to hide away? Well, for 30 years I worked as a non-fiction translator specializing in agriculture, sustainability, management and psychology. And whether I was asked to translate a grant proposal, a manual for a potato harvester, a research article or a self-help book, the contract always included a deadline.

For a long time I was fine with that. But over time the deadlines became non-negotiable and tighter and tighter, until they became totally unrealistic. When my work/life had become a race against the clock, I decided to quit.

No more deadlines EVER, I promised myself. Life is too short to let the seasons rush by without enjoying them. (It’s orchid season here now.)

One of the things I wanted time for was creativity and making things. I am fortunate enough to now have an undemanding job as a web editor. And with no children at home and no aging parents to care for anymore, time is not really an issue. But how to get things done without outside pressure and deadlines? I have given myself one deadline – publishing a blog post on Fridays. It’s a helpful deadline, that gives me courage and helps me overcome perfectionism, but it’s the only deadline I’m willing to impose on myself.

Some projects come with their own deadlines, like gifts that need to be finished before a birthday, or a child’s cardi that needs to be finished before it is outgrown. Writing this, I’m beginning to see that it’s especially creative things I would like to do just for my own fulfilment that I’m struggling with.

For instance, I have been working on a new shawl design for a long time, planning to publish it in January or February. But first I got side-tracked, and then kept knitting more and more swatches to tweak just one last thing.

At this rate I may be ready to publish this pattern for a nice warm shawl in July or August. Or November. Or never. Does that matter? In the grand scheme of things not in the least. But to me it does.

Having always been driven by deadlines, I am wondering about a more gentle way of getting things done. I do love making things, and there are many creative ideas I’d love to pursue, but somehow I don’t get round to them or I don’t finish them. Apparently love is not always enough. Do you struggle with this, too? Or do you find it easy to take time to just be creative? Do you ever set yourself deadlines? Do you have other strategies? Or are you fine with not finishing things?

I have no idea whether this is an issue for others, too. Anyway, thank you for reading this long and personal post!

Mini-Springwatch

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Hello!

One of the projects on my needles at the moment is a cable cardigan for our grandson. In the evenings while I’m watching BBC’s Springwatch and my mind is far away in the British countryside, my hands stay at home knitting. It doesn’t look like much yet, but my swatch tells me that it should be all right after blocking.

For anyone who doesn’t know it – Springwatch is a programme about the natural world in the UK that is broadcast for 3 weeks every spring. With a crew of about 100 and some 50 wildlife cameras, it’s a huge thing.

As I’m enjoying the programme so much, and there is not a lot to talk about on the knitting front, I thought it might be fun to do a Dutch Springwatch episode today. First let me introduce you to some of the crew members.

Just kidding! This is an unknown passer-by carrying an impressive camera on a tripod. The entire crew is just me, with my simple little point-and-shoot camera. My husband is here, too, but he only brought his binoculars.

So, a Dutch mini-Springwatch, but where are we? Well, we’re in the Lauwersmeer National Park in the far north of the country, about 200 kilometers north-east from Amsterdam. It is a former bay that was closed off from the sea by a dam in 1969 to protect the surrounding area from floods.

The former seabed we’re walking on is extremely flat. It’s quiet and peaceful here in this beautiful open landscape that is so important for birds and biodiversity. We’re following narrow tracks and wider grassy paths.

Here and there they lead us along the water’s edge.

The extensive reed beds are still covered in last year’s yellow-grey dead reed stalks. They’ll be green with fresh reeds a little later in the year. Although we can’t see them, we can hear the reed and sedge warblers warbling away.

The hawthorn, called meidoorn (Maythorn) here, is in full bloom and buzzing with insects.

Under one hawthorn tree, there is a bench – the perfect spot for lunch. We’re looking out over a small harbour, with cow parsley in front and a few black-and-white cows in the distance.

While we’re munching our sandwiches, there’s a sudden blue flash – a kingfisher. And while a hen harrier is harrying a goose with goslings, a bittern comes flying by. This truly is a birder’s paradise, but you’ll have to take my word for it. My camera and I weren’t up to capturing any of the birds on photo. At least these mooring posts stayed put long enough for me to take a picture.

On the way back, we meet a herd of Konik horses. Without their grazing, the open areas would turn into woodland in just a few years’ time.

Shhh, they have foals and mustn’t be disturbed…

Bye for now, and I hope to see you again next week. xxx

Linea Socks

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Hello!

While I’ve been out and about quite a bit over the past few weeks and had to squeeze in some work, too, there was also plenty of time for knitting. One project that has recently slid off my needles is a pair of Linea Socks. It’s the second pair I’ve made from that beautiful book 52 Weeks of Socks.

This design, by Finnish designer Minna Sorvala, has diamonds on the top of feet and legs, flanked by columns of twisted stitches and small honeycomb cables.

I felt rather daunted at the start, but knitting four rows here, six rows there and just following the clear instructions and the chart the socks grew more quickly than I expected. While knitting, I took some photos of interesting details, hoping my pictures and notes will be of use to anyone else who’d like to make the same socks.

The Linea Socks are knit from the toe up and have a fairly blunt toe. Using a circular needle, I cast on with Judy’s magic cast-on. (There are many videos explaining this technique clearly, like this one.)

These are socks with a gusset, which imho makes for a much better fit than gusset-less socks. In the pattern, the increases for the gusset are made between the top and bottom needles. At first, I followed the pattern, but got holes.

This was not what I was looking for, so I ripped back a few rows and made the increases one stitch from the sides. Much better.

The heels of the socks are reinforced using a pattern of slip stitches. I hope you can see it in the photo below.

To bind off, I used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. (For a long time I called it Jenny’s bind-off, but it really is Jeny with one n – a good video here). How wonderful to be immortalized like Judy or Jeny for inventing a clever knitting technique! Unstretched, this stretchy bind-off is zigzaggy along the ribbing at the top.

Stretched when worn, it looks neat and feels comfortable.

And here they are all finished – my Linea Socks.

There is one tiny error in chart B, for the back of the leg. The second stitch from the left should be knit through the back of the loop, instead of worked like an ordinary knit stitch. For the rest, the pattern is very clear and the Linea Socks were a joy to knit.

These socks remind me of a series of funny old cartoons – La Linea. It’s amazing how much can be done with one simple line. It’s just like knitting, really – one thread, endless possibilities.

Joure Wool Festival 2023

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Hello!

Last Saturday the annual wool festival Joure onder de Wol was held again. For me it is close to home, but it is so varied and inspiring that people from all over the country come flocking to it. Arriving before the actual festival started, I first paid a quick visit to the local yarn shop for some yarn for a soft toy for our grandson (more about that in another post). Draped over the back of the bench next to the entrance was a dazzling crochet blanket.

So not my taste, and yet I was fascinated by it. The techniques used are interesting and the choice of colours is also well-balanced. I wonder why crocheters often seem to have such different tastes from knitters?

Leaving the shop, my phone made that owly who-oh sound telling me that there was a message. It was the friend I was meeting up with, ‘Where are you? I’m with the sheep’. Typing ‘I’m coming!’ I hurried towards her. The sheep shearing was already in full spate.

Some sheep had already lost their coats, while others were still wearing theirs. Looking closely at the photo below, perhaps you can see the woman on the left, wearing a straw hat, pointing her finger. She is pointing out which fleeces she wants, and then the hectic catch-me-if-you-can between sheep and shepherd starts.

It’s fun to watch, although I feel a little sorry for the sheep, too. Being undressed in front of a large audience doesn’t seem like much fun to me. The next sheep waiting its turn doesn’t look unduly stressed, though.

Next, it was time to look at all the other woolly things. There was so much to see that I hardly know where to start. I’ll just pick out a few highlights. First of all there was wool – raw fleeces from many different sheep breeds…

… washed, carded and dyed rovings…

… and yarn, yarn, beautiful yarn – much of it hand-dyed, sometimes using natural dyes (click on images to enlarge).

And then there were the things people had made with wool and yarn. Again, I’m just showing a few of the highlights.

There was needle binding. Although, as with the crochet blanket, the maker had a very different taste from mine I could see the beauty and possibilities in the technique he was using.

There were felted items, both needle and wet felting. Simple yet beautiful objects, like this wild and woolly nest with eggs:

And stunning felted ‘paintings’ of the northern Frisian coastal landscape. The photographs don’t really do them justice, but I hope you can see why they blew me away (again, click to enlarge).

A beautiful woven blanket also drew my eye. Weaving isn’t really my thing, but I’d like to give making small squares using one of these hand looms a try someday.

And then there were many people who’d brought their spinning wheels. I could write an entire post about those alone, but I’ll end with just one picture – a young teenager (I promised not to show her face) spinning the most beautiful coloured thread from local wool on an e-spinner – a lovely sight to see. Young people like her make me feel hopeful about the future.

I feel immensely inspired by this day at the Joure Wool Festival and hope you’ve enjoyed it, too.

The festival website can be found here, and a list of participants here.

Unwinding

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Hello there! Here, in the Netherlands, many people take some time off work in the last week of April and the first week of May. With most schools closed, King’s Day on April 27th and Liberation Day on May 5th, it is a time for going to festivals or travelling. While everybody seemed to be having a great time, I was feeling grumpy. Like, everybody is having fun but me. Was I envious?

Well, yes and no. When I saw the crowds in the cities and at the airport on tv, I was happy I wasn’t among them. I didn’t mind missing out on the big events and didn’t particularly want to travel either. What I did want was some time to unwind, though. Only on a much smaller scale. So that’s what I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks, and I’d like to share some of it with you.

One thing I’ve been doing is literally unwinding and re-winding yarn using my nøstepinne.

It’s a totally unnecessary thing to do, but for me very relaxing. Seeing a mini-skein or an unattractive looking leftover bit of sock yarn transform into a perfect little ball with a hole in the middle is just so satisfying.

Going for a walk or cycling are other great ways for me to unwind. (Thank you for joining me on last week’s wood anemone walk – I really appreciate your comments. Knowing that you are there and enjoy some of the same things inspires me to keep blogging.) We are very fortunate in where we live. Hopping onto my bicycle, I’m here in three minutes:

And even closer to home, I’ve been pottering around the garden, doing some weeding and taking a few photographs. In our herb patch, I found a blackbird’s egg – unfortunately not hatched.

(We’ve also found shells of eggs that did hatch, so not to worry.) Looking at flowers through the lens of my camera, I forget everything else.

Most of the things I did to unwind were close to home (or even at home) and took just a few minutes to an hour at most. But we also took an entire day off to visit a fair at Middachten Castle.

My husband lived close to the castle as a child and our daughter lived almost next-door for several years, so it feels a bit like home to us. Although it is a beautiful place, I’m glad it isn’t really our home, to be honest. I’d feel totally lost in a big place like this, and think of all the work involved! The house and gardens are closed until June, but just looking at them from the outside was still enjoyable.

The fair we’d come for was rather disappointing. I’d hoped to be able to buy a few gifts at the stalls, but didn’t see anything special. Apart from some spectacular bulbs of different varieties of garlic, that is.

But a bunch of garlic as a gift for a 20-year-old niece? Not, not quite what I was looking for. Fortunately we had enough time left to visit a few shops in nearby Zutphen. Ah, it’s such a lovely city – I’ll take you there for a longer visit again some other time. (An earlier post about it can be read here.)

I also spent quite a bit of time unwinding with my Seventh Heaven Scarf. It’s growing much faster than I thought. After the greens, I’m now deep into the blues (literally – after all the unwinding any figurative blues have lifted), knitting up some of my small nøstepinne-wound balls of yarn.

Well, that’s it for today. I hope you can find some time to unwind in your days, too, and hope to see you again next week!